Rabbi David ben Zimra, known as the Radbaz (רדב”ז aka Ridbaz) was born in Spain in 1479. At the age of 13, when the Jews were expelled from Spain, his family moved to Israel and settled in the city of Safed (צפת). There, rabbi David learned with Rabbi Yosef Zaragosi, the Rabbinical leader of the Jewish community of Safed at the turn of the century. In 1517 he moved to Egypt where he was appointed as the Hakham Bashi, or Chief rabbi of Egypt, a position that he held for over forty years. He rejected to work for the community professionally because he feared that if his sustenance would depend on the community he would not be able to rule with objectivity. The Radbaz then dedicated himself to commerce and became a very successful merchant, dealing with wheat and leather in the international market. He amassed a great fortune, which allowed him to be financially independent form the community and even to found and support his own Yeshiba.  Some of the students of that Yeshiba were great luminaries, like rabbi Isaac Luria (the Ari haQadosh), rabbi Betsalel Ashkenazi (שיטה מקובצת), and the Radbaz’s most prominent student and spiritual heir, Rabbi Ya’aqob Castro (מהריק”ש), one of the most famous rabbis in Egypt at the time .

Upon attaining the age of 90, the Radbaz resigned the chief rabbinate in Egypt and moved to Erets israel. He settled in Safed and became an active member of the rabbinical court of rabbi Yosef Caro. The Radbaz died in Safed in 1573.  His inheritance, by his request, was distributed among the poor, making a special provision for Tora scholars.

The Radbaz wrote many books and close to 3000 rabbinical responsa (Questions and answers)

 One of his most far reaching responsa was the one that deals with the origin of the Jews of Ethiopia, which he considered as descendants of the tribe of Dan, one of the lost Ten Tribes.

For many centuries the Rabbis have heard about a tribe in Ethiopia, which claimed being of Jewish ascendant. But for the rabbis this questions was always a theoretical question, and never a practical one. In the time of the Radbaz this question became a practical matter when a group of African captives was brought to the slave market in Egypt. A woman , with her two sons, claimed that she was Jewish, from the tribe of Dan.

The Radbaz writes (She-elot Utshubot haRadbaz, 4:219): “Once there was a Cushite woman from the land of Cush, otherwise known as Habbash [=Ethiopia] who was taken prisoner along with her two sons, and she was bought by one Reuben.   We asked her what her status was, and she answered that she had been married and these were her sons by her husband, whose name was so-and-so, and this son was so-and-so. [She said that] the enemy came and killed all the people who had been in the synagogue, and the women … they took captive…”

For the purposes of this and another fascinating investigation [i.e., the origin of the Nile] the Radbaz studied the testimonies of Ethiopian scholars and he collected evidence from two Jews, one of them coming from Ethiopia, Rabbi Isaac al-Habbashi, and the second testimony from a local Egyptian merchant who had traveled to Ethiopia and met these “Jews” in their land.

The Radbaz analyzed this case from many different angles. For example, he found that these Jews did not keep some regular Mitsvot, like lighting candles before Shabbat. His argument was that the Jews from Ethiopia, they either came to their land before the rabbis issued the decree of hadalaqat nerot, or that they were descendants of the baytosim, Jews who rejected the oral tradition.

Finally, he says that the status of the Ethiopian Jews is similar to the Karaites Jews:  they should accept to follow Jewish tradition, and should come under the law of redeeming captives, (pidyon shebuim), thus, the Falash Mura should be bought from the slave market and set free.

Four hundred years after the passing of the Radbaz, and based on the Radbaz’s responsa the Falash Mura were once again considered as Jews, and brought into the State of Israel.

The rabbi who made this ruling was no other than Rabbi obadia Yosef z”l. In February 9, 1973, Rabbi Obadia, then Chef rabbi of Israel, wrote an historical responsa in which he said that “based on the Radbaz… the Ethiopian tribes Falasha or Falash Mura, should be considered Jews… they should be saved from assimilation, rescued and brought to Israel under the laws of return [an Israel law that guarantees Israeli citizenship for every Jews], they should be reeducated to follow Jewish tradition, and participate in the rebuilding of our Holy Land, thus [fulfilling the words of the prophet :] “and the sons will return to their land”.

These are the original words of the responsa of rabbi Obadia Yosef

בהסתמך על הגאון הרדב”ז בתשובה (שאלות ותשובות דברי דוד הלכות אישות סימן ח) שאלו הפלשים בלי ספק משבט דן, ורק מפני שלא היו ביניהם חכמים מבעלי הקבלה תפסו להם פשטי המקראות, ודינם כתינוק הנשבה לבין הגוים, ודינם כישראל שאנו מצווים לפדותם ולהחיותם לכן באתי למסקנה שהפלשים הם צאצאי שבטי ישראל שהדרימו לכוש…והחלטתי כי הם יהודים שחייבים להצילם מטמיעה ומהתבוללות, ולהחיש עלייתם ארצה, ולחנכם ברוח תורתנו הקדושה, ולשתפם בבניין ארצנו הקדושה ושבו בנים לגבולם

Today, in a great part thanks to the Radbaz, more than 125,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel.

Rabbi Shelomo Serilio (שיריליאו או סיריליאו) was born in Spain, before the expulsion of 1492.  From Spain, rabbi Serilio came to Constantinopla (today Istanbul), where he studied with rabbi Binyamin HaLevi, the author of zeqan aharon, and later on with the famous Rabbi Ya’aqob ibn Habib, the author of ‘en yaaqob (see here).  After a few years, rabbi Serilio moved to Salonica, in those days one of the most important cities in the Jewish world.

Around 1530 many Jews, and especially those who left Spain and Portugal, came to Erets Israel, fulfilling the dream of their ancestors. Among other famous rabbis who came from Salonica to Israel we can mention Rabbi Yosef caro, the author of the Shulhan ‘arukh, Rabbi Shelomo Alqabets, Rabbi Moshe MiTerani, (the Mabi”t), etc. A new Jewish settlement was established in Tsefat  (Safed) under the leadership of Rabbi Ya’aqob Berab ( see this).  Rabbi Serilio did not have any official rabbinical position in Safed, although we know of his involvement in a few debates that took place there. For example, Rabbi Serilio wanted to be lenient in the subject of “basar halaq”, by authorizing the nefiha (=inflating the animals lungs, despite it having fibers sirkhot, to declare it kosher if no perforations are found) in order to make meat more accessible, cheaper, to the Jews of Safed. In this, he was following the customs of the Jews of Salonica. Rabbi Ya’aqob Berab, however, rejected this leniency.

Rabbi Shelomo Serilio is famous for his commentary on the Talmud of Jerusalem. He was the first rabbi to write a commentary on one entire Talmudic Order (Seder Zera’im) of the Jerusalem Talmud. As we know, there are two sets of Talmud:  one written in Babylon (from 200 to 500 of the Common Era) and the other one written in Eres Israel (ca. 370 of the CE). One of the main differences between the Babylonian Talmud and the Talmud of Jerusalem is that the later deals extensively with the Mitsvot related to agriculture, also known as commandments which applied to the land of Israel (מצוות התלויות בארץ), while the Babylonian Talmud has no Gemara for these tractates. One of the  practical commandments Jews had to observe was the  Mitsva of shebi’it, the Biblical Mitsva that requires letting the land rest every seven years. Now, that the Jews were back in Israel, those Mitsvot wer again practical. And although Maimonides refer to them, the details of the practical applications of this Mitsva, required a renewed halakhic revision. One illustration: In those days, the Jews had no direct involvement in working the land. All the agriculture work was done by gentiles, who owned those lands.  Still, the question was if those fruits which were grown in the land of Israel, in the year of Shemita by non Jews, were subject to the laws of Shebi’it. Rabbi Serilio explained that they are. They would need Be’ur (=discarding those fruits, when that specific fruit cannot be found anymore in the fields) and that these fruits are exempt from terumot and ma’aserot.

Today, that BH we are again in Erets Israel, the commentaries and the halakhic rulings of rabbi Serilio on Shebi’it are an essential tool for reference and probably, one of the most authoritative Halakhic precedents for contemporary issues.

Rabbi Serilio moved to Yerushalayim around 1546. In Jerusalem he completed his commentary on Zera’im. He was among the most notorious rabbis of the city. He died in ca. 1555.

You can download here the booklet Minhague Shebi’it which contains the summary of Hilkhot Shemita in 5 pages, by Rabbi Serilio. This booklet was printed in Jerusalem, 1937, one year before the year of Shemita in Erets Israel.

Previously, we explained that one of the names by which we refer to HaShem is ABINU, our father. We said that this particular way to call HaShem remind us that He is “our Father” in the sense of “our Creator”, He is the one Who gave us our lives.   We also explained that Abraham discovered (or uncovered) another layer of this word “ABINU”: That God loves us as a parent love his or her children. He is interested in our well being. He cares about us.

Visualizing HaShem as a loving parent is also useful to understand what the Tora is in this context. The rabbis have always indicated the connection between HaShem’s love and the fact that he gave us the Tora, for example, in the two Blessings that we say before the Shema, every morning and every evening.

Let us see this in the berakha “Ahabat Olam”, which we say in the mornings

AHABAT OLAM AHABTANU…
“You love us with an eternal love”, this means that God’s love for us is not conditional. That, like a loving parent, even when we misbehave, and even when we are punished for our misbehavior, HaShem still loves us. He might be “angry” at us, but His love for us is eternal, i.e., like a parent, He will never reject us.

VATELAMEDEMO HUQE HAYIM…
” You taught [our ancestors] the laws of life, so they will do Your will wholeheartedly”. Aristotle used to say abut his god that he created the world but abandoned it. Aristotle meant to say that his god behaved with cruelty, because he left his creatures without any direction, or indication of what to do, what is right in his eyes or for what purpose he created humans. Our berakha expresses that HaShem gave us “the laws of life”, the Tora contains all the indications we need to live a life according to His will. Thanks to the Tora we know what God wants from us, and what our purpose in this world is. We Jews regard the giving of the Tora as an act of love, the biggest gift we got from HaShem.

VETEN BELIBBENU BINA…
Now, after we acknowledge that HaShem gave us His Tora, we ask Him to grant us the necessary intellectual tools to study His Tora. “Grant us in our hearts [=minds] intelligence, to discern, to comprehend, to understand, to learn and to teach, to keep and to perform all Your commandments with love”. In the same way You love us, we are eager to love You. You love us Your children, we love You as our Father.  We declare that our ultimate is to get closer to You, by knowing and living by Your will. We understand that You gave us the Tora, because the role of a parent does not end when he brings a child to this world. A parent must educate his children. He must show them the way to live life, and do the right thing. The giving of the Tora (described in detail in this week’s Parasha) is a “paternal” act of love.

Immediately after the Temple was destroyed the rabbis established a number of traditions that should be kept year round to remember that our Temple is still in ruins. (See HERE)