Nathan ben Abraham, known also by the epithet President of the Academy () in the Land of Israel (died ca. 1045 – 1051), was an 11th-century rabbi and exegete of the Mishnah who lived in Ramla, in the Jund Filastin district of the Fatimid Caliphate. He was the author of the first known commentary covering the entire Mishnah.
Biography A critical analysis of the time-frame in which the author of the Judeo-Arabic Mishnah commentary lived places him in the early 11th century. Assaf suggests that he was Rabbi Nathan the second, the son of Rabbi Abraham who was called the Pious, a contemporary of Rabbi Abiathar, who served in the geonate of the Land of Israel in 1095 CE.Assaf, S. (1933–1934), p. 383; Encyclopaedia Judaica (3rd edition), vol. 12, Jerusalem 1974, s.v. Nathan Ben Abraham II; Pirushei ha-Rishonim (Tamid - part 1), Benei Barak 2001 This view has been rejected by more recent scholars, such as Gil (1983), Friedman (1990), Danzig (1998), Amar (2011) and Fox (1994), who put him two generations earlier. In around 1011, Nathan travelled to Qayrawan, to attend to his family inheritance, and while there he studied under the illustrious Rabbi Hushiel ben Elhanan, one of the greatest Jewish scholars of the time.Friedman, M. (1990a), p. 44 , note 37 During this time he would travel to Fustat (Old Cairo), in Egypt, where he had certain business engagements, and where it was that he'd meet his future wife, the daughter of Mevorakh ben Eli, a wealthy citizen of Fustat. Nearing the age of forty, he returned to his native Palestine and, after settling in Ramleh where he vied with the Gaon Solomon ben Judah of Jerusalem between the years 1038 and 1051 over the position of gaon, he was eventually appointed the Av Beit Din (President of the court) in Palestine, a position only second to that of the gaon,Gil, Moshe (1983), pp. 582–583, 604. and which post he held until his death.Stillman, N.A. (2010), pp. 558–559 During his years of public service, Rabbi Nathan had garnered the support and backing of Diaspora communities, although Solomon ben Judah had secured the backing of the local community, as well as the Fatimid governor of Ramleh.Encyclopaedia Judaica (3rd edition), vol. 12, Jerusalem 1974, p. 858 (s.v. Nathan ben Abraham I). In Palestine, he compiled a commentary on the Mishnah, which commentary enjoyed widespread circulation in the Jewish world in the late 12th and early 13th centuries.Friedman, M. (1990a), p. 43 , note 37
Commentary Rabbi Nathan's work is one of the first known commentaries of the Mishnah, ranking with that of Rabbi Hai Gaon's commentary on Seder Taharot in the Mishnah (and is the oldest existing commentary encompassing the entire Six Orders of the Mishnah).Amar, Z. & Kapah, E. (2011b), p. 11 Scholars have ascribed this commentary a unique significance, saying that by virtue of its composition in the Land of Israel, its interpretations are believed to embody an unbroken Palestinian-Jewish tradition on the meanings of difficult words. The treatise also sheds light on the diachrony of Hebrew words.
The entire work was rendered into a Hebrew translation by Rabbi Yosef Qafih, with an abridged first edition being published between the years 1955 and 1958, and the second edition in 1965. Even so, the work has not seen widespread circulation.Besides the Harry Fischel Institute that has reprinted sections of the invaluable work, namely, the entire Mishnaic Order known as Zera'im (Seeds), the commentary is relatively unknown among the Yeshivas.
Anonymous copyist
Nathan's original Judeo-Arabic commentary of the Mishnah served as the basis for a later recension made by a 12th-century anonymous author and copyist,Schlossberg, E. (2005), p. 281Assaf, Simcha (Kiryat Sefer 1933) presumes that the copyist and redactor lived between the years 1105 CE and 1170 CE, based on the fact that the last of the exegetes mentioned by the copyist is Rabbi Isaac Alfasi (1013–1103), while not mentioning at all in his work the explanations given by Maimonides (born 1135), who also compiled a Judeo-Arabic commentary on the Mishnah (see: Nathan ben Abraham (1955), vol. 1, Preface written by Mordecai Yehudah Leib Sachs, appended at the end of the book). believed to be of Yemenite Jewish provenance.Such is the opinion of Rabbi Yosef Qafih and others, based on the author's choice of Arabic words and which tend to show a dialect of Arabic used in Yemen, as well as the manuscript's place of discovery, viz. Yemen. However, this conclusion is not agreed upon by all, since many of the words brought down by Qafih to prove this point and which, according to him, are of a "pure" Yemeni dialect, are also Arabic words used in Iraq. Simcha Assaf, however, has presumed that the copyist was originally from Egypt.Qafih, Y. (2018), pp. 28–29 It is doubtful that his work would have survived, had it not been for the faithful copyist, whose innovation was to interweave in the existing text the divergent views held by several geonim and the explanations given by them for words and passages in the Mishnah. The author's introduction reads: "I found the commentaries of Rabbi Nathan, the President of the Academy, [which he made] for explicating the different language usages in the Mishnah, and I have seen fit to add thereto others besides, drawn from the commentaries of Israel's sages."Nathan ben Abraham (1955), vol. 1, p. 13 [7a] (end of introduction), appended at the end of the book. The anonymous copyist is said to have lived between 1105 – 1170 CE, making him a contemporary with Rabbi Isaac Alfasi and Nathan ben Jehiel of Rome, the author of Sefer Arukh.Assaf, S. (1933–1934), pp. 383–384 He is the first to introduce the work as being a commentary of the Mishnah, written by "Rabbeinu Nathan, Av ha-Yeshiva" (the President of the Academy), whom he calls "the son of Abraham ha-Ḥasīd" (Abraham the Pious). This last epithet is believed to have been an error by the copyist, who mistook its true author, Nathan ben Abraham (of the 11th century), with Nathan ben Abraham II, the grandson of the former.Such is the conclusion reached by a host of scholars, as mentioned by Zohar Amar (2011). He then proceeds to bring down a long introduction wherein he spans the history of the written and oral Laws, writing in Judeo-Arabic and commencing with the words, qāl ğāmiʿuh (= "So said the gatherer [of the sayings of the fathers]," etc.), covering the Torah's reception at Sinai and how it was transmitted down throughout successive generations, naming some thirteen generations from the time of Israel's return from the Babylonian exile to the time of Rabbi Judah HaNasi who compiled the Mishnah in 189 CE. In all this, he never once mentions his own name, but chooses to remain anonymous. He also explains some of the terminology used in the Talmud, such as when a saying is meant to be understood as an external teaching (Baraitta) outside of the Mishnah, and when it is to be understood as a teaching strictly derived from the Mishnah compiled by Rabbi Judah HaNasi. He then mentions the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud under Rav Ashi as occurring in the year 841 of Seleucid era (corresponding with 530 CE), and names the great exegetes that followed this period, namely: the author of Halakhot Ḳetu'ot and Halakhot Pesuḳot, Rabbi Yehudai Gaon; the author of Halakhot Gedolot, Rabbi Shimon Kiara; the author of the Beramot (a term applied to the book Sheëltot of Rav Aḥai, the Gaon of Shabḥa); Rabbi Hai Gaon; Rabbi Isaac ibn Ghiyyat of Lucena; Rabbi Nissim, the author of Sefer ha-Mafteaḥ, Rabbi Samuel ben Ḥofni, Rabbi Hananel, and Rabbi Isaac Alfasi. A certain book entitled Kitāb al-Ḥāwī ("the Compendium") is cited four times, composed by a certain R. David b. Saadiah.Assaf, S. (1955), pp. 319–322 (= Kiryat Sefer, X , 542–545); Friedman, Mordechai A. (1990a), p. 41 –42 . Simcha Assaf and Mordechai A. Friedman are in dispute over whether it was Rabbi Nathan or his Yemenite copyist who quotes from R. David.
Three of the author's more extensive commentaries exist for the tractates Berakhot, Shevu'ot and Avot. Since the anonymous copyist makes use of other sources in the original work bequeathed by Rabbi Nathan, it is not uncommon for him to give one explanation for a word in one tractate, but in a different tractate give a different explanation for the same word. The anonymous copyist deviated from the set order of the Mishnah, bringing down the order as follows: (Seder Zera'im) Berakhot, (Seder Mo'ed) 'Eruvin, Pesahim, Sheqalim, Kippurim, Sukkah, Betzah, Rosh Ha-Shannah, Ta'anith, Megillah, Hagiggah, Mo'ed Qatan, etc. Occasionally, the explanation given for a certain word or phrases found in one Mishnaic verse is explained by the author in one of the subsequent verses, such as the teaching about the dried figs and fig-cakes of Mishnah Terumah 2:4 being explained in Mishnah Terumah, chapter 3.
An early reference to Nathan ben Abraham's Mishnah commentary is brought down by Rabbi Moses ben Nahman (1194–1270), who cites the commentary in his own Talmudic commentary,vide Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashannah 10a saying: "Likewise, I found written in the glosses of old copies of the Mishnah composed in the Land of Israel where they explained the meaning of sippūq (Heb. ספוק) as having the connotation of adā, in the Arabic tongue, [meaning], he that grafts a tree upon a tree." The referent here is to Nathan's commentary in Tractate Orlah (1:5).
Vocabulary Rabbi Nathan's method of elucidating Hebrew words is mostly similar to that of Maimonides' Mishnah commentary - the two often complementing each other, but differing in several key areas. A comparative study gives readers a glimpse into words that carried different connotations in that period, with occasional words whose identification can have a significant halachic bearing, depending on how they are explained.See: Amar, Z. & Kapah, E. (2011b), p. 13 (note 24), who brings down the classic example of one of the five grains, shibbolet shu'al (Heb. שבולת שועל), mentioned in Mishnah Pesahim 2:5 and in Mishnah Menahot 10:7, whose leaven is prohibited during Passover. While the Talmudic exegete, Rashi, holds this to be oats, and Maimonides holds it to be a type of "wild barley," Nathan ben Abraham (1955) called it by its Arabic name sunbulat al-tha'alib (Fox's spike). Another one of the five grains whose leaven is prohibited at Passover is the shiffon (Heb. שיפון), which Nathan ben Abraham (1955) explains in Mishnah Menahot 10:7 as meaning al-sāfeh (Judeo-Arabic: אלסאפה) and which word, according to Amar, is synonymous with the Arabic word dowsir (Ar. دوسر) - i.e. either one of the cultivated oats (Avena sativa) or Ovate goatgrass (Aegilops geniculata). Rashi, in his commentary on the Babylonian Talmud (Pesahim 35a), thought that the Hebrew word shiffon meant שיגל"א (= seigle), or what is actually rye (Secale cereale), a grain crop that is not endemic to Israel. There are above one-hundred entries of plants mentioned in the Mishnah that have been identified by Rabbi Nathan. In some entries, two different explanations are given for one word, the one perhaps under the authority of another rabbinic sage.