Journey to Sicily 2024: Rav Matzlach, Student of Rav Hai Gaon, Rebbi of the Aruch

this Torah class is brought to you by Torah anytime.com okay good morning everyone sh it's so nice to see everybody hope everybody had a good morning I want to speak to you a little bit about the Jewish presence in Sicily and what kind of evidence that we have were there any great ranam here it seems to have been somewhat of a puzzle that we're still trying to piece together some of the missing links and some of the missing uh pieces I want to thank our friend Mrs Beva Walden who is the head of the Italian Office of the European Society of preservation of Jewish cemeteries who sent me some very interesting information about a few ranim who did live in Sicily this goes back to the 11th century now in order to appreciate this some of you were in Rome yesterday we have to learn about one of the great his name was the AR I'm sure you've heard of the AR r r of Rome rasan Ben Rabil of Rome that's what we brought along on our trip rasan you're named after the AR rasan was named after the and he too is a is an eminent traveler and uh m in our travels and Sh so was a lexicographer a lexicographer is someone who studies the emology of words so he studied Theology of Hebrew words Rashi you may remember gim Rashi quotes the question he asked the okay the AR was a student of his father Rael he also student of raan the probably is most notably quoted by do you remember this everybody knows if you drag a bench on Chavis and it may or may not make a Groove are you allowed to do it yes why but if the result is inevitable then it's that if the result of making a Groove is inevitable if for sure will happen then you can claim you didn't intend for to happen you knew it was inevitable therefore it is discusses the following case what if the result is inevitable but it's result that you are not you don't want you're not pleased with this is what we Calla that is a famous says however R and the say is permitted so you know an example would be you have a refrigerator and you left the the light bulb in when the light goes on it's n it's n you like the light there's no question about it you may not need it at the moment but it's something that you're pleased with that's the question of very little is known about the life of the all we really know is from a a poem appendage to the end of his work we know he had four boys who did not survive childhood he had one surviving boy Ru and in this poem he's that's the of the the now where did the learn the learned from his father rabu however the had a eminent reab you ready for this his name was ratl ratl now ratl albak you say who's that ratl Al bazak lived in Sicily he lived here in Sicily R matl traveled to B to Babylonia to learn from r r lived between 939 and 1038 he was so close to r that asked matl to write the biography of r he comes back here to Italy and ra the is the main disciple of R matl so that is one Great Sage that lived here in Sicily someone who traveled all the way to B to learn from a he brings the tah of RA back to Italy and he teaches it to the AR now it's very interesting there's a lot of discussion if you remember that when the Jews were exiled from Yim there were four prestigious families that came to Rome one was theis family one was the anav family so for instance the sh was from the anab family and there's a question about the did the come from theam family or the anav family be it as it may the source of the wisdom of the AR came from here from C from rat okay enjoy the rest of your ride you've just exper experienced another Torah class brought to you by Torah anytime.com