Ein Yaakov עין יעקב
All the aggadot of the Talmud, gathered apart from the law. The book by which that half of the people learned who could not master a sugya—and therefore one of the most read of four centuries.
The Talmud is half law and half narrative: stories, parables, words about faith, conversations of the sages. Not everyone could master the law, but the narrative is intelligible to all. Rabbi Jacob ibn Habib, an exile from Spain who settled in Salonika, selected all the aggadot from the Talmud and published them in sequence, with commentary.
What came of it. Ein Yaakov became a household book: men studied it after the evening prayer, spoke from it with their children, took it on journeys. Edition followed edition, and it has more translations than any Jewish book but the Haggadah.
And a thing worth knowing. The book came at the right time: a generation of exiles, having lost its yeshivot and the order of study, received something it could keep by it. The work was finished by the compiler's son, Levi ibn Habib—the same who later argued with Jacob Berab over the renewal of ordination.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Ein Yaakov, introduction — the plan: to gather the aggadot of the Talmud for those to whom the law is too hard
Basis: documents and evidence.