Person · 4900–4985 AM · 1140 CE — 1225 CE
Raavyah—Rabbi Eliezer ben Yoel haLevi רבי אליעזר בן יואל הלוי
the code of Ashkenazi custom before the crusades
Rabbi Eliezer ben Yoel haLevi (1140–1225), the Raavan's grandson on his mother's side, was among the chief legal authorities of Ashkenaz in his century. He travelled among the communities of the Rhine and Bohemia and everywhere wrote down not only rulings but customs: how they read, how they sang, what order this town kept and why.
His code, known as the Aviasaf or Sefer Raavyah, is cited by almost every Ashkenazi codifier—the Or Zarua, the Mordechai, the Agudah, and through them the Rema. Much of what it describes was destroyed together with the communities in the pogroms of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the book remained the only witness.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Sefer Raavyah (Aviasaf) — the rulings and customs of the Rhineland communities
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Shem ha-Gedolim of Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai — the compendium of the authors of sefarim: who wrote a book and what is known of him
Basis: documents and evidence.