Rashba—Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet רבי שלמה בן אדרת
"the rabbi of Spain": thousands of responsa to the whole diaspora
Rabbi Shlomo ben Avraham ibn Aderet (1235–1310) studied under the Ramban and Rabbeinu Yonah and led the community of Barcelona for more than forty years. His contemporaries called him "El rabi d'España"—the rabbi of Spain; questions came to him from everywhere, and his answers became the foundation of Spanish halakhah and, through the Beit Yosef, of the whole Shulchan Aruch. Some three thousand of his responsa survive—more than from any other Rishon.
His Torat haBayit—a code of the laws of the household, the kitchen and purity—drew sharp criticism from his colleague and opponent the Ra'ah in Bedek haBayit; the Rashba answered with Mishmeret haBayit. That dispute between the two heads of Barcelona is a model of how the Rishonim argued without arguing to win.
In 1305 he signed the ban forbidding the study of Greek philosophy and natural science before the age of twenty-five—an attempt to stop the extreme rationalists without breaking with Rambam himself. His students were the Ritva and Rabbeinu Bachya.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Responsa of the Rashba — some three thousand surviving responsa
- Torat haBayit and Mishmeret haBayit — the code of the household and the reply to the Ra'ah's critique
Documents of the period
- The ban of 1305, Barcelona — the prohibition of philosophy before the age of twenty-five
Scholarship
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, "Adret, Solomon ben Abraham" — some three thousand responsa
Basis: documents and evidence.