Sar Shalom bar Boaz שר שלום בר בועז
gaon of Sura who answered the communities more than a hundred times
Sar Shalom bar Boaz headed Sura for about ten years in the first half of the ninth century. Of all the Geonim of his generation he left the most in writing: more than a hundred of his responsa to the communities survive—on prayer, on the Sabbath, on marriage, on what to do when the custom of a place parts from the custom of the academy.
These responsa share a trait the Rishonim already noticed: Sar Shalom almost always moves toward leniency. Where it was possible to forbid, and where others before him had forbidden, he looks for the ground on which to permit. This is not softness of character but the state of things: the academy was answering communities half a year's travel away, and a ruling had to be one they could live by without a scholar at hand.
After him Sura passed to Rav Natronai bar Hilai, and after him to Rav Amram bar Sheshna, the one who put together the first complete order of prayer. Three Geonim in a row, and all three at the same work: turning learning into something a community can use on its own.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Epistle of Rav Sherira Gaon — the place in the list of the academy's heads and the years of the gaonate
- Geonic responsa — his responsa to the communities within the corpus of geonic responsa
Basis: documents and evidence.