Rabbi Refael Berdugo, the Malach Refael רבי רפאל בירדוגו
the judge of Meknes by whose answers Moroccan halakha lives
Meknes brought its cases to the Berdugos for generations, and Refael is the summit of that house. Son of Rabbi Mordechai, he judged the city from youth to his last days, and the name Malach Refael—the angel—is handed down as the city's voice, not as a title.
His pen worked every genre at once: Mishpatim Yesharim—responsa, the court as it was, with names, prices and customs; Torot Emet on the Shulchan Arukh; Mei Menuchot—sermons; Sharvit ha-Zahav on the Talmud. By the Mishpatim Yesharim one reads the daily life of Moroccan Jewry today, as one reads Salonika by the Maharashdam.
He set the custom itself aright: the community's law of inheritance he turned toward the Castilian takkanot—the road by which Morocco's exiles of Spain held to their heritage.
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Mishpatim Yesharim, the responsa of Berdugo — the Meknes court with its names and customs; inheritance after the Castilian takkanot
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — the Berdugo dynasty; 1747–1821
Basis: Talmud and midrash.