Sefer HaHalakhot of the Rif ספר ההלכות לרי"ף
The Rif went through the whole Talmud and left in it only what bears on practice. The result was a book nicknamed "the little Talmud"—and it is printed with the great one to this day.
Rabbi Isaac Alfasi went through the Talmud tractate by tractate and wrote out of it what has the force of law—keeping the order and the language of the Gemara, but removing the course of the argument where the argument leads nowhere.
Hence the book's nickname, Talmud Katan, the little Talmud: reading it, a person walks the same pages, only shorter.
What is not in it. The tractates that are not about the present day: offerings, purity, the laws of the Land of Israel. The Rif wrote for a community living in exile.
What came out of it. Three digests stand together at the back of the printed Talmud: the Rif, the Piskei HaRosh and the Mordechai. The Rosh argues with the Rif and supplements him, the Tur is built on both, and the Shulchan Aruch is built on the Tur. The whole stair begins here.
Rabbi Yosef Karo, in the introduction to the Beit Yosef, named the Rif one of the three pillars by which he decides the law—together with the Rambam and the Rosh.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Sefer HaHalakhot, printed with the Talmud — the digest itself and its place in the printed Talmud
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Beit Yosef, introduction — the Rif named one of the three pillars of decision
Basis: documents and evidence.