Rabbi Isaac Aboab—Menorat ha-Maor רבי יצחק בן אברהם אבוהב

Menorat ha-Maor is built like the menorah: seven divisions, each called a ner, a lamp. The Jewish Encyclopedia calls it the household book of medieval Jewry: where there was no preacher, this was read. It was translated into Spanish, German and Yiddish.

Less is known of the man than of the book. No work of reference gives years: it is said only that he lived in Spain about 1300. Double caution is needed here: he is constantly confused with Rabbi Isaac Aboab the Second, who lived two hundred years later, and some present-day scholars place the author of Menorat ha-Maor in the second half of the fourteenth century. We set no years and set the window by the encyclopedia's statement.