سعيد الفيومي

"سعديا" redirects here. For other uses, see سعديا (توضيح).

ربينو سعديا گاعون سعيد بن يوسف الفيومي רבינו סעדיה גאון
وُلِدَ	ح. يوليو 892 الفيوم، مصر
توفي	16 مايو 942 Sura
Burial place	مقبرة اليهود القديمة، صفد
العصر	فلسفة العصور الوسطى
الأنجال	دوسا بن سعديا

سعيد بن يوسف أبو يعقوب الفيومي المشهور ب"سَعْدِيا گاؤون סעדיה גאון" (ولد في 268 هـ / 882م، الفيوم - توفي في 330هـ / 942م، بغداد) حاخام وفيلسوف يهودي مصري. تأثر بالمدرسة الكلامية ومذهب المعتزلة. ودافع عن شرعية النبوة ووحدانية الله، كما رفض الإيمان بالسحرة والمنجمين. وهو أول شخصية عبرية مهمة تكتب على نطاق واسع بالعربية، ويعتبر مؤسس الأدب العربي اليهودي.

 مسيرته

ولد في الفيوم في مصر، وفي سن العشرين أكمل عمله الأول بتأليف قاموس عبري خصصه للشعراء. وخلال أيام إقامته في مصر كانت له علاقة قوية مع صاحبه الحاخام إسحق بن سليمان الإسرائيلي الذي سكن في القيروان. وغادر الفيوم في سن مبكرة للدراسة في طبرية فتتلمذَ هناك على يد أبي كثير يحيى بن زكريا الكاتب. وفي فصل الصيف عام 921م عاش الفيومي في حلب. وهناك كان له دور كبير في الجدل القانوني والسياسي الذي نشأ بشأن التقويم اليهودي وقد اختلف مع الحاخام هارون بن مئير، رئيس يهود الشام ، في ذلك الزمن. دافع عن موقف حكماء اليهود العراقيين حول التقويم اليهودي واستطاع أن يقنع يهود الشام برأي حكماء العراق الذين وافقوا على السير على هذا التقويم.

 رئيس المسبيين

قام رئيس المسبيين داود بن زاكاي بتعيين الفيومي رئيساً لمدرسة سورا ^‏(en)‏ عام 928م ، ومن المعروف بأن رؤساء المدرستين العراقيتين كانوا دائماً من أهل العراق، ويعود تاريخ منصب «رئيس المسبيين» إلى فترة الفتح الإسلامي للعراق عندما أعاد المسلمون هذا المنصب لليهود، فأنشأت آنذاك مدرستان كبيرتان، إحداهما في مدينة سورا والأخرى في «فوم بديثا» (الفلوجة) وكان انتخاب حاخام مصري الأصل رئيساً لمدرسة عراقية حدثاً عظيماً لأنها كانت المرة الأولى التي يحدث فيها ذلك.. وأطلق في الفترة الإسلامية الاسم "جاؤون" أو "گاؤون" - بمعنى الرئيس الأعظم - على الحاخامين رئيسي المدرستين في العراق.

وتحت قيادته أصبحت مدرسة سورا مقراً علمياً كبيراً لحاخامات اليهود. وبعد فترة ليست طويلة نشب خلاف بينه وبين رئيس المسبيين داود بن زكاي مما اضطره إلى ترك قيادة المدرسة وتفرغ لكتابة مؤلفاته. وعاد الفيومي بعد فترة ليترأس المدرسة الدينية بعد أن انتهت الخلافات.

 مؤلفاته

ذكر الحاخام ابن عزرا الأندلسي في تفسيره عن التوراة بأن الفيومي كتب ترجمةً للكتاب المقدس العبري بالحروف العربية. أطلق على ترجمته الاسم «كتاب التاج» وأضاف لجميع الكتب مقدمات وتفاسير بالعربية ولكن بالحروف العبرية. واندثرت كثير من هذه التفاسير كما ضاع الكثير من كتبه. وكتب عدة مقالات طويلة دافع فيها عن شرائع التلمود، وانتقد آراء الباحث حيوي البلخي وتلاميذه حول نصوص التوراة.

كان هدف الفيومي من خلال ترجمته للكتاب المقدس العبري يهدف لتقديم صورة صحيحة، من وجهة نظره، عن التوراة باللغة العربية، التي كانت سائدة في أيامه والتي يتكلمها العرب أجمعون. كان هدفه من الترجمة تبسيط الكلام وتقريبه للقارئ العربي، وابتعد في ترجمته وتفاسيره للتوراة عن تجسيم الله وتشبيهه. ومن تلك الأمثلة ذكرت التوراة ﴿لاَ يَكُنْ مِنْ بَنَاتِ إِسْرَائِيلَ وَلاَ مِنْ أَبْنَاءِ إِسْرَائِيلَ زَانِيَاتٌ وَمَأْبُونُو مَعَابِدَ﴾ بينما ترجمها الفيومي: ﴿لاَ يَكُنْ مِنْ بَنَاتِ إِسْرَائِيلَ مُمْتَعَةٌ وَلَا مِنْ بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ مُمْتَعٌ﴾ ويدلّنا الفيومي بترجمته بأنه كان يوجد زواج اسمه زواج المتعة، الذي كان يرفضه رفضاً كاملاً. من مؤلفاته:

• «كتاب التاج»
• «كتاب جامع الصلوات والتسابيح» يضم الصلوات اليومية وصلوات أيام الأعياد جميعاً كما ضمنه الشرائع اللازمة لكل يهودي في جميع المناسبات وكتبها باللغة العربية وبالحروف العبرية.
• «كتاب المختار في الأمانات [بالمعنى الإيمان] والاعتقادات» الذي ألفه عام ٩٣٣م.

 تفسير التوراة

As much as Saadia's Judeo-Arabic translation of the Torah (Tafsīr) has brought relief and succour to Jews living in Arabic-speaking countries, his identification of places, fauna and flora, and the stones of the priestly breastplate, has found him at variance with some scholars. Abraham ibn Ezra, in his commentary on the Torah, wrote scathing remarks on Saadia's commentary, saying: "He doesn't have an oral tradition [...] perhaps he has a vision in a dream, while he has already erred with respect to certain places [...]; therefore, we will not rely on his dreams."

However, Saadia assures his readers elsewhere that when he rendered translations for the twenty-odd unclean fowl mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, (Leviticus 11:13–19; Deuteronomy 14:12–18) his translation was based on an oral tradition received by him. Saadia's method of conveying names for the fowls based on what he had received by way of an oral tradition prompted him to add in his defense: "Every detail about them, had one of them merely come unto us [for identification], we would not have been able to identify it for certain, much less recognize their related kinds."

The question often asked by scholars now is whether Saadia applied this principle in his other translations. Re'em (عبرية: ראם, romanized: rəʾēm), as in Deuteronomy 33:17, improperly translated as "unicorn" in some English translations, is a word that is now used in Modern Hebrew to represent the "oryx". However, Saadia understood the same word to mean "rhinoceros" and writes there the Judeo-Arabic word for the creature (Judeo-Arabic: אלכרכדאן, romanized: al-karkadann). He interprets the zamer (عبرية: זָֽמֶר, romanized: zāmer) in Deuteronomy 14:5 as giraffe.

Comparative study of Saadia's translations for the Eight Creeping Things of Leviticus, ch. 11

Source Leviticus 11:29–30	Hebrew Word	Saadia Gaon (Judeo-Arabic)	Rashi (Old French)	Septuagint (Greek)
Leviticus 11:29	החֹלד (ha-ḥoled)	אלכׄלד Middle East blind mole-rat	מושטילא mustele Weasel (Mustela spp.)	γαλἡ (gale) Weasel
Leviticus 11:29	העכבּר (ha-ʿaḫbar)	אלפאר house mouse	xxx	μυς (mys) Mouse
Leviticus 11:29	הצב (ha-ṣav)	אלצׄב Spiny-tailed lizard (Uromastyx aegyptia)	פוייט froit Toad (Bufo spp.)	κροκόδειλος (krokódeilos) Big lizard
Leviticus 11:30	האנקה (ha-anaqah)	אלורל monitor lizard	הריון heriçon southern white-breasted hedgehog)	μυγάλη (mygáli) Shrew (Crocidura spp.)
Leviticus 11:30	הכח (ha-koaḥ)	אלחרדׄון Agama lizard (Agama spp.)	xxx	χαμαιλέων (chamailéon) Chameleon
Leviticus 11:30	הלטאה (ha-leṭa’ah)	אלעצׄאיה Fringe-toed lizard (Acanthodactylus spp.) (Lacerta spp.)	לישרדה laiserde Lizard (Lacerta spp.)	καλαβώτης (kalavótis) Newt
Leviticus 11:30	החמט (ha-ḥomeṭ)	אלחרבא Chameleon lizard (Chamaeleo spp.)	לימצא limace Slug (Limax spp.)	σαύρα (sávra) Lizard
Leviticus 11:30	התנשמת (ha-tinšameṯ)	אלסמברץ Mediterranean house gecko	טלפא talpe Mole (Talpa spp.)	ασπάλαξ (aspálax) Mole

In Saadia's translation and commentary on the Book of Psalms (Kitāb al-Tasābiḥ), he has done what no other medieval writer has done before him, bringing down a biblical exegesis and noting where the verse is to be read as a rhetorical question, and where the verse itself derides the question with good humor:

הַר אֱלהִים הַר בָּשָׁן. הַר גַּבְנֻנִּים הַר בָּשָׁן
לָמָּה תְּרַצְדוּן הָרִים גַּבְנֻנִּים
הָהָר חָמַד אֱלהִים לְשִׁבְתּוֹ. אַף יי' יִשְׁכּן לָנֶצַח

Is the hill of God the hill of Bashan? A hunchback mountain is the hill of Bashan! (Meaning, it is unfit for God's Divine Presence).
Why leap ye, ye hunchback mountains?
That mountain wherein God desires to dwell (i.e. Mount Moriah in Jerusalem), even the Lord shall dwell [therein] forever more.

— Saadia Gaon's Commentary

Saadia's approach to rabbinic exegesis and midrashic literature was ambivalent. Although he adopted them in his liturgies, he did not recoil from denouncing them in his commentary on the Bible whenever he thought that they broke-away from the plain and ordinary meaning of the text. Saadia adopts in principle the method of the Sages that even the episodic-like parts of the Bible (e.g. story of Abraham and Sarah, the selling of Joseph, etc.) that do not contain commandments have a moral lesson to tell.

In some instances, Saadia's biblical translations reflect his own rationale of difficult Hebrew words based on their lexical root, and he will, at times, reject the earlier Targum for his own understanding. For example, in Psalm 16:4, Saadia retracts from the Targum (translated): "They will multiply their goddesses (عبرية: עַצְּבוֹתָם); they have hastened after some other thing; I shall not pour out their libations of blood, neither shall I take-up their names upon my lips", writing instead: "They will multiply their revenues (Judeo-Arabic: אכסאבהם); they have hastened after some other thing", etc. Even where a certain explanation is given in the Talmud, such as the Hebrew words בד בבד in Exo. 30:34 (explained in Taanit 7a as meaning "each spice pounded separately"), Saadia deviates from the rabbinic tradition in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the Pentateuch, in this case explaining its sense as "having them made of equal portions."

In another apparent deviation from Talmudic tradition, where the Talmud (Hullin 63a) names a biblical species of fowl (Leviticus 11:18) known as raḥam (عبرية: רחם) and says that it is the colorful European bee-eater called the sheraqraq, Saadia in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the Humash writes that raḥam is the Egyptian vulture based on the phonetic similarity of its Arabic name with the Hebrew. The sheraqraq (عربية: شقراق, romanized: šiqirrāq) is a bird that harbingers rain in the Levant (around October), for which reason the Talmud says: "When raḥam arrives, mercy (raḥamīm) comes into the world."

 Later years

He wrote both in Hebrew and in Arabic a work, now known only from a few fragments, entitled "Sefer ha-Galui" (Arabic title, "Kitab al-Ṭarid"), in which he emphasized with great but justifiable pride the services which he had rendered, especially in his opposition to heresy.

The fourteen years which Saadia spent in Babylonia did not interrupt his literary activity. His principal philosophical work was completed in 933; and four years later, through Ibn Sargado's father-in-law, Bishr ben Aaron, the two enemies were reconciled. Saadia was reinstated in his office; but he held it for only five more years. David b. Zakkai died before him (c. 940), being followed a few months later by the exilarch's son Judah, while David's young grandson was nobly protected by Saadia as by a father. According to a statement made by Abraham ibn Daud and doubtless derived from Saadia's son Dosa, Saadia himself died in Babylonia at Sura in 942, at the age of sixty, of "black gall" (melancholia), repeated illnesses having undermined his health.

 Mention in Sefer Hasidim

An anecdote is reported in Sefer Hasidim about Saadia ben Yosef "the sage", in which he ends a dispute between a servant who claims to be the heir of his deceased master and the man's true son and heir by having them both draw blood into separate vessels. He then took a bone from the deceased man and placed it into each of the cups. The bone in the cup of the true heir absorbed the blood, while the servant's blood was not absorbed in the bone. Using this as genetic proof of the son's true inheritance, Saadia had the servant return the man's property to his son.

 Significance

A street sign at the intersection of Se’adya Ga’on and HaHashmona’im streets in Tel Aviv

ملف:פסיפס כתובת (7936371708).jpg

Sign on Saadia Gaon street

Saadia Gaon was a pioneer in the fields in which he toiled. The foremost object of his work was the Bible; his importance is due primarily to his establishment of a new school of Biblical exegesis characterized by a rational investigation of the contents of the Bible and a scientific knowledge of the language of the holy text.

Saadia's Arabic translation of the Torah is of importance for the history of civilization; itself a product of the Arabization of a large portion of Judaism, it served for centuries as a potent factor in the impregnation of the Jewish spirit with Arabic culture, so that, in this respect, it may take its place beside the Greek translation of antiquity and the German translation of the Pentateuch by Moses Mendelssohn. As a means of popular religious enlightenment, Saadia's translation presented the Scriptures even to the unlearned in a rational form which aimed at the greatest possible degree of clarity and consistency.

His system of hermeneutics was not limited to the exegesis of individual passages, but also treated each book of the Bible as a whole, showing the connection of its various portions with one another.

The commentary contained, as is stated in the author's own introduction to his translation of the Pentateuch, not only an exact interpretation of the text, but also a refutation of the cavils which the heretics raised against it. Further, it set forth the bases of the commandments of reason and the characterization of the commandments of revelation; in the case of the former the author appealed to philosophical speculation; of the latter, naturally, to tradition.

The position assigned to Saadia in the oldest list of Hebrew grammarians, which is contained in the introduction to Abraham ibn Ezra's "Moznayim", has not been challenged even by the latest historical investigations. Here, too, he was the first; his grammatical work, now lost, gave an inspiration to further studies, which attained their most brilliant and lasting results in Spain, and he created in part the categories and rules along whose lines was developed the grammatical study of the Hebrew language. His dictionary, primitive and merely practical as it was, became the foundation of Hebrew lexicography; and the name "Agron" (literally, "collection"), which he chose and doubtless created, was long used as a designation for Hebrew lexicons, especially by the Karaites. The very categories of rhetoric, as they were found among the Arabs, were first applied by Saadia to the style of the Bible. He was likewise one of the founders of comparative philology, not only through his brief "Book of Seventy Words", already mentioned, but especially through his explanation of the Hebrew vocabulary by the Arabic, particularly in the case of the favorite translation of Biblical words by Arabic terms having the same sound.

Saadia's works were the inspiration and basis for later Jewish writers, such as Berachyah in his encyclopedic philosophical work Sefer Hahibbur (The Book of Compilation).

Saadia likewise identifies the definitive trait of "a cock girded about the loins" within Proverbs 30:31 (Douay–Rheims Bible) as "the honesty of their behavior and their success", rather than the aesthetic interpretations of so many others, thus identifying a spiritual purpose of a religious vessel within that religious and spiritual instilling schema of purpose and use.

In his commentary on Kohelet, Saadia says that Solomon mastered mathematics, philosophy, engineering, science, music, medicine and astronomy.

 Relations to mysticism

In his commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah, Saadia sought to render lucid and intelligible the content of this esoteric work by the light of philosophy and scientific knowledge, especially by a system of Hebrew phonology which he himself had founded. He did not permit himself in this commentary to be influenced by the theological speculations of the Kalam, which are so important in his main works. In introducing Sefer Yetzirah's theory of creation he makes a distinction between the Biblical account of creation ex nihilo, in which no process of creation is described, and the process described in Sefer Yetzirah (matter formed by speech). The cosmogony of Sefer Yetzirah is even omitted from the discussion of creation in his magnum opus "Kitab al-Amanat wal-I'tiḳadat". Concerning the supposed attribution of the book to the patriarch Abraham, he allows that the ideas it contains might be ancient. Nonetheless, he clearly considered the work worthy of deep study and echoes of Sefer Yetzirah's cosmogony do appear in "Kitab al-Amanat wal-I'tiḳadat" when Saadia discusses his theory of prophecy.

 Works

 Exegesis

Saadia translated the Humash and some of the other books of the Hebrew Bible into Judeo-Arabic, adding a Judeo-Arabic commentary.

• Torah
• Isaiah
• Megillot
• Tehillim (Judeo-Arabic translation and commentary, which he called Kitāb al-tasbiḥ [= "the Book of Praise"])
• Iyyov (Book of Job) (translated to English by Dr. Goodman), and Mishlei
• Daniel

Saadia translated Megillat Antiochus into Judeo-Arabic and wrote an introduction.

 Hebrew linguistics

1. Agron
2. Kutub al-Lughah, also known as Kitāb faṣīḥ lughat al-‘ibrāniyyīn, “The Book of Eloquent Language of the Hebrews”
3. "Tafsir al-Sab'ina Lafẓah", a list of seventy (properly ninety) Hebrew (and Aramaic) words which occur in the Hebrew Bible only once or very rarely, and which may be explained from traditional literature, especially from the Neo-Hebraisms of the Mishnah. This small work has been frequently reprinted.

 Halakhic writings

1. Short monographs in which problems of Jewish law are systematically presented. Of these Arabic treatises, little but the titles and extracts is known, and it is only in the "Kitab al-Mawarith" that fragments of any length have survived.
2. A commentary on the thirteen rules of Rabbi Ishmael, preserved only in a Hebrew translation by Nahum Ma'arabi. An Arabic methodology of the Talmud is also mentioned, by Azulai, as a work of Saadia under the title "Kelale ha-Talmud".
3. Responsa. With few exceptions these exist only in Hebrew, some of them having been probably written in that language.
4. The Siddur of Saadia Gaon (Kitāb jāmiʿ al-ṣalawāt wal-tasābīḥ), containing the texts of the prayers, commentary in Arabic and original synagogal poetry. Of this synagogal poetry the most noteworthy portions are the "Azharot" on the 613 commandments, which give the author's name as "Sa'id b. Joseph", followed by the title "Alluf", thus showing that the poems were written before he became gaon.

 Philosophy of religion

1. Emunoth ve-Deoth (Kitāb al-amānāt wa-al-iʿatiqādāt), the Book of Beliefs and Opinions: This work, first compiled in 933 CE, of which several revisions were made until its final redaction, is considered to be the first systematic attempt to synthesize the Jewish tradition with philosophical teachings. Prior to Saadia, the only other Jew to attempt any such fusion was Philo (Ivry 1989). Saadia's objective here was to show the parallelism between the truths delivered to the people of Israel by Divine revelation, on the one side, and the necessary conclusions that can also be reached by way of rational observation, on the other. The effect of these ideas expressed in his philosophical books are clearly reflected in Saadia's story of creation, especially when he comes to deal with the theological problems, such as in the verse of Deuteronomy 4:24: “For the LORD your God is a devouring fire,” which constitutes an example of a verse that cannot be understood in its plain context, but should rather be understood in such a way as not to contradict one's definite knowledge that God does not change, nor can anything corporeal be associated with him.
2. Tafsīr Kitāb al-Mabādī, an Arabic translation of and commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah, written while its author was still residing in Egypt (or Israel), and intended to explain in a scientific manner how the universe came into existence. On the linguistic aspect, Saadia combines a debate on the letters and on their attributes (e.g. phonemes), as well as a debate on related linguistic matters.

 Polemical writings

1. Refutations of Karaite authors, always designated by the name "Kitab al-Radd", or "Book of Refutation". These three works are known only from scanty references to them in other works; that the third was written after 933 is proved by one of the citations.
2. "Kitab al-Tamyiz" (in Hebrew, "Sefer ha-Hakkarah"), or "Book of Distinction", composed in 926, and Saadia's most extensive polemical work. It was still cited in the twelfth century; and a number of passages from it are given in a Biblical commentary of Japheth ha-Levi.
3. There was perhaps a special polemic of Saadia against Ben Zuta, though the data regarding this controversy between is known only from the gaon's gloss on the Torah.
4. A refutation directed against the rationalistic Biblical critic Hiwi al-Balkhi, whose views were rejected by the Karaites themselves;
5. "Kitab al-Shara'i'", or "Book of the Commandments of Religion".
6. "Kitab al-'Ibbur", or "Book of the Calendar", likewise apparently containing polemics against Karaite Jews;
7. "Sefer ha-Mo'adim", or "Book of Festivals", the Hebrew polemic against Ben Meir which has been mentioned above.
8. "Sefer ha-Galui", also composed in Hebrew and in the same flowery biblical style as the "Sefer ha-Mo'adim", being an autobiographical and apologetic work directed against the Exilarch (rosh galuth), David b. Zakkai, and his chief patron, Aharon ibn Sargado, in which he proved his own uprightness and equity in the matter of controversy between them.

 انظر أيضا

• السموأل بن يحيى المغربي
• دوناش بن لبرط
• حيوي البلخي
• الفلسفة اليهودية

 وصلات خارجية

• Lecture on Saadia Gaon by Dr. Henry Abramson
• SAADIA B. JOSEPH (Sa'id al-Fayyumi), jewishencyclopedia.com; Article
• Resources > Medieval Jewish History > Geonica The Jewish History Resource Center - Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• Torah- Original Commentary in Arabic By Rabbi Saadia Gaon, Project Saadia Gaon
• Tafsir Rasag at Sefaria

سبقه Yom-Tob Kahana ben R. Jacob

Gaon of the Sura Academy 928-942

تبعه Joseph ben Jacob