The Late Geonic Period: Four Major Figures
🕍 The end of the Geonic period, about which we have the most information, includes four extraordinary figures who profoundly shaped the worlds of the Rishonim.
You’re reading Stories from Jewish History, a weekly newsletter exploring Jewish thinkers, events, and artifacts, from the famous to the obscure. Today we get to see the culmination of the long and fruitful, and certainly not uneventful, Geonic era in masterworks of scholarship that proved influential for centuries to come. It’s not without plenty of intrigue, creativity, and big personalities of its own.
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The late Geonic period is mired in conflict and controversy, its institutions on the verge of collapse, and yet managed to produce extraordinary leaders and masterworks of Jewish thought. It is this period, from the late ninth to the early eleventh century, for which we have the most sources, such that our picture of the period is brighter in these later years than in the early ones. What we see is: a strictly hierarchical power structure in an oligarchical society (and its discontents); the rise of powerful Jewish banking and merchant families in the Abbasid capital of Baghdad; the effects of declining revenues sent to the old power center—and one maverick who single-handedly altered the course of Jewish history.
Rav Saadia Gaon
Saadia ben Yosef al-Fayumi (882-942) was an outsider to the power structure of old Jewish Babylonia. Born in the Fayum district of Egypt, he attained early prominence there, seemingly establishing for himself a promising future: he wrote successful books, corresponded with local intellectuals, including R. Yitzchak Yisraeli, sometimes termed “the first” Jewish philosopher, and raised up students of his own. For unknown reasons, R. Saadia left Egypt as a relatively young man, traveling through Eretz Yisrael and then Aleppo before arriving on the scene in Baghdad. During this sojourn, he caught wind of an intense controversy over the establishment of the calendar in 921-22, really a proxy war over the special authority of the academy of the Land of Israel, which, however, was symbolic in contrast to the very real cultural (and economic) cachet of the Babylonian yeshivot. Saadia became involved on behalf of the Babylonian cause, a loyalty that would reap dividends in his not-so-distant future. He also began writing anti-Karaite polemics during the golden age of the Karaite community in Jerusalem, when Karaism was a live threat to the rabbanite establishment. This too endeared him to the oligarchs of Babylonia.
By the time R. Saadia arrived in Baghdad, then, he had made a name for himself even in the closed, aristocratic society of old Babylonia. His rise to power was meteoric and unprecedented. He was first appointed aluf at Pumbedita: a member of the elite body of scholars who sat in rows before the gaon, as we saw from the account of Natan ha-Bavli. That same year, he was advanced to reish kallah, the head of one of these rows, as we know from the title affixed to his signature. Then, his name was thrown into the ring for the prestigious, though at that point ineluctable, position at the helm of the yeshiva of Sura.
Sura had fallen on hard times, having lost significant revenues from its reshuyot (administrative districts) and consequently also much of its student body. There was internal discussion of closing its doors completely and transferring remaining students to Pumbedita. Instead, R. Saadia was appointed its gaon, in hopes that he could reverse Sura’s sad fortune and restore it to something resembling its former glory. Perhaps only such dire circumstances could have led to the appointment of an outsider to this consummate insider position, but here it worked in everyone’s favor. Saadia proved a capable leader and set to work lobbying on behalf of his new institution, raising funds and attracting students. He could not entirely obviate the sea-changes in Jewish demography that continued to afflict both venerable yeshivas; Sura would continue to face challenges and would in fact shutter for parts of the tenth century. But Saadia’s reversal of fortune was nonetheless remarkable and noted.
This could not, however, save him from the coming storm. David ben Zakkai, the exilarch who had appointed him, soon became a powerful adversary. R. Saadia refused to approve of a will settlement that would have been lucrative for the exilarch, almost certainly on solid halachic ground, but possibly also due to tensions between the two powerful and fiery men. However, David ben Zakkai saw this as a personal betrayal and immediately deposed Saadia as gaon. Not one to shy from a fight, Saadia retaliated by installing his own counter-exilarch, who was—wait for it—David ben Zakkai’s brother. After some power shifts in the caliphate that worked in the favor of Saadia’s opposition, David ben Zakkai had the brother and Saadia exiled from Baghdad.
This ended up having a major silver lining for the Jewish world, because the years of exile allowed R. Saadia to turn to writing. It was during these years that he produced his genre-making Sefer ha-Emunot ve-ha-Deot (The Book of Beliefs and Opinions), a systematic philosophy of Judaism influenced by Kalam, the Muslim scholastic theology movement. Though Kalam methodology was later eschewed by Rambam, with his Aristotelian bent, Emunot ve-Deot became the foundational work of medieval Jewish philosophy. R. Saadia’s project of rendering Jewish belief rational, his systematic and orderly proceeding through the subject areas, and even his choice of Judeo-Arabic would define the genre for centuries.
Though many survive in fragments or not at all, R. Saadia was a prolific writer of books on discrete halachic topics (halachic monographs), covering topics such as holidays and kosher slaughter as well as almost the entire corpus of civil law, which now falls into the Chosen Mishpat section of law codes. Here too the systematic form he used to work through the material was influential. In addition, Saadia composed important works in the area of Hebrew grammar and was an accomplished paytan (liturgical poet), often treating philosophical and even grammatical themes in his poetry.
Eventually, a deal was brokered between Saadia and David ben Zakkai and Saadia was reinstated as gaon of Sura, in which, by all accounts, he served on good terms with his former opponent.
Rav Shmuel ben Chofni
If you thought the politics of R. Saadia’s era were dramatic, buckle up, because the near-endless drama that engulfed the next three geonim is beyond. (By the way, I’m leaving out some of the intricacies of these controversies here in the interests of space; they get really intense and confusingly detailed.) What you need to know is that R. Shmuel ben Chofni (c. 935-1013) was the scion of a family in line for the gaonate of Pumbedita. His grandfather, R. Kohen Tzedek, was no stranger to controversy, having been the gaon who had appointed Saadia as aluf way back when he was a newcomer to Baghdad. However, in a pattern that was to repeat itself, Kohen Tzedek faced a rival gaon and had to form a breakaway yeshiva that he continued to run. Upon the rival’s death, breakaway Pumbedita reunited with Pumbedita prime and order was restored until the next controversy. In the case of R. Shmuel be Chofni’s family, his interests were aligned against those of a prominent banking family, who sought to install one of its own as gaon.
R. Shmuel should have been the next gaon of Pumbedita. His uncle, R. Nechemia ben Kohen Tzedek, had risen to the position in the generation before him, but was, too, compelled to form a breakaway yeshiva. In this breakaway yeshiva, R. Nechemia appointed his nephew, R. Shmuel ben Chofni, as av beit din (head of the court), the position next in line for the gaonate. After the death of the rival gaon, R. Nechemia and his crew returned to the mainline Pumbedita and all looked well for the up-and-coming R. Shmuel. In this case, however, one R. Sherira had come on the scene, who we know from his famous epistle, the source for so much of geonic history. R. Sherira refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of R. Nechemia’s leadership, but instead of forming a breakaway faction, stayed on as a rival av beit din opposing R. Shmuel. It was R. Sherira who would rise to the gaonate of Pumbedita, not R. Shmuel.
By this time, the venerable academy of Sura had shut its doors. However, discontent factions within Pumbedita, impatient under R. Sherira’s long tenure and sensing the inevitability of his son’s succession, set their sights on reopening the doors of Sura, which they could mold to their liking. Among the opposition party were the sons of two prominent geonim, R. Paltoi and R. Saadia. It was in their bid to power that R. Shmuel ben Chofni was instated as gaon of the newly-reopened Sura.
R. Shmuel ben Ḥofni proved a prolific writer; medieval book lists include some sixty-five titles attributed to him, of which some fifteen are extant in fragmentary form, not counting letters. These were composed in Judeo-Arabic and fall into the genres of scriptural interpretation, Talmudic commentary, halachic methodology, halachic analysis, theology, and responsa. In other words, just those genres which would be picked up and developed by the Rishonim.
Rav Sherira Gaon and his son Rav Hai Gaon
We’ve already made the acquaintance of R. Sherira ben Chanina (c. 906–1006) and his son Rav Hai, “the last gaon” (939–1038), but now we turn to their particular lives and achievements. As we’ve seen, R. Sherira made his way, shrewdly, into the gaonate of Pumbedita, where he capably served for decades. He was eventually reconciled with R. Shmuel ben Chofni, now of Sura, formalized through the marriage of his son Hai to Shmuel’s daughter. Under his watch, Pumbedita was in many respects restored to stability and prominence, which he undertook by extensive correspondence with the larger Jewish diaspora. R. Sherira’s grammatically-focused Torah commentary, which did not survive, is quoted by Yonah Ibn Janah and Radak (R. David Kimchi), indicating its continued influence and use as a model. In his capacity as teacher, R. Sherira also produced early Talmud commentary, apparently for the use of his students, of which fragments survive. He also evinces an interest in mystical matters.
R. Hai ben Sherira, whom R. Avraham Ibn Daud, in his Sefer ha-Kabbalah, names as the last gaon, was also among the most influential, both due to his prolixity and his close ties with far-flung diasporas. One of his correspondents was R. Shmuel ha-Nagid, the Spanish courtier-poet and intellectual, who spread R. Hai’s works in Spain as a result. R. Hai was an essentially conservative thinker, eschewing rationalist philosophy, preferring to write in the Jewish languages of Hebrew and Aramaic, and criticizing his father-in-law, R. Shmuel ben Ḥofni, for his interest in non-Jewish works. He also favored ethical admonishment, stiff penalties for crimes, and even the rewording of the legally and socially problematic Kol Nidrei prayer.
With R. Hai the dominance of the old eastern center of Jewish life and culture draws to a close. Thereafter, Iraqi Jewry would be one among many thriving communities stretching from the Middle East, across the Mediterranean basin and up into northern Europe. But centuries of Babylonian intellectual production would be carried into the worlds of the Rishonim, who accepted the primacy of the Babylonian Talmud as the central text of Jewish learning, cited Geonic works whenever available to them, and treasured as precious the traditions handed down to them from the old center.
Reads and Resources
For a deep dive into R. Saadia’s eventful life, there is Robert Brody’s Sa’adyah Gaon. There is also a great book by David Sklare on R. Shmuel ben Chofni but it is a hard-to-find Brill book.
Sefer ha-Emunot ve-ha-Deot is available online with English translation at Sefaria and on Al-HaTorah in the medieval Hebrew translation.
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