The Early Rishonim: A Gemara Student’s Guide By Aryeh J. Leibowitz 2015 73 pages

The standard yeshivah student intentionally looks at the Talmud and commentaries ahistorically, judging the back-and-forth arguments on their merits and not on who made

the claims and why. While this is appropriate, it masks an important piece of Judaism—mesorah, tradition. Judaism is based on an ancient tradition passed down through the millennia. If we fail to recognize the transmission from teachers to students, we lose appreciation for the precious mesorah we possess.

In his day, the Rambam included a list of the chain of transmission in the introduction to his Mishneh Torah. The Meiri updated the list until his day, as did others after him. Rabbi Aryeh Leibowitz takes us back to the tenth through twelfth centuries and describes the chain of transmission in those important years. Starting with the early Rishonim, he explains to the yeshivah student the paths of those famous rabbis, whose commentaries and rulings are widely studied in yeshivot. With Rabbi Leibowitz’s short and easily read book, which is informed by modern scholarship but completely traditional, a yeshivah student will learn where the people whose names he sees so often lived, from whom they learned Torah, and what books they published. For example, students are probably familiar with Rabbi Shimshon (the Rash) of Shantz. But do they know that he was the third most important Tosafist, behind only Rabbeinu Tam and the Ri? Or that he moved to Israel toward the end of his life because of anti-Semitism in France? Rabbi Leibowitz’s book is an important supplement to a traditional yeshivah education.