Bahya ben Asher

Bahya ben Asher ibn Halawa, also known as Rabbeinu Behaye (רבינו בחיי, 1340 – 1255), was a rabbi and scholar of Judaism. He was a commentator on the Hebrew Bible.

He is considered by Jewish scholars to be one of the most distinguished of the Biblical exegetes of Spain. He was a pupil of Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet (the Rashba). Unlike the latter, R' Bahya did not publish a Talmud commentary. In his biblical exegesis, R' Bahya took as his model Rabbi Moses ben Nahman who is known as Nahmanides or Ramban, the teacher of Rabbi Solomon ben Adret, who was the first major commentator to make extensive use of the Kabbalah as a means of interpreting the Torah. He discharged with zeal the duties of a darshan ("preacher") in his native city of Zaragoza, sharing this position with several others, and on this account received a small salary, which was scarcely enough to support him and his family; but neither his struggle for daily bread nor the reverses that he suffered (to which he referred in the introduction to his commentary on the Torah) diminished his interest in Torah study in general, and in Biblical exegesis in particular.

Among R Bahya's principal works was his commentary on the Torah (the five books of Moses), in the preparation of which he thoroughly investigated the works of former Biblical exegetes, using all the methods employed by them in his interpretations.

He enumerates the following four methods, all of which in his opinion are indispensable to the exegete:

Generally speaking Rabbi Bahya does not reveal any of his Kabbalistic sources, other than generally referring to Sefer ha-Bahir and the works of Nahmanides. He only mentions the Zohar twice.

R' Bahya's commentary is considered to derive a particular charm from its form. Each parashah, or weekly lesson, is prefaced by an introduction preparing the reader for the fundamental ideas to be discussed; and this introduction bears a motto in the form of some verse selected from the Book of Mishlei / Proverbs. Furthermore, by the questions that are frequently raised the reader is compelled to take part in the author's mental processes; the danger of monotony being also thereby removed.

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