Samuel ben Hophni

Samuel ben Hofni (Hebrew: שמואל בן חפני, or full name: רב שמואל בן חפני גאון [abbreviation: רשב"ח] or שמואל בן חפני הכהן; also: Samuel b. Hofni or Samuel ha-Kohen ben Hofni; died 1034) was the last gaon of Sura. His father was a Talmudic scholar and chief judge ("ab bet din," probably of Fez), one of whose responsa are extant (see Zunz, Ritus, p. 191; Steinschneider, Hebr. Bibl. xx. 132), and on whose death Samuel wrote an elegy. Samuel was the father-in-law of Hai ben Sherira Gaon, who is authority for the statement that Samuel, like many of his contemporaries, zealously pursued the study of non-Jewish literature. Beyond these few data, nothing is known of the events of Samuel's life.

Although, as a rule, geonic literature consists mainly of responsa, Samuel ben Ḥofni composed but few of these. This was because the Academy of Sura had for a century occupied a less prominent position than that of Pumbedita, and that, especially in the time of Hai ben Sherira, information was preferably sought at the latter institution.

A genizah fragment of the Taylor-Schechter collection, containing a letter to Shemariah ben Elhanan written, according to Schechter's opinion, by Samuel ben Ḥofni, and another letter of Samuel's to Kairwan, show the great efforts which at this time the last representative of the Babylonian schools had to make to maintain the ancient seats of learning in Babylonia. Samuel's responsa, written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic (those written in Arabic were translated into Hebrew), treat of "tefillin" and "ẓiẓit," the Sabbath and holy days, forbidden and permitted food (kashrut), women, priests, servants, property rights, and other questions of civil law. They consist chiefly of explanations of the Talmud and include some very short halakic decisions, from which fact it is surmised that they are taken from his Talmud treatise Sha'are Berakot. With the intellectual independence peculiar to him, he occasionally declares a Talmudic law to be without Biblical foundation, and when an explanation in the Talmud seems inadequate, he adds one of his own which is satisfactory.

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