The Last of the Geonim

The title of gaon (plural geonim) was used for the deans of Talmudic academies. Modern Hebrew defines it as "genius." Geonim were important in the development and dissemination of Jewish scholarship. The Geonim Era lasted from 589 to 1038 CE, when the academies of Sura and Pumbedita flourished.

The last gaon of Sura was Samuel ben Hofni, who died in 1034 CE leaving behind a great many writings. At Pumbedita the last gaon was Hai ben Sherira, also called Hai Gaon. He was taught by—and assisted in teaching—his father, Sherira ben Hanina, who was also called Sherira Gaon.

This was during the Abbasid Caliphate, when the Pumbedita Academy had moved to Baghdad. Hai and his father had enemies who caused them to be imprisoned in 997 and had their property confiscated by Caliph al-Qadir. Their troubles were brief, and shortly after their release Sherira named Hai the new gaon.

Hai's promotion was very popular in the community. When Sherira died in 1006, the following Sabbath saw the passage read from Numbers in which Moses asks for an able follower. It was followed by a reading about Solomon with the words altered to read "And Hai sat on the throne of Sherira his father, and his government was firmly established."

Questions from all over where the Jewish Diaspora landed people—Anatolia, France, Germany, the Iberian Peninsula, Ethiopia and India—came to Pumbedita for advice and rulings. More than 800 responses from Hai Gaon helped to codify rules about holidays and civil law.

In his responses he quotes not only numerous Jewish sources. It is clear he was familiar with the Quran, Plato and Aristotle, Greek history, and Persian. He also consulted with the heads of the local Christians—in this case, Assyrian Christians—over the meaning of Psalms 141:5, whose literal translation is:

The righteous beat me [in] kindness. And reprove me, My head does not disallow oil of the head,  For my prayer [is] still about their distress. [source]

His death marked the end of the Geonim Era, and he has been called the last of the Geonim. (To be fair, there was one more. Hezekiah ben David was elected Gaon at Hai's death, but he was imprisoned and supposedly tortured to death. On the other hand, supposedly a contemporary in 1046 said Hezekiah was the head of Pumbedita. Still, histories of the Eras say it ended in 1038 with Hai.)

I find that I've mentioned Assyrian Christians before, but haven't gone into any detail about whence they came or what made them different. I'll rectify that starting tomorrow.

Talmudic Academies

In southern Iraq, in an area referred to as Babylonia in Jewish lore, there were two Talmudic academies (yeshiva) that for a time were the source of all important Torah decrees. They were Sura and Pumbedita.

Around 220 CE, the Jewish scholar Abba Arikha arrived in Sura city and found no organized religious Jewish community. Arikha ("the Tall") was respected by Gentiles as well as Jews. He began the Sura Academy to support the continuity of Jewish learning and community. He founded the yeshiva in 225, and the word started to spread that Sura was the site of serious Jewish scholarship.

Eventually it had a faculty of 1200 using an impressive campus, some of the remnants of which can still be seen. It had offices for rabbis and deans and classrooms and a garden that grew much of what was consumed by staff and students.

The Pumbedita Academy was founded after the death of Abba Arikha. Judah ben Ezekiel (220 - 299 CE) founded it somewhere in Iraq (the exact location is not known). Judah was so obsessed with learning that he was known to neglect daily prayer in order to study. That discipline for study and a remarkable memory helped him immensely in transmitting teachings to others, and gave Pumbedita a reputation to equal Sura.

While developing the system of learning at Pumbedita, he created Talmudic dialectics, a very critical examination of the subjects in the Talmud. This clinical approach did not please older more traditional students, but younger students embraced it.

Sura and Pumbedita lasted for hundreds of years. During the years 988 - 990, Pumbedita moved from its original location. Jews were migrating to big cities, and the current dean of Pumbedita decided to relocate the yeshiva to Baghdad, whose grandeur and reputation as a city where knowledge was celebrated was well-known. That dean was Hai Gaon, a Renaissance Man before there was a Renaissance, who crossed the boundaries of religion to interact with those of other faiths. Let's talk about him next time.