Halachot Pesukot Explained

Halachot Pesukot is a rabbinic work written by Yehudai Gaon in the geonic era, containing chapters on common Jewish halachic themes. The work was compiled in the 8th-century and is written in Aramaic, and follows the format of Halachot Gedolot which antedates it by about 20 years.[1]

Editions

In 1886, A.L. Schlossberg published in Versailles an edition of Halachot Pesukot which he based on the Oxford Ms. In 1911, David Solomon Sassoon purchased a handwritten manuscript of Halachot Pesukot while visiting Yemen, and which, based on its style, appears to have been written in Babylon or Persia in the ninth or tenth century.[2] A description of the manuscript is found in Sassoon's Ohel Dawid catalogue. The Ms. was first published by his son, Solomon David Sassoon, in 1951,[3] and has been published several times since then by other editors.[4]

Schlossberg's edition, which he prepared from the Oxford Ms., differs slightly from the Sassoon Ms. of Halachot Pesukot. Schlossberg's edition contains 3 additional halakhic discourses on Megillah, Hanukkah, and Libation wine, which three themes do not appear in Sassoon's copy. Conversely, Sassoon's copy contains 2 additions not found in Schlossberg's edition, such as Berakhot [= Benedictions] and the Defects of slaughtered animals in the Land of Israel .[5]

Notes and References

  1. Book: Ibn-Daʾud . Avraham . Abraham ibn Daud . Ben-Ḥalaftâ . Yôsê . Seder ʿolam raba ṿe-seder ʿolam zota ṿe-sefer ha-Ḳabalah le-ha-Rabad . M.D. Yerushalmi . Gil Publishers. 1955 . Jerusalem. he . 27 . 754774918 .
  2. David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel David (vol. 1), Preface, Oxford University Press : London 1932, pp. x-xi. .
  3. Book: Yehudai Gaon . Yehudai Gaon . Sassoon. S.D. . Solomon David Sassoon. Sefer Halachot Pesukot . Mekitze Nirdamim. Jerusalem. 1951 . he . 1140886734 . Halachot Pesukot.
  4. Book: Yehudai ben Nahman . Yehudai Gaon . Etz-Chayim. Yehonatan . Halachot Pesukot Ha-shalem, based on the S. Sassoon MS. . Mossad Harav Kook. Jerusalem. 2016 . he . 993219181 . Halachot Pesukot.
  5. Book: Sassoon, D.S.. Ohel Dawid - Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library . Humphrey Milford: Oxford University Press . 1 . 1932 . London . 124 . en . 912964204 .