Rothenburg, the leading fi gure of the Ashkenazic com-
munities in the thirteenth century. After his teacher was
imprisoned in 1286 (he was captured while trying to
emigrate following a pogrom), and particularly follow-
ing his death in 1293, Asher was recognized as the chief
rabbinical authority in Germany. He and his family also
fl ed Germany because of the diffi cult conditions under
Rudolf I, and, passing through France and Provence, he
fi nally reached Spain in 1305.
There were already many Jewish refugees from Ger-
many in Spain, including one of Asher’s own sons who
had been sent ahead to prepare a place for the family.
He may have spent some time in Barcelona, with the
renowned sage Solomon Ibn Adret; but in any case he
soon made his way to Toledo at the request of com-
munity leaders there. He became the leading rabbi of
the community, opening also his own yeshivah. While
in Germany he had taught at the yeshivah of his own
teacher, Meir b. Barukh, and may also have had his own
yeshivah later. His yeshivah in Toledo, however, was to
become internationally famous.
Asher was a prolifi c writer, and his literary output
belongs to the great classics of medieval rabbinic litera-
ture. Primarily, he is famous for his three main works:
novellae on the Talmud (titled Tosafot ha-Rosh on many
tractates, written in the classical style of the French
Tosafot); Pisqey ha-Rosh, a running commentary on
the Halakhot of Isaac al-Fā sī ; and a collection of some
thousand responsa covering a multitude of aspects of
daily life and Jewish law. Most of this work was done,
or at least brought to its fi nal phase, in Spain, including
his responsa, most of which were written in answer to
Spanish questioners. An astonishing fact is the disap-
pearance of most of his responsa written in Germany,
a small number of which survive in the collections of
his teacher Meir of Rothenburg. The collection of his
Spanish responsa was made by his son Jacob, for reasons
to be explained below, and in itself bears witness to the
successful acclimatization of the family to Spain. His
compilation of Tosafot, based on the French prototype,
incorporated also many sources from Spain. This work
greatly facilitated the acceptance of the French Tosafot
in Spain, where they soon became an integral part of
talmudic study, thus providing a central vehicle for
the important historical process of cultural integration
between Spain and Franco-Germany. The Pisqey ha-
Rosh, or “decisions,” is dedicated mainly to a detailed
comparison between the legal interpretations of al-Fā sī
and the parallel Franco-German tradition of the Tosafot,
with the important addition of later Spanish traditions
such as those of Jonah Gerundi, Meir Abulafi a, and
Moses b. Nah man..
The chief distinction between the Pisqey ha-Rosh
and his Tosafot is that the former deal with practical
application of law rather than mere commentary upon
the talmudic text. Spanish Jewish legal tradition often
differed from that in France or Germany, and Asher fol-
lowed generally the positions taken by his teacher Meir
b. Barukh, who accepted al-Fā sī and Maimonides except
where they were contradicted by the Tosafot. Asher
nevertheless made concessions to Spanish Jewish law
and custom, while always maintaining the superiority of
Ashkenazic positions with regard to liturgical, festival,
and dietary customs. These “decisions,” together with
many of the responsa, were later adapted and processed
by his eldest son and successor, Jacob, into a formal codeof law, Arba‘ah (^) .turiym (“Four rows”), which together
with the codes of Maimonides and al-Fā sī became one of
the three pillars upon which Joseph Karo in the sixteenth
century erected the fi nal work of codifi cation of Jewish
law, the Shul.h-an ‘arukh (“Prepared table”). Asher’s
responsa, alongside those of his friend and colleague Ibn
Adret, are the choicest of their kind in medieval rabbinic
literature. Asher’s responsa are organized in a unique
method, according to topics (Kelaliym), but this was not
the original arrangement and was probably instituted by
his son Jacob to expedite locating specifi c laws. How-
ever, in the process, and with additional errors made in
copying and printing, completely wrong attributions
of historical data have been made. Urbach was the fi rst
to call attention to this fact, and a new and much better
organized edition, on the basis of manuscript material,
was published in 1994.
Asher was asked his opinion on many problems aris-
ing from accepted local practices in. Spain that were
often foreign to his native, German, way of life, and to
which he had to habituate himself or ruthlessly resist
if he wished to be obeyed. One of the secrets of his great
success in winning his way in Castile was his insight
and judgment as to when a struggle was important and
worth the effort and when to yield or keep quiet and
adopt a neutral stand. As an example, in Spain shemi-
t.at kesafi m, the remission of debts every seventh year,
was not practiced. Asher tried hard to change this but
had to admit failure, and he therefore refused to handle
problems arising from such debts. Another example
is the law of yiybbum, levirate marriage (Deut. 25.5-
10). This was practically annulled in Germany, and the
yavam was forced to give .h aliy.s ah to his sister-in-law.
Spain followed Maimonides’ ruling that yiybbum was
always preferable, even when it was clear that the
woman was justifi ed in refusing to cooperate. In this
case, Asher was far less tolerant. More important
than these specific cases of divergence in legal
tradition was the essential problem of whether it
was permissible, and at all possible, to mix philo-
sophic, abstract logical, linguistic, and general
juristic considerations in the process of deciding
Jewish law. The procedure was quite acceptable within
the Spanish tradition, but extremely foreign to German
ASHER B.YE HIEL.