Aboab, Isaac

ABOAB, ISAAC. - Rabbi who lived around 1300 in Spain. In his work Menôrâth ha-mâôr ("the candelabrum of lights"), he expounds in popular form the talmudic and midrashic passages concerning moral principles and duties, addressing himself "to young and old, learned and ignorant, men and women."

In seven chapters ("lights") A., following Saadjâ, divides the precepts of the Torâh into revealed and rational precepts. The former have as their purpose "to instill the right faith in the existence of the Creator," the latter serve "to ennoble our customs and to place the common good on solid foundations." A. is the first in Spain to have recourse to the aggadic sources in order to highlight their moral and educational value, and he reproaches his contemporaries for devoting too much care to talmudic casuistry while neglecting the aggadic part. At the time when philosophical studies were about to give way to cabalistic currents, A. on the one hand follows the rational biblical exegesis of Ibn Ezra and of Maimonides, on the other he finds in Sacred Scripture "mysteries and secret allusions of another kind that reach even to the infinite," thus following the mystical exegesis of Nahmanides; he also cites the cabalist Isaac ibn Latif. The purpose of earthly existence is to perfect oneself through study and good works. A.'s work had a long series of editions and was translated several times into German and Spanish.

Eugenio Zolli