Comtino, Rabbi Mordecai ben Eliezer (592 words) Yaron Ayalon Mordecai ben Eliezer Comtino (1402–1482) was a rabbi, philologist, philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician. Born in Constantinople, he studied under Hanoch Saporta, a distinguished Catalonian rabbi, and was greatly influenced by Sephardic culture and tradition even though he himself was a Romaniot or perhaps even of French origin. He left Constantinople in the early 1450s on the pretext of a plague epidemic and settled for a while in Edirne (Adrianople). He returned to the new Ottoman capital sometime after the conquest (May 29, 1453), and remained there until his death. In his teachings, Comtino emphasized the importance of general knowledge and Hebrew, arguing that without a broad secular education, it made no sense to study religion, the Bible, and the Talmud. Comtino’s efforts to spread religious and secular knowledge did not distinguish between Jews of different origins and traditions. Although the Rabbanites and Karaitesoften fiercely disputed with one another, Comtino, a Rabbanite, did not hesitate to surround himself with Karaite students in Edirne and later also in Istanbul. He was known as a rabbi who often facilitated contacts between Karaite and Rabbanite congregations. In both cities, Comtino also maintained ties with leading members of the local Christian and Muslim communities, and it is possible that some non-Jews studied with him. Jean-Christophe Attias describes Comtino as a member of the last generation of Ottoman Jewry before the expulsion from Spain—an event that totally transformed the Empire’s Jewish community. Comtino was open to the broad range of Jewish traditions and left his imprint on students of diverse backgrounds. Among them were many Byzantine Jews, but also some Ashkenazim and Sephardim. They included Isaac Ṣarfati, later a prominent Ashkenazi rabbi and most likely the author of the famous letter inviting the Jews of Europe to immigrate to the Ottoman realm; and Joseph ibn Shem Tov, a Sephardi. According to Attias, in the years before the arrival of the major wave of Sephardim after the expulsion, Istanbul was the scene of an ongoing open dialogue between Jewish groups in which the Karaites played an active part. This was possible because of the relatively lax approach of Byzantine Rabbanite Jewry, which did not favor contacts with Karaites, but allowed its intelligentsia to maintain scholarly ties with them. Comtino was a member of the intellectual circles that interacted with Karaites and debated scientific as well as religious issues with them. With the passing of Comtino’s generation and the Sephardization of Ottoman Jewry, encounters between Rabbanites and Karaites were reduced to the necessary minimum. Comtino wrote numerous religious and nonreligious works, including tracts on arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, and commentaries on classical Greek authors, Maimonides, and Abraham ibn Ezra (d. ca. 1167), two authors he truly admired and yet often criticized. Almost all of his works have been preserved only in manuscript. His Kelil Yofi (Crown of Beauty), a commentary on the Pentateuch, was completed in Istanbul around 1460. Two of his commentaries on Maimonides have been published: Be’ur Millot ha-Higgayon (An Elucidation of Logical Semantics; Warsaw, 1865; Berlin, 1927/28 ) and Be’ur Mele’khet ha-Higgayon (An Elucidation of Logical Syntax; Kiryat Ono, 1997). A selection of his writings also appeared as Liqquṭim mi-Sifre ha-RaM Komtino (A Florilegium from the Writings of R. Mordechai Comtino; St. Petersburg, 1866). Yaron Ayalon Bibliography Attias, Jean-Christophe. Le Commentaire Biblique: Mordekhai Komtino ou l’Herméneutique du Dialogue (Paris: Cerf, 1991). Rosanes, Salomon A. Divre Yeme Yisraʾel be-Togarma: ʿAl-pi Meqorot Rishonim (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1930), vol. 1, pp. 25–32. Zinberg, Israel. Toldot Sifrut Yisra’el (Tel Aviv: Shreberq, 1958), vol. 3, pp. 16–24. Cite this page Yaron Ayalon. Comtino, Rabbi Mordecai ben Eliezer. Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Brill Online, 2014. Reference. National Library of Israel. 02 March 2014
Posted on: Sun, 02 Mar 2014 22:49:47 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015