Saadia Gaon

(Saadia ben Joseph, Said al-Fayyumi)

(882–942)

   Saadia ben Joseph, known as Saadia Gaon, was a medieval Jewish scholar, philosopher, and polemicist, whose rational defense of the Jewish faith at a time of skepticism and doubt made him the father of medieval Jewish philosophy.Using the methods of rationalist Muslim theologians, Saadia’s great work The BOOK OF DOCTRINES AND BELIEFS (Kitāb al-‘Amānāt wa-al-I’tiq ādāt, Sefer ha-Emunot weha-De’ot) became the basis for all subsequent Jewish philosophy.

   Saadia was born in Egypt, where he received his early training. Later he moved to Palestine to continue his education.When a controversy broke out between the Palestinian and Babylonian Jewish authorities concerning the Jewish calendar, Saadia argued vigorously for the Babylonian side. His arguments carried the day and essentially ensured that control over Jewish life would rest with the Babylonians. Saadia was appointed head, or gaon, of the rabbinical school at Sura near Baghdad in 928, and under his leadership the school became the premier academy in the Jewish world. He suffered a setback in his public life in 930, when he declined to support a judgment coming from the court of the exilarch, David ben Zakkai, who was the secular head of the Jewish people in Babylon. Saadia questioned the honesty of the decision, and as a result, he lost his position at Sura and, for seven years, lived in Baghdad as an exile. Even without his post, Saadia was still universally considered the most important authority in the Jewish world on matters of Talmud and Jewish law. He also continued to write, completing his major philosophical work by about 933. He was finally reconciled with the exilarch and restored to his post in 937, but he held it for only five more years, dying, according to his son Dosa, of “melancholia” after a series of illnesses.

   Saadia’s contributions to Jewish letters are myriad and significant. Early in his career, he composed the Agron (Collection), the first Hebrew dictionary,which was to become the foundation of all subsequent Hebrew lexicography.He also wrote a book of Hebrew grammar. Recognizing that his fellow Jews were becoming more and more assimilated into the majority Muslim culture of his time and place, Saadia made the first translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Arabic, with his own commentary. He put together the first comprehensive and systematic Siddur, or prayer book, including the ritual Hebrew prayers for weekdays, festivals, and sabbaths, and also including Saadia’s own liturgical poetry plus his own commentary in Arabic. He also wrote a number of treatises on problems of Jewish law, as well as a commentary on the mystical work called Sefer Yetzirah, which he tried to make more accessible by applying a rational and philosophical approach to the text. The Book of Doctrines and Beliefs is undoubtedly his greatest work.

   For many scholars Saadia’s most important contribution to Judaism is his lengthy and heated polemical battle against the Karaite sect. The Karaites accepted the Hebrew Scriptures, but refused to accept the teachings of rabbinical authorities, and so denied the authority of the Talmud. Only the Torah comes from God, the Karaites claimed—the Talmud was the work of men. In books, letters, and articles written in Arabic, Saadia defended the traditional view that the Talmud was the oral Torah, given by God at Sinai but not written until hundreds of years later in the Babylonian academies.While the Karaites launched their own counterattacks, armed with poorer philosophical training and less fluent Arabic, their arguments were far less effective, and ultimately Saadia, more than anyone else, was responsible for the defeat and decline of the Karaites.

   It is impossible to overestimate the importance of Saadia’s contribution to Jewish thought and culture. Reemphasizing Jewish life and belief at a crucial moment in the history of the faith, Saadia established the foundations for the future direction of Jewish thought. The greatest of Jewish philosophers, Maimonides himself, said that if it had not been for Saadia, “Torah would have been forgotten in Israel.”

   Bibliography

   ■ Efros, Israel Isaac. Studies in Medieval Jewish Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974.

   ■ Helm, Paul, ed. Referring to God: Jewish and Christian Philosophical and Theological Perspectives. New York: St.Martin’s Press, 2000.

   ■ Hyman,Arthur, and James J.Walsh, eds. Philosophy in the Middle Ages: The Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Traditions. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983.

   ■ Rosenthal, Erwin I. J., ed. Saadya Studies. New York: Arno Press, 1980.

   ■ Saadia Gaon. The Book of Beliefs and Opinions. Translated by Samuel Rosenblatt. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1948.

   ■ ———.The Book of Doctrines and Beliefs. Translated by Alexander Altman. Abridged. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002.

   ■ Skoss, Solomon Leon. Saadia Gaon: Earliest Hebrew Grammarian. Philadelphia: Dropsie College Press, 1955.