הרא״ש

The Rosh, Rabbi Asher ben Yechiel, is the living bridge between Ashkenaz and Spain, who carried the Torah of the Tosafists on his back from Germany to Toledo. He grew up in the world of the Tosafot in Ashkenaz, the foremost disciple of the Maharam of Rothenburg, and when the persecutions in Europe intensified he fled to Spain, and there was received as chief rabbi, and in him the two great traditions met.

His work 'Piskei HaRosh' is one of the three pillars of law on which Rabbi Yosef Karo built the Beit Yosef, alongside the Rif and Maimonides. He not only distilled law but brought with him the analytical method of the Tosafists, and in this fertilized Spanish Jewry with the depth of Ashkenazi dialectic.

Tradition tells that his teacher the Maharam was imprisoned by the emperor, and the Rosh devoted himself to his redemption. And when he himself was persecuted, he did not give up his Torah but carried it in his exile. His son, the Baal HaTurim, continued his way and arranged the law in four columns, so that the father's enterprise continued in the son.

What do we learn from him? That one can carry a whole tradition on one's back and transfer it from a persecuted place to a new one, without losing a drop. The Rosh teaches that exile itself can be a path of cross-fertilization, when a sage carries the treasure of his community to another community, and joins worlds that had not met.