The Torah Atlas

person · P0240

Yaakov ben Asher (the Tur) רבי יעקב בן אשר

Son and student of the Rosh, with whom he moved from Germany to Toledo. His Arba'ah Turim reorganized all practical halakha into four divisions — Orach Chaim, Yoreh De'ah, Even HaEzer, Choshen Mishpat — a structure so definitive that the Beit Yosef and Shulchan Aruch were built directly upon it, and codes follow it to this day.

I. Who

Hebrew
רבי יעקב בן אשר
Also known as
Baal HaTurim
Era
rishonim
Received the mesorah from
The Rosh
Parents
The Rosh

II. When

Traditional
c. 5029–5103 AM
Academic
c. 1269–1343 CE
Lifespan (traditional)
≈74 years
Precision
approximate

III. Where

Places
Toledo

V. How do we know

ClaimEvidenceConfidenceSources
He received from his father the Rosh, whose rulings he cites on nearly every page as "my father, my master" (א"א ז"ל) — the Tur is in large measure the Rosh's halakha arranged for use. tradition ★★★★☆
The Arba'ah Turim's opening — Yehudah ben Teima's "be bold as a leopard... to do the will of your Father in heaven" — sets the code's program of waking to divine service; its four-part structure became the fixed skeleton of subsequent halakhic codification. rabbinic ★★★★★
Son of Asher ben Yechiel; born at Cologne c. 1269 and emigrated with his father's household to Castile in the first decade of the fourteenth century. rabbinic tradition ★★★★☆
  • Arba'ah Turim, author's introduction; Sefer Yuchasin
Lived in straitened circumstances at Toledo and did not hold his father's communal office.
Frequently repeated; the research pass found no primary source and have kept confidence low deliberately.
tradition ★★☆☆☆
  • Castilian rabbinic chronologies and later biographical notices
Also wrote a full Torah commentary; the short gematria-and-remez notes printed in many Chumashim under the name 'Baal HaTurim' are an abridgement of its introductory material, not the commentary itself.
A common misattribution worth recording as a bibliographic fact.
rabbinic ★★★★☆
  • Peirush Baal HaTurim al HaTorah, and the fuller Peirush HaTur HaAroch
Died c. 1340–1343 CE.
Date and place both uncertain; see open questions.
tradition ★★☆☆☆
  • Sefer Yuchasin; Castilian rabbinic chronologies