ר׳ מאיר בן טודרוס הלוי אבולעפיה

ר׳ מאיר בן טודרוס הלוי אבולעפיה, commonly known by the acronym הרמ״ה, was a leading Castilian Talmudist, communal judge, Masoretic scholar, poet, and head of a Toledo academy in the first half of the thirteenth century. Born into the prominent Abulafia family—probably at Burgos—he moved with his father, ר׳ טודרוס בן יהודה הלוי אבולעפיה, to Toledo, where his mature public and scholarly career was centered. By roughly his mid-thirties he served as one of Toledo’s three dayyanim and led a yeshiva; after his father’s death in 1225 he inherited the communal honorific nasi. His unfinished Talmud commentary, פרטי פרטין, is generally called יד רמה. Substantial portions survive on Bava Batra and Sanhedrin, alongside material on Kiddushin and fragments on Gittin. He also produced מסורת סייג לתורה, an important Masoretic work concerned especially with the accurate consonantal text, plene and defective spellings, and scribal form of the Torah. Around 1202 he initiated an early controversy over formulations in ר׳ משה בן מימון’s writings, sending objections concerning resurrection and rabbinic aggadah to the sages of Lunel. Although the appeal initially found little support and provoked a sharp reply from ר׳ אהרן בן משולם, he later declined to join the renewed anti-Maimonidean campaign. This combination of vigorous disagreement and eventual restraint is central to his intellectual biography. He remained closely associated with Toledo until his death in 1244, though reference works disagree over whether he died there or at Burgos.