ר׳ יצחק עראמה

ר׳ יצחק בן משה עראמה (c.1420–1494), best known as the עקדת יצחק, was a Spanish rabbi, preacher and philosophical biblical commentator. His earliest recorded office was as head of an academy at Zamora. He subsequently became rabbi and communal preacher at Tarragona, where he answered Christian conversionist sermons by presenting Judaism’s intellectual claims publicly. He next served at Fraga and finally at Calatayud, leading its academy and rabbinical court. His weekly discourses joined close biblical reading, midrash, philosophy and moral instruction; revised and expanded, they became the 105 thematic “gates” of עקדת יצחק. The work places revealed Torah above autonomous philosophy while treating reason as an important instrument of interpretation, and it became a major bridge between medieval Jewish philosophy and later homiletical commentary. He also wrote חזות קשה, a critique of philosophical overreach, and commentaries connected with the Five Scrolls and Proverbs. The expulsion of 1492 ended his long Aragonese career. He left Spain and settled in Naples, where he died about two years later. His son ר׳ מאיר עראמה preserved biographical information and continued the family’s exegetical activity.