Zechariah ha-Rofé

Zechariah ha-Rofé, or "Zechariah the physician" (Hebrew acronym: Harazah= הרז"ה), also known as Yiḥye al-Ṭabib, was a Yemenite Jewish scholar of the 15th-century, renowned for his authorship of the work, Midrash ha-Ḥefetz, a commentary and collection of homilies on the Five Books of Moses (Pentateuch) and on the readings from the Prophets which he began to write in 1430, and concluded some years later. The work is unique in that he incorporates therein Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy translated from Greek into Arabic, along with the teachings of Maimonides (1138–1204), and the philosophical notions expressed by Abu Nasr al-Farabi (c. 870–950), whom he cites in his work. The author makes use of three languages in his discourse, Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, and Aramaic, interchanging between them whenever he sees fit. All sections of the Judeo-Arabic texts have been translated into Hebrew by Meir Havazelet in his 1990–1992 revised editions of the work, to accommodate a largely Hebrew-speaking readership.

In later years, Zechariah ha-Rofé also wrote a commentary on his Midrash ha-Ḥefetz at the behest of one of his students, in an attempt to elucidate sections where the author had promised to expand more on the allegorical subjects he addressed but had failed to do so, calling it al-Durra al-Muntakhaba ("the Choice Pearl").

In nearly all of Zechariah ha-Rofé's works, he makes use of homilies, agadot and edifying stories drawn from other rabbinic sources, such as from the Midrash HaGadol and the Talmud, but which, in some cases, the sources are no longer known or extant. He also cites the names of certain rabbinic sages who are not named in other rabbinic literature, in addition to citing works that are no longer extant.

Background

At the time of the composition of Midrash ha-Ḥefetz, Zechariah lived in Masna'a Bani Qays, a small village in Yemen situated between San'a and Dhamar, although, originally, his paternal line hailed from the city of Dhamar. His birth-name is given as Yiḥye b.