Background
He was born to a leading Jewish family of Aragon and spent his entire life in Barcelona.
He was born to a leading Jewish family of Aragon and spent his entire life in Barcelona.
Aderet was actively involved in the intellectual disputes of his day. One of these raged between Jewish advocates of the teaching of science and philosophy and those who sought to ban such studies. Those in southern France supporting the latter view had ruled that Jews could not pursue secular studies until they reached the age of thirty.
After three years of correspondence, Aderet issued his ruling. This reduced the minimum age for the study of physics and metaphysics to twenty-five and abolished the restriction altogether for astronomy and medicine.
He also permitted Jews to read the works of Moses Maimonides and other Jewish philosophers whose writings had created a furor in many circles because ol their rationalist tendencies.
Aderet engaged in polemics with both Christianity and Islam. He attacked the book Pugio ftdei (“Dagger of Faith”) by the Spanish Dominican Raymund Martini, which sought to prove the truth of Christianity from Jewish sources. Aderet in his reply stressed the eternity of the Torah and the value of the practical commandments. Aderet not only argued with the Christians on paper but on at least one occasion participated in a public debate. He also wrote a refutation of the anti-Jewish works of the 11th century Spanish Moslem scholar, Ahmad ibn Hazm, in which he attacked the dogmas of Islam, especially the divine origin of the Koran.
He was famed throughout the Jewish world and questions on matters of Jewish law and learning were sent to him from many countries. His replies (responsa) were collected and thousands have survived.
His works on rabbinic literature were classics, studied by later scholars, especially his code Torat ha-Bayit (“Law of the House”).