While the Jews of Spain wrote numerous religious works in Arabic, most famously perhaps Judah Halevi’s philosophical magnum opus The Kuzari, they generally wrote their studies of Jewish law in Hebrew. An exception is The Comprehensive Book (Kitāb al-Hāwī), composed by David ben Sa’adya al-Ger and possibly the oldest halakhic compendium produced in Iberia. For centuries, it was known to scholars because it was cited by other works, but no manuscript or printed edition was available. Marc Herman describes a newly published version:

Pieced together from Genizah fragments, other manuscripts, and citations in later medieval works, and comprising much of the original text, this new edition of Kitāb al-Hāwī recovers a once-prominent halakhist who fell into obscurity in the centuries after his death.

Next to nothing is known with certainty about the life of David ben Sa’adya, author of the Kitāb al-Hāwī and other halakhic works. David’s period of activity can be fixed sometime after the death of [the great Iraqi rabbi] Hayya Gaon (d. 1038), whom David cited with some frequency, and before the death of Isaac Ibn al-Bālīya (d. 1094), who mentioned David as deceased.

David ben Sa’adya composed several works. In addition to the Kitāb al-Hāwī, written in a mixture of Judeo-Arabic and Aramaic, they include Judeo-Arabic volumes on the laws of oaths and on the laws of bequests, as well as commentaries on the Talmud and, according to Rabbi Abrama Ibn Ezra, a work on Hebrew grammar. Of these additional writings, only the one on the laws of oaths survives.

Below, today’s newsletter will return to some other reflections on the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of the current war, but first something must be said of its recent progress. Israel has kept up its aerial and ground assault on Hizballah, and may have already killed the successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader it eliminated less than two weeks ago. Matthew Levitt assesses the current state of the Lebanon-based terrorist group, which, in his view, is now “a shadow of its former self.” Indeed, he adds,

it is no exaggeration to say that the Hizballah of two weeks ago no longer exists. And since Hizballah was the backbone of Iran’s network of militant proxies, its so-called axis of resistance, Iran’s strategy of arming and deploying proxy groups throughout the region is suddenly at risk as well.

Hizballah’s attacks put increasing pressure on Israel, as intended, only that pressure did not lead Israelis to stop targeting Hamas so much as it chipped away at Israel’s fears about the cost of military action to address the military threats posed by Hizballah.

At the same time, Levitt explains, Hizballah still poses a serious threat, as it demonstrated last night when its missiles struck Haifa and Tiberias, injuring at least two people:

Hizballah still maintains an arsenal of rockets and a cadre of several thousand fighters. It will continue to pose potent military threats for Israel, Lebanon, and the wider region.

How will the group seek to avenge Nasrallah’s death amid these military setbacks? Hizballah is likely to resort to acts of international terrorism, which are overseen by one of the few elements of the group that has not yet lost key leaders.

But the true measure of whether the group will be able to reconstitute itself, even over many years, is whether Iran can restock Hizballah’s sophisticated arsenal. Tehran’s network of proxy groups—from Hizballah to Hamas to the Houthis—is only as dangerous as it is today because of Iran’s provision of weapons and money. Whatever Hizballah does next, Western governments must prioritize cutting off Tehran’s ability to arm and fund its proxies.