Works
Gerondi left many works, of which only a few have been preserved. The Hiddushim to Alfasi on Berakot which are ascribed to "Rabbenu Yonah" were in reality written in Gerondi's name by one, if not several, of his pupils. The Ḥiddushim originally covered the entire work of Alfasi, but only the portion mentioned has been preserved. Gerondi wrote novellæ on the Talmud, which are often mentioned in the responsa and decisions of his pupil Solomon Aderet and of other great rabbis, and some of which are incorporated in the Shiṭṭah Mekubbeẓet of R. Bezalel Ashkenazi. Azulai had in his possession Gerondi's novellæ on the tractates Baba Batra and Sanhedrin, in manuscript (Shem ha-Gedolim, p. 75, vilna, 1852). His novellæ on the first-named tractate have since been published under the name Aliyot de-Rabbenu Yonah while those on the last-named tractate form part of the collection of commentaries on the Talmud by ancient authors published by Abraham ben Eliezer ha-Levi under the title Sam Ḥayyim (Livorno, 1806; see Benjacob, Oẓar ha-Sefarim, p. 422). His commentary on Pirke Avot was first published by Simḥah Dolitzki of Byelostok (Berlin and Altona, 1848) and was translated into English for the first time by Rabbi David Sedley of TorahLab. The work Issur ve-Heter is wrongly attributed to Gerondi. A commentary by him on Proverbs, which is very highly praised (see Bahya ben Asher's preface to his commentary on the Pentateuch), exists in manuscript. Among other minor unpublished works known to be his are Megillat Sefarim, Hilkot Ḥanukkah and Hilkot Yom Kippur.
But the fame of Gerondi chiefly rests on his moral and ascetic works, which, it is surmised, he wrote to atone for his earlier attacks on Maimonides and to emphasize his repentance. His Iggeret ha-Teshuvah, Shaare Teshuvah, and Sefer ha-Yir'ah belong to the standard Jewish ethical works of the Middle Ages, and are still popular among Orthodox Jewish scholars. The Sefer ha-Yir'ah was published as early as 1490, as an appendix to Yeshu'ah ben Joseph's Halikot 'Olam. The Shaare Teshuvah first appeared in Fano (1505) with the Sefer ha-Yirah, while the Iggeret ha-Teshuvah was first published in Cracow (1586). All have been reprinted many times, separately and together, as well as numerous extracts from them; and they have been translated into Judæo-German and English. A part of the Iggeret ha-Teshuvah (sermon 3) first appeared, under the name Dat ha-Nashim, in Solomon Alami's Iggeret Musar. For an estimate of Gerondi's ethical works and his partial indebtedness to the Sefer Hasidim see Zur Geschichte der Jüdisch-Ethischen Literatur des Mittelalters. He is also supposed to be mentioned, under the name of "R. Jonah," five times in the Tosafot.
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Famous quotes containing the word works:
“That man’s best works should be such bungling imitations of Nature’s infinite perfection, matters not much; but that he should make himself an imitation, this is the fact which Nature moans over, and deprecates beseechingly. Be spontaneous, be truthful, be free, and thus be individuals! is the song she sings through warbling birds, and whispering pines, and roaring waves, and screeching winds.”
—Lydia M. Child (1802–1880)
“The slightest living thing answers a deeper need than all the works of man because it is transitory. It has an evanescence of life, or growth, or change: it passes, as we do, from one stage to the another, from darkness to darkness, into a distance where we, too, vanish out of sight. A work of art is static; and its value and its weakness lie in being so: but the tuft of grass and the clouds above it belong to our own travelling brotherhood.”
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“Through the din and desultoriness of noon, even in the most Oriental city, is seen the fresh and primitive and savage nature, in which Scythians and Ethiopians and Indians dwell. What is echo, what are light and shade, day and night, ocean and stars, earthquake and eclipse, there? The works of man are everywhere swallowed up in the immensity of nature. The AEgean Sea is but Lake Huron still to the Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)