* Nahmanides, the Ramban

; 1267: Nahmanides ( Ramban ) settles in Jerusalem and builds the Ramban Synagogue.

Nahmanides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman Girondi, Bonastruc ça ( de ) Porta and by his acronym Ramban ( 1194 – 1270 ), was a leading medieval Jewish scholar, Catalan rabbi, philosopher, physician, kabbalist, and biblical commentator.

* Nahmanides, Moshe ben Nahman, ( Ramban ), 13th century Spanish and Holy Land mystic and Talmudist

Rabbis who believed in the idea of reincarnation include, from Medieval times: the mystical leaders Nahmanides ( the Ramban ) and Rabbenu Bahya ben Asher ; from the 16th-century: Levi ibn Habib ( the Ralbah ), and from the mystical school of Safed Shelomoh Alkabez, Isaac Luria ( the Ari ) and his exponent Hayyim Vital ; and from the 18th-century: the founder of Hasidism Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, later Hasidic Masters, and the Lithuanian Jewish Orthodox leader and Kabbalist the Vilna Gaon.

Unlike the latter, Bahya did not devote his attention to Talmudic science, but to Biblical exegesis, taking for his model Rabbi Moses ben Nahman who is known as Nahmanides or Ramban, the teacher of Rabbi Solomon ben Adret, who was the first to make use of the Kabbalah as a means of interpreting the Torah.

His brother was Bonastruc ça ( de ) Porta, Nahmanides, ( in Hebrew Ramban ), also known as Rabbi Moses ben Nahman Girondi.

The great Torah scholar, commentator and kabbalist, Nachmanides ( Ramban 1195-1270 ), attributed Job's suffering to reincarnation, as hinted in Job's saying " God does all these things twice or three times with a man, to bring back his soul from the pit to ... the light of the living ' ( Job 33: 29, 30 ).

Reincarnation is cited by authoritative biblical commentators, including Ramban ( Nachmanides ), Menachem Recanti and Rabbenu Bachya.

Among these are the commentaries of Nachmanides ( Ramban ), Solomon ben Adret ( Rashba ), Yom Tov of Seville ( Ritva ) and Nissim of Gerona ( Ran ).

* Ramban ( Jammu and Kashmir ), town in Jammu

lad: Moshe ben Nahman ( Ramban )

In 1488, Obadiah ben Abraham described a large courtyard containing many houses for exclusive use of the Ashkenazim, adjacent to a " synagogue built on pillars ," referring to the Ramban Synagogue.

Although the Book of Wisdom is non-canonical in the Rabbinical Jewish tradition, the work was at least known to medieval Jews, as Rabbi Moses ben Nachman ( Ramban ) attests.

Elaborating on this theme are numerous early and late Jewish scholars, including the Ramban, Isaac Abrabanel, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Rabbeinu Bachya, the Vilna Gaon, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Ramchal, Aryeh Kaplan, and Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis.

He is considered the " father " of all commentaries that followed on the Talmud ( i. e., the Baalei Tosafot ) and the Tanakh ( i. e., Ramban, Ibn Ezra, Ohr HaChaim, et al.

Like the commentaries of Ramban and the others, these are generally printed as independent works, though some Talmud editions include the Shittah Mekubbetzet in an abbreviated form.

# He cites a document from R ' Yitchok M ' Acco who was sent by the Ramban to investigate the Zohar.

In 2006, a study by Doron Behar and Karl Skorecki of the Technion and Ramban Medical Center in Haifa, Israel demonstrated that the vast majority of Ashkenazi Jews, both men and women, have Middle Eastern ancestry.

Dr. David Goldstein, a Duke University geneticist and director of the Duke Center for Human Genome Variation, has noted that the Technion and Ramban team confirmed that genetic drift played a major role in shaping Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA, therefore mtDNA studies fail to draw a statistically significant linkage between modern Jews and Middle Eastern populations, however, this differs from the patrilineal case, where Dr. Goldstein said there is no question of a Middle Eastern origin.

The establishment of Seminary and the rise of Pulikootil Joseph Ramban who was in charge of it weakened the prestige and power of the Mar Thoma considerably.

The rise of Pulikottil Joseph Ramban changed this and the people identified him as their new leader.

The debate was initiated by an apostate rabbinic Jew, Pablo Christiani, who had been sent by the Dominican Master General, Raymond de Penyafort, to King James I of Aragon, with the request that the king order Ramban to respond to charges against Judaism.

Ramban answered the order of the King, but asked that complete freedom of speech should be granted.

There he established a synagogue in the Old City that exists until present day, known as the Ramban Synagogue.

Other traditions hold that a rock-hewn cave, called the Cave of the Ramban in Jerusalem, is the Ramban's final resting place.

By the time he was 8 years old he wrote an all inclusive commentary on the Chumash based on the works of Rashi, the Ramban and Eben Ezra.

Supporting and elaborating on this theme are numerous early and late Jewish scholars, including the Ramban, Isaac Abrabanel, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Rabbeinu Bachya, the Vilna Gaon, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Ramchal, Aryeh Kaplan and Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis.

The contrary view ( that Keturah was someone other than Hagar ) is advocated by Rashbam, Abraham ibn Ezra, Radak, and Ramban.

In the Old City he established the Ramban Synagogue, the second oldest active synagogue in Jerusalem, after that of the Karaite Jews built about 300 years earlier.

The most important writers are Yose ben Yoseh, probably in the 6th century, chiefly known for his compositions for Yom Kippur ; Eleazar Kalir, the founder of the payyetanic style, perhaps in the 7th century ; Saadia Gaon ; and the Spanish school, consisting of Joseph ibn Abitur ( died in 970 ), ibn Gabirol, Isaac Gayyath, Moses ibn Ezra, Abraham ibn Ezra and Judah ha-Levi, Moses ben Nahman ( Nahmanides ) and Isaac Luria.

The intermediate level, iyyun ( concentration ), consists of study with the help of commentaries such as Rashi and the Tosafot, similar to that practised among the Ashkenazim ( historically Sephardim studied the Tosefot ha-Rosh and the commentaries of Nahmanides in preference to the printed Tosafot ).

Although Hirsch does not mention his influences ( apart from traditional Jewish sources ), later authors have identified ideas from the Kuzari ( Yehuda Halevi ), Nahmanides and the Maharal of Prague in his works.

However, since Alfasi and Maimonides generally agree, the overall result was overwhelmingly Sephardi in flavour, though in a number of cases Caro set the result of this consensus aside and ruled in favour of the Catalonian school ( Nahmanides and Solomon ben Adret ), some of whose opinions had Ashkenazi origins.

Other Rishonim, namely Rabbi Jacob ben Meir ( Rabbeinu Tam ), Nahmanides, and Jehiel ben Joseph of Paris explicitly repudiated the equation of the Yeshu of the Talmud and Jesus.

This discrepancy has been noted since the time of the medieval commentators, leading some to seek a reconciliatory model ( i. e. Hezekiah bar Manoah ), while others have proposed two separate sites being identified as Kadesh ( i. e. Abraham ibn Ezra & Nahmanides ).

Other Jewish thinkers, such as Nahmanides, Samuel ben Uri Shraga Phoebus, and Jacob Emden, strongly object to the idea that concubines should be forbidden.

The successors of Maimonides, from the 13th to the 15th century — Nahmanides, Abba Mari ben Moses, Simon ben Zemah Duran, Joseph Albo, Isaac Arama, and Joseph Jaabez — narrowed his 13 articles to three core beliefs: Belief in God ; in Creation ( or revelation ); and in providence ( or retribution ).

Nahmanides ' known halakhic works are: " Mishpetei ha-Cherem ," the laws concerning excommunication, reproduced in " Kol Bo "; " Hilkhot Bedikkah ," on the examination of the lungs of slaughtered animals, cited by Shimshon ben Tzemach Duran in his " Yavin Shemu ' ah "; " Torat ha-Adam ," on the laws of mourning and burial ceremonies, in thirty chapters, the last of which, entitled " Sha ' ar ha-Gemul ," deals with eschatology ( Constantinople, 1519, and frequently reprinted ).

The Tosafot were also used by the scholars of the Catalonian school, such as Nahmanides and Solomon ben Adret, who were also noted for their interest in Kabbalah.

For a while, Spain was divided between the schools: in Catalonia the rulings of Nahmanides and ben Adret were accepted, in Castile those of the Asher family and in Valencia those of Maimonides.

During the Disputation of Paris, 1240, and Disputation of Barcelona 1263, references to Jesus in the Talmud became a pretext for Christian persecution and Jehiel ben Joseph in Paris, Nahmanides in Barcelona, defended the Jewish community from Christian inquisitors by denying that the " Yeshu " passages had anything to do with Christianity.

The Shittah contains expositions of the Talmud taken from the works of the Spaniards Nahmanides, ben Adret, and Yom-Tov of Seville, and from those of the Frenchmen Abraham ben David, Baruch ben Samuel, Isaac of Chinon, etc.

Nahmanides, in his commentary on the Torah, ( Genesis 1 ) is one of the first to quote the work under the title Midrash R. Nehunya ben HaKanah.

Another work of Bahye, also published frequently, and in the first Mantua edition of 1514 erroneously ascribed to Rabbi Moses ben Nahman, Nahmanides, bears the title of Shulkhan Arba (" Table Four ").

Other Jewish thinkers, such as Nahmanides, Samuel ben Uri Shraga Phoebus, and Jacob Emden, strongly object to the idea that concubines should be forbidden.