Rabbeinu Chananel רבנו חננאל

In the tenth and eleventh centuries Kairouan was a crossroads: answers came here from Babylonia and questions went out from here; Babylonian and Palestinian traditions met here. It was from Kairouan that Rabbi Jacob ben Nissim sent to Pumbedita the question that produced the Epistle of Rav Sherira.

Rabbeinu Chananel, son of Rabbi Chushiel, worked here. His commentary is built differently from the later Rashi: he does not explain word by word but retells how the discussion runs and sums up what follows from it in law. That method is closer to the geonic halakhot than to a school commentary.

He drew on both the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmud and often cites geonic responsa to which he had direct access; his text is therefore valuable as evidence of things we would otherwise not know.

In the Vilna edition of the Talmud his commentary is printed in the margins of a number of tractates — beside Rashi and the Tosafot.