Halachot Pesukot

Halachot Pesukot is a rabbinic work written by Yehudai Gaon in the geonic era, containing chapters on common Jewish halachic themes. The work was compiled in the 8th-century and is written in Aramaic, and follows the format of Halachot Gedolot which antedates it by about 20 years.

Editions

In 1886, A.L. Schlossberg published in Versailles an edition of Halachot Pesukot which he based on the Oxford Ms. In 1911, David Solomon Sassoon purchased a handwritten manuscript of Halachot Pesukot while visiting Yemen, and which, based on its style, appears to have been written in Babylon or Persia in the ninth or tenth century. A description of the manuscript is found in Sassoon's Ohel Dawid catalogue. The Ms. was first published by his son, Solomon David Sassoon, in 1951, and has been published several times since then by other editors.

Schlossberg's edition, which he prepared from the Oxford Ms., differs slightly from the Sassoon Ms. of Halachot Pesukot. Schlossberg's edition contains 3 additional halakhic discourses on Megillah (מגילה‎), Hanukkah (חנוכה‎), and Libation wine (יין נסך‎), which three themes do not appear in Sassoon's copy. Conversely, Sassoon's copy contains 2 additions not found in Schlossberg's edition, such as Berakhot [= Benedictions] (ברכות‎) and the Defects of slaughtered animals in the Land of Israel (טרפיות דארץ ישראל‎).