Halachot Pesukot

Halachot Pesukot (Hebrew: הלכות פסוקות) is a condensed 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.

Authorship

While the work is generally attributed to Gaon, some scholars disagree that he wrote the work, and attribute scholarship to Rabbi Exilarch Natronai Bar Habibai Nasi.

Editions

In 1886, A.L. Schlossberg published in Versailles an edition of Halachot Pesukot which he based on the Oxford Manuscript. In 1911, David Solomon Sassoon purchased a handwritten manuscript of the work while visiting Yemen, 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 manuscript 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 Manuscript, differs slightly from the Sassoon Manuscript version. Schlossberg's edition contains 3 additional halakhic discourses on Megillah, Hanukkah, and Kosher wine, which do not appear in Sassoon's copy. Conversely, Sassoon's copy contains 2 additions not found in Schlossberg's edition: Berakhot and the Defects of slaughtered animals in the Land of Israel.