Sheshet Benveniste
(b. 1131; d. 1205-1209)

In the first years of the thirteenth century, the Jewish writer, Judah al-Harizi in his description of Barcelona mentioned that, "it was the home [moshav] of our lord, our gaon, the leader of the nesi'im, who was renowned from the west to the east, Rabbenu Sheshet, pillar of the world, and foundation of all the pious/sages, may the memory of the righteous be a blessing." Forty years earlier, Benjamin of Tudela had also noted Sheshet among Barcelona's most prominent Jews.

Sheshet was a physician, literate in Arabic and Hebrew, and a philosophical rationalist. His full name was Sheshet b. Isaac b. Joseph ibn Benvenist, but he is best known as Sheshet Benveniste. Baer long ago identified him with Perfet Alfaquim, an important figure at the court of Alfonso I and Peter I. Either he or his family originated in Zaragoza. If he himself was born and raised in Zaragoza, he would have been educated in the early years of Christian rule of that city. Whatever his origins, by the 1160s he was already associated with the community of Barcelona.

Sheshet Benveniste was praised by others besides Al-Harizi for his qualities of leadership as well as for his moral and intellectual qualities. Joseph b. Meir ibn Zabara dedicated his Sefer haSha'ashuim to him. In the last chapter of the book, the narrator describes Sheshet as: "a man in whom is the spirit of God, and who has the wisdom of God in his midst, the elite of creation, beloved of the universe, a man of wisdom and understanding, a master of love and faith . . a great leader in Israel, faithful with the holy ones." The translator Judah ibn Tibbon wrote to his son that "in this country [Catalunya and Southern France] too, as well as in the kingdom of Ishmael, the Nasi, R. Shesheth, acquired wealth and honor through his Arabic. By means of it, he paid his debts, met all his expenditure and made splendid gifts."

Sheshet is known from his own writings, including the letter which he wrote to the scholars of Lunel in defense of Maimonides, in which he took the extreme position attacking bodily resurrection. Sheshet's intellectual preferences seem to have been for the philosophical rather than the Talmudic traditions. In his intellectual preferences as well as the breadth of his interests, he exemplifies the qualities of the Jewish aristocrat of al-Andalus.