Achai Gaon

Achai (Aha) of Shabha was a leading scholar at Pumbedita in the first half of the 700s. According to the Epistle of Sherira Gaon, when the post of Gaon fell vacant the Exilarch Solomon bar Hasdai passed him over and appointed his own student, Natronai. Achai, offended, left Babylonia and settled in the Land of Israel, where he died. So the title "Gaon" is a courtesy; he never held the office.

His fame rests on the She'iltot ("Questions"), the first book written by a known author after the Talmud. Its roughly 190 short discourses in Aramaic follow the weekly Torah portions. Each one opens with a practical legal question, works through the Talmudic sources, and mixes in aggadah, so the book may preserve real sermons. It was printed in Venice in 1546. In the 1800s the Netziv of Volozhin wrote a major commentary on it, Ha'amek She'elah.