Elijah ben Ḥayyim (ca. 1530–ca. 1610), known by the acronym Ra’anaḥ, was a halakhic authority of the Romaniot community. Originally from Adrianople (Edirne), he moved to Istanbul sometime between 1565 and 1575, and rose to become its chief rabbi. Ra’anaḥ carried on a wide correspondence with his rabbinic peers and wrote numerous responsa. He regularly delivered sermons, which have yielded a great deal of written homiletic material, and also produced commentaries on most of the tractates of the Talmud. Unfortunately, very little of this has surviv…