Isaac ben Samuel the Elder (c. 1115 – c. 1184), also known as the Ri ha-Zaken (Hebrew: ר"י הזקן), was a French
tosafist and Biblical commentator. He flourished at
Ramerupt and
Dampierre,
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
in the twelfth century. He is the father of
Elhanan ben Isaac of Dampierre.
Biography
Through his mother he was a great-grandson of
Rashi
Shlomo Yitzchaki (; ; ; 13 July 1105) was a French rabbi who authored comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and Hebrew Bible. He is commonly known by the List of rabbis known by acronyms, Rabbinic acronym Rashi ().
Born in Troyes, Rashi stud ...
and through his father he was a grandson of
Simhah ben Samuel of Vitry. He was surnamed "ha-Zaḳen" (the elder) to distinguish him from another tosafist of the same name,
Isaac ben Abraham surnamed "ha-Baḥur" (the younger). He is often quoted as R. Isaac of Dampierre. but it seems that he lived first at
Ramerupt, where his maternal grandfather resided. It was also at Ramerupt that he studied under his uncle
Rabbeinu Tam
Jacob ben Meir (1100 – 9 June 1171 (4 Tammuz)), best known as Rabbeinu Tam (), was one of the most renowned Ashkenazi Jewish rabbis and leading French Tosafists, a leading '' halakhic'' authority in his generation, and a grandson of Rashi. K ...
after the latter had gone to
Troyes
Troyes () is a Communes of France, commune and the capital of the Departments of France, department of Aube in the Grand Est region of north-central France. It is located on the Seine river about south-east of Paris. Troyes is situated within ...
, Isaac b. Samuel directed his school.
Isaac settled at Dampierre later, and founded there a flourishing and well-attended school. It is said that he had sixty pupils, each of whom, besides being generally well grounded in
Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
, knew an entire treatise by heart, so that the whole Talmud was stored in the memories of his pupils. As he lived under
Philip Augustus, at whose hands the
Jews
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
suffered much, Isaac prohibited the buying of confiscated Jewish property, and ordered that any so bought be restored to its original owner. A particular interest attaches to one of his responsa, in which he relies on the oral testimony of his aunt, the wife of R. Isaac b. Meïr, and on that of the wife of R.
Eleazar of Worms, a great-granddaughter of Rashi.
He died, according to
Heinrich Graetz
Heinrich Graetz (; 31 October 1817 – 7 September 1891) was a German exegete and one of the first historians to write a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from a Jewish perspective.
Born Tzvi Hirsch Graetz to a butcher family in Xions (no ...
about 1200; according to
Henri Gross between 1185 and 1195; and as he is known to have reached an advanced age, Gross supposes that he was not born later than 1115. On the other hand, Michael says that as Isaac b. Samuel was spoken of as "the sainted master" a term generally given to
martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', 'witness' Word stem, stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In ...
s, he may have been killed at the same time as his son Elhanan (1184).
Tosafot
Isaac's tosafot completed the commentary of Rashi on the Talmud (
Romm included in his edition of the Talmud the commentary of
Abraham of Montpellier on Kiddushin, misidentified as Isaac's tosafot.). He also compiled and edited with great erudition all the preceding explanations to Rashi's commentary. His first collection was entitled ''Tosefot Yeshanim'', which, however, was afterward revised and developed. He is quoted on almost every page of the Tosafot, and in various works, especially in the ''Sefer ha-Terumah'' of his pupil
Baruch ben Isaac of Worms, and in the ''Or Zarua'' of
Isaac ben Moses.
Isaac is mentioned as a Biblical commentator by
Judah ben Eliezer, who quotes also a work of Isaac's entitled ''Yalkutei Midrash''; by
Isaac ha-Levi; by
Hezekiah ben Manoah in his ''Ḥazzeḳuni''; and in two other commentaries. Isaac is supposed to be the author also of several liturgical poems, of a piyyuṭ to the
hafṭarah, and of a piyyuṭ for
Purim
Purim (; , ) is a Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday that commemorates the saving of the Jews, Jewish people from Genocide, annihilation at the hands of an official of the Achaemenid Empire named Haman, as it is recounted in the Book of Esther (u ...
.
['' Machzor Vitry'', No. 255; compare Luzzatto in Berliner's ''Magazin'', v. 27, Hebr. part] The authorship of these piyyuṭim may, however, belong to the liturgical writer
Isaac ben Samuel of Narbonne.
References
* It has the following bibliography:
*
Azulai, Shem ha-Gedolim, i.;
*Heimann, Michael (1891) Or ha-Ḥayyim, Frankfurt a. M. (in Hebrew), pp. 511–513;
*
Isaac Hirsch Weiss
Isaac (Isaak) Hirsch Weiss, also Eisik Hirsch Weiss () (9 February 1815 – 1 June 1905), was an Jews of Austria, Austrian Talmudist and historian of literature born at Velké Meziříčí, Groß Meseritsch, Habsburg Moravia.
After having recei ...
, Dor, iv. 286, 342, 349;
*
Heinrich Grätz, Gesch. 3d ed., vi. 210, 211, 214;
*
Gross, Heinrich (1897). ''Gallia Judaica : dictionnaire géographique de la France d'après les sources rabbiniques'' (in French). Paris: Leopold Cerf. pp. 161–168, 638;
*idem, in R. E. J. vii. 76;
*
Adolf Neubauer, ib. xvii. 67;
*
Leopold Zunz, Z. G. p. 33, passim.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Isaac Ben Samuel
12th-century French rabbis
French Tosafists
Bible commentators
Year of birth uncertain
People from Ramerupt