Baruch B. Isaac (Ha-Kohen ?)

Tosafist and codifier; flourished about 1200. He was born at Worms, but lived at Regensburg; hence he is sometimes called after the one and sometimes after the other city. A pupil of the great Tosafist Isaac b. Samuel of Dampierre, Baruch wrote Tosafot to several treatises (e.g., Ḳiddushin, Nazir, Shabbat, Ḥullin); nearly all those extant on the order Zebaḥim are his. A. Epstein believes that the commentary on the Sifra contained in the Munich MS. No. 59 is the work of this Baruch. He is the author also of the legal compendium, "Sefer ha-Terumah" (Book of the Heave-Offering, Venice, 1523; Zolkiev, 1811), containing the ordinances concerning slaughtering, permitted and forbidden food, the Sabbath, tefillin, etc. The book is one of the most important German codes, and was highly valued by contemporaries and successors. It is noteworthy by reason of the author's attempt to facilitate its use by presenting a synopsis of its contents, the first attempt at making a practical ritual codex in Germany.

Bibliography:

  * Azulai, Shem ha-Gedolim, i. 38, ed. Wilna;
  * Kohn, Mardochai ben Hillel, p. 102;
  * Michael, Or ha-Ḥayyim, No. 627;
  * Epstein, in Monatsschrift, xxxix. 454;
  * Zunz, Z. G. p. 36 (see Index for further references).



L. G.