Isaac Ben Judah Ha-Levi

French exegete and tosafist; lived at Sens, probably, in the second half of the thirteenth century. He was the pupil of Ḥayyim of Falaise, whom Gross identifies with Ḥayyim Paltiel. Isaac compiled, under the title "Pa'aneaḥ Raza," a commentary on the Pentateuch, in which literal interpretations ("peshaṭ") are frequently intermingled with "noṭariḳon" and "gemaṭriot." The authorities quoted by Isaac are Joseph Ḳara, Joseph Bekor Shor, Judah he-Ḥasid, Eleazar of Worms, Ḥayyim of Falaise, and many other tosafists. The "Pa'aneaḥ Raza" was first published at Prague in 1607, from an incomplete manuscript, by Isaac Cohen, the son-in-law of Jacob Mölin. Complete copies of the work, with a postscript, and a poem containing the name of the compiler in acrostic, are extant in manuscript in the Bodleian and other European libraries. Isaac wrote tosafot to the Talmud, and is called "Ba'al Tosafot mi-Shanẓ" (="The Tosafist of Sens").

Bibliography:

  * Zunz, Z. G. p. 92;
  * Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 1127;
  * Neubauer, in Ha-Maggid, 1870, Nos. 28, 29;
  * Renan-Neubauer, Les Rabbins Français, p. 437;
  * Gross, Gallia Judaica, p. 481.



S. I. Br.