יצחק בן יהודה הלוי

Rav Yitzchak ben Yehudah HaLevi, known in English sources as Isaac ben Judah HaLevi, was a French parshan and baal Tosafot who lived in Sens (Shantz), apparently in the later part of the thirteenth century. He was a talmid of Rav Chaim of Falaise, whom some identify with Rav Chaim Paltiel.

His sefer Pa’aneach Raza, on the five chumashim, joins peshat with midrash (interpretation) by way of notarikon and gematriot (numerical proofs and inferences from the text). In it he cites the Torah of his rebbi Rav Chaim of Falaise, of Rav Yosef Kara, Rav Yosef Bechor Shor, Rav Elazar of Worms and Rav Yehudah HaChasid, and of many other baalei haTosafot. The Pa’aneach Raza was first printed in Prague in 5367/1607 from an incomplete manuscript, with notes and additions by Rav Yitzchak Katz of Prague; complete manuscripts, ending with a postscript and a poem that carries the compiler’s name in acrostic, are held in the Bodleian and other European libraries. Rav Yitzchak also wrote Tosafot on the Gemara, and for these he is called the Baal Tosafot MiShantz.