יוסף בכור שור

Rav Yosef ben Yitzchak Bechor Shor of Orleans (twelfth century), among the baalei haTosafot and the great pashtanim of Tzarfat, was a commentator on the Torah, a lamdan whose chiddushim are brought in Tosafot, and a paytan. His name comes from the brachah of Moshe to Yosef, “bechor shoro hadar lo” (Devarim 33:17). Born in Orleans around 4900/1140, he was a talmid of Rabbeinu Tam — several of his questions appear in his rebbe’s Sefer HaYashar — and in his derech of pshat he drew from the paths of Rav Yosef Kara and the Rashbam.

His perush on the Torah, written around 4930/1170 and preserved in a single manuscript, holds fast to pshat with rare originality: he enters into the thoughts and motives of the people of the parsha, explains pesukim through the realia of everyday life, gives reasons for the mitzvot, distances every expression of hagshamah, and is melamed zechut on the Avot. In the sifrei haTosafot he appears as the R”i of Orleans, and his rulings are brought in the SeMaK and in the teshuvot of the Maharam of Rothenburg.

He stood in the disputations that were forced upon the kehillot of Tzarfat, and his perush answers the readings the Church placed upon the pesukim; he knew their Latin translation and points out where it strays. His selichot and kinot echo the gezeirot of his generation — one selichah is held to mourn the kedoshim of Blois and Bray — and between parsha and parsha of his perush he set short rhymes of longing for the geulah. His son Rav Avraham of Orleans was himself of the baalei haTosafot. The complete perush on the Torah was printed in our own day by Mossad HaRav Kook.