משה מקוצי

Rav Moshe ben Yaakov of Coucy (first half of the thirteenth century; niftar c. 5020/1260), author of the Sefer Mitzvot Gadol, was among the baalei haTosafot of Tzarfat and one of the early codifiers of halacha. He came from a family of talmidei chachamim — his mother’s father was Rabbeinu Chaim HaKohen, of the great talmidim of Rabbeinu Tam — and he learned under Rav Yehudah of Paris; the Chida counts Rav Yehudah HaChasid and Rav Shimshon of Sens among his rebbeim as well.

He was a wandering darshan, going from kehillah to kehillah to stir hearts. In 4996/1236, as the fifth millennium drew toward its close, he crossed into Spain and traveled among its kehillot to strengthen the keeping of mitzvot — tefillin, tzitzit, and mezuzah had grown weak in wide circles — and to demand honesty in dealings with non-Jews. In 5000/1240 he returned to Paris as one of the four rabbanim who stood to defend the Talmud in the public disputation brought about by the meshumad Nicholas Donin.

Out of his derashot grew the Sefer Mitzvot Gadol, the SeMaG, completed in 5010/1250; in his hakdamah he tells that at the start of the sixth millennium a matter came to him in a dream — rise and make a sefer of two parts. The sefer takes up the 365 lavin and the 248 mitzvot aseh one by one, from the Gemara through the poskim; the Rambam‘s Mishneh Torah stands beneath almost every page, joined throughout by the Torah of Rashi, the Tosafot, and the chachmei Tzarfat and Ashkenaz. Until the Shulchan Aruch appeared, the SeMaG served as a central pillar of psak, and Rav Yosef Karo counted its author among the poskim on whom the Beit Yosef leans; Rav Yitzchak of Corbeil abridged it as the Sefer Mitzvot Katan, and Rav Yosef Colon, the Re’em, and the Maharshal wrote perushim on it. He also left Tosafot Yeshanim on Yoma, founded on the Torah of his rebbe Rav Yehudah of Paris, first printed in the Amsterdam Shas of 5474/1714.