שמשון משאנץ

Rav Shimshon ben Avraham of Sens (c. 4910/1150–c. 4990/1230), the Rash MiShantz — cited within Tosafot also as Rashba — was among the greatest of the baalei haTosafot of Tzarfat. He was likely born in Falaise, the town of his grandfather Rav Shimshon HaZaken, and in his youth heard Torah from Rabbeinu Tam. Together with his older brother, the Ritzba, he learned some ten years in the yeshiva of the Ri HaZaken of Dampierre, becoming his foremost talmid and spiritual heir; after the Ri’s passing he stood at the head of the yeshiva of Sens. The Rosh set him beside Rabbeinu Tam and the Ri among the shapers of Talmud learning in Tzarfat and Ashkenaz, and Rav Yitzchak of Vienna, the Or Zarua, wrote of him that he was alone in his generation in his Torah and his wisdom.

From his beit midrash came the Tosafot Shantz, drawn upon throughout the printed Tosafot — his Tosafot on Pesachim and Ketubot survive whole — and later abridged by Rav Eliezer of Touques. His perush on the Mishnah, on Seder Zeraim and Seder Taharot, remains a foundation of learning in those sedarim: in it he cites and untangles the Tosefta and, above all, the Talmud Yerushalmi, in which the Maharshal said his bekiut passed all others. His teshuvot to Rav Meir HaLevi Abulafia, the Ramah, are preserved among the Ramah’s igrot; he differed with the Rambam in halacha and in hashkafah while honoring his greatness — saying of him that the gates of wisdom had been opened before him — and he declined the Ramah’s request to join the polemic against the Sefer HaMadda. Among his talmidim was Rav Yitzchak of Corbeil, the baal of the SeMaK.

In about 4971/1211 he went up to Eretz Yisrael at the head of the great aliyah of three hundred rabbanim of Tzarfat and England, remembered as the aliyat baalei haTosafot; he lived for a time in Yerushalayim, and is therefore called in the sefarim “the Yerushalmi.” In his last days he founded the school of Talmud in Acco, which a generation later received the talmidim who left Tzarfat after the burning of the Talmud. He was buried in the old Jewish beit hachaim of Haifa, at the foot of Har HaCarmel.