שמשון מקינון

Rav Shimshon ben Yitzchak of Chinon, called the Maharshak and known generally by his town — Chinon in the region of Indre-et-Loire, whence the English form Samson of Chinon — was among the great French poskim and commentators of his period. The Rivash writes that his own rebbi, Rabbeinu Peretz HaKohen, said of Rav Shimshon that he was a rav greater than all the men of his generation. His father Rav Yitzchak served as rosh hayeshivot in France and lived in Chinon as well, and is cited in Tosafot on Masechet Nazir; his elder brother Rav Matityah was also his rebbi. His family was bound to that of Rav Yedidyah of Melun and to the father of Rav Shimshon of Coucy, all of them descendants of Rav Yosef Tov Elem.

His father-in-law, Rav Netanel ben Rav Yosef of Chinon, was a wealthy man who wrote out for his son-in-law a deed of gift for a large sum at the time of the marriage. When that marriage later came to an end, a quarrel broke out with his brothers-in-law over whether the deed held; both families carried weight and had wide connections, so that many rabbanim of the generation were drawn into the matter, and the arguments of the two sides echo in responsa of the period. It reached the Rashba in Barcelona for a ruling.

His best-known work is Sefer HaKeritut, on the rules of Talmudic derivation and of psak, in five parts: the first two treat the thirteen middot by which the Torah is expounded, the third the thirty-two middot of Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yosi HaGelili, the fourth sets out an order of the tannaim and amoraim together with rules for deciding between two conflicting opinions, and the fifth — the broadest of them — covers the methods of derash and the ways of the Mishnah, the baraita and the Gemara. He leaned on earlier works of method such as Seder Tannaim v’Amoraim and the Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon, while the closing and weightiest section rests above all on the Baalei HaTosafot. The sefer was taken up by the lomdim and reprinted many times over, first at Constantinople in 5275/1515, and later works of Talmudic klalim were built on its foundation.

He wrote a kuntres on Eruvin and Avodah Zarah, mentioned within the Keritut itself, and Biur HaGet on the laws of gittin, printed at Constantinople in those same years; his responsa are quoted by the Maharik, Rav Yosef Colon, and by the Rashba. Rav Yehuda Mosconi saw at Perpignan a supercommentary of his on the commentary of the Ibn Ezra to the Torah, in which Rav Shimshon is described as dwelling in Marseille — from which it is taken that after the expulsion of the Jews of France in 1306 he crossed into Provence.