Isaac ben Samuel

Isaac ben Samuel the Elder (c. 1115 – c. 1184), also known as the Ri ha-Zaken, was a French tosafist and Biblical commentator. He flourished at Ramerupt and Dampierre, France in the twelfth century.

On his father's side Isaac was a grandson of R. Simhah ben Samuel of Vitry, author of the Maḥzor Vitry; on his mother's side he was a nephew of Rabbeinu Tam, of Rashbam, and of Isaac ben Meir (RiBaM), a great-grandson of Rashi, and a relative of R. Eleazar of Worms. He was surnamed "ha-Zaḳen" (the elder) to distinguish him from another tosafist of the same name, Isaac ben Abraham surnamed "ha-Baḥur" (the younger). He is often quoted as R. Isaac of Dampierre (Maimuniyyot, Ma'akalot Asurot, No. 5; Shibbole ha-Leḳeṭ ii., No. 40), but it seems that he lived first at Ramerupt, where his maternal grandfather resided (Sefer ha-Nayyar, p. 162; Maimuniyyot, l.c.). It was also at Ramerupt that he studied under his uncle R. Tam (Luria, Responsa, No. 29); after the latter had gone to Troyes, Isaac b. Samuel directed his school.

Isaac settled at Dampierre later, and founded there a flourishing and well-attended school (Or Zarua, i. 126). It is said that he had sixty pupils, each of whom, besides being generally well grounded in Talmud, knew an entire treatise by heart, so that the whole Talmud was stored in the memories of his pupils (Menahem, Ẓedah la-Derek, Introduction). As he lived under Philip Augustus, at whose hands the Jews suffered much, Isaac prohibited the buying of confiscated Jewish property, and ordered that any so bought be restored to its original owner. A particular interest attaches to one of his responsa, in which he relies on the oral testimony of his aunt, the wife of R. Isaac b. Meïr, and on that of the wife of R. Eleazar of Worms, a great-granddaughter of Rashi (Sefer ha-Nayyar, p. 167a).

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