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Leḳaḥ Ṭob


Tobiah ben Eliezer (Hebrew: טוביה בר אליעזר‎) was a Talmudist and poet of the 11th century, author of the Leḳaḥ Ṭov or Pesiḳta Zuṭarta, a midrashic commentary on the Pentateuch and the Five Megillot. Zunz (G. V. pp. 293 et seq.) inferred from Tobiah's reference to his father as "the great" and from his mention of the massacre in Mainz in 1096, that he was a native of Mainz and a son of Eliezer ben Isaac ha-Gadol, who is thought by David Conforte (Ḳore ha-Dorot, p. 8b) to have been one of Rashi's teachers. But as in the course of his work Tobiah often attacks the Karaites and, besides, manifests a thorough knowledge of Muslim customs, Samuel Judah Löb Rapoport, in his biography of Eleazer Kalir, note 33 (in Bikkure ha-'Ittim, x. 122-123), concluded that toward the end of his life Tobiah settled in Palestine.

As to Tobiah's birthplace, it has been proved by Solomon Buber that he was a native of Kastoria at that time in Bulgaria, as is testified to by Tobiah's countryman Judah Leon Mosconi in his supercommentary on Ibn Ezra's commentary on the Pentateuch. According to him, the author of the commentary on the Pentateuch mentioned by Ibn Ezra in the preface to his own work was a certain Meïr of Castoria, a pupil of Tobiah b. Eliezer. On the other hand, in his commentary on Ecclesiastes, Tobiah mentions a R. Samson as his teacher; and Buber supposes that he may be identical with the Samson quoted by Rashi in his commentary on Isa. lviii. 14 and Amos vi. 3. It is also to be concluded from various dates given by Tobiah in the course of his work that he wrote it in 1097 and revised it in 1107 or 1108.


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