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2 Tosafist Biblical Exegesis in Northern France at the End of the Twelfth Century Between Peshat and Derash On a certain level we would expect the Tosafists and other leading rab- binicscholarsinmedievalAshkenaztoofferinterpretationsofbiblicalverses , since this traditional intellectual endeavor was fully consonant with their central mission as interpreters of the Talmud. Indeed, scattered through- out the standard Tosafot on the Babylonian Talmud are numerous passages that encounter and interpret biblical verses in the context of the halakhic (and even the non-halakhic or aggadic) sugyot at hand. Almost forty years ago Shraga Abramson published an edition of a Tosafot Torah commentary (from a Bodleian manuscript) that is essentially a series of Tosafot comments placed according to the order of the Torah portions of Shoftim and Ki Teze, and which constitutes a kind of Tosafist midrash halakhah.1 Much of the ma- terial found in others of the so-called Tosafist Torah commentaries (perushei Baalei ha-Tosafot al ha-Torah) that have been published—including com- pilations such as Daat Zeqenim, Hadar Zeqenim, Moshav Zeqenim, Paaneah 1 See Baalei Tosafot al ha-Torah, ed. S. Abramson (Jerusalem, 1974), based on ms. Bodl. 2679. With respect to the development of midreshei halakhah, the consensus of modern scholarship holds that these texts and their scriptural derivations preceded the Mishnaic organization of Tannaitic material in a topical way. See, e.g., E. E. Urbach,“Ha-Derashah ki-Yesod ha-Halakhah u-Beayat ha-Soferim,” in his Me-Olamam shel Hakhamim (Jerusalem, 1988), 50–66, and the discussion and studies cited in David Halivni, Midrash, Mishnah, Gemara (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 18–68. In the case of the Tosafists, however, there is no doubt that the talmudic Tosafot were the original site of their interpretive activity, while the placement of these materials into the form of Torah commentaries reflects a subsequent development. 112 Chapter 2 Raza, Tosafot/Perush ha-Rosh, Imrei Noam, and Minhat Yehudah2 —reflects Tosafot interpretations that are essentially of a talmudic nature as well, al- though as we shall see, there is a common misconception that this type of interpretation represents the sum total of these compilations.3 E. E. Urbach does not say much about the Torah commentaries (or comments) of individual Tosafists, asserting at least initially that he will not deal with this aspect or form of Tosafist endeavor.4 Nonetheless, Urbach doesnotefromtimetotimethat,asidefromtherecognizedpashtanimsuchas R.Samuel b.Meir (Rashbam) and R.Yosef b.Isaac Bekhor Shor (of Orleans),5 a number of other northern French Tosafists were also involved with some form of parshanut ha-miqra. 2 Descriptions and publication data for these and other, related, collections are conveniently located in Tosafot ha-Shalem, ed. Jacob Gellis, vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1982), editor’s introduction, 11–20. (For a large selection of the manuscript collections of perushei Baalei ha-Tosafot al haTorah , see ibid., 21–38, with a supplemental list in Tosafot ha-Shalem, ed. Gellis, vol. 11 [Jerusa- lem , 2002], 11.) See also S. A. Poznanski, Mavo al Hakhmei Zarefat Mefarshei ha-Miqra (Warsaw, 1913; repr. Jerusalem, 1965), XCII–CXIV (who also describes a number of important manu- script collections); J. M. Orlian, “Sefer ha-Gan” (Ph.D. diss., Yeshiva University, 1973), 117–41 (= Sefer ha-Gan,ed.Orlian [Jerusalem,2009],editor’s introduction,83–97,with some addenda); and Deborah Abecassis, “Reconstructing Rashi’s Commentary on Genesis from Citations in the Torah Commentaries of the Tosafists” (Ph.D. diss., Concordia University, 1999), 42–48, 247–51. 3 In his introduction, Abramson (above, n. 1), 7–10, compares and contrasts the collection that he presents with other published collections of Tosafist Torah commentaries, an exercise that serves to foster this misconception,albeit perhaps unwittingly.Nonetheless,the fact is that many more names of Tosafists are found in these collections in and around halakhic sections (such as parashat Mishpatim and the like) than in narrative sections. 4 See E. E. Urbach, Baalei ha-Tosafot (Jerusalem, 1980), 1:18. More recently, several scholars have suggested that the study of Tosafist biblical interpretation (in its fullest manifestation and forms) remains an important desideratum. See, e.g., Y. S. Lange,“Baalei ha-Tosafot al haTorah —Ketav Yad Paris 48,” Alei Sefer 5 (1978), 74; Sara Japhet, “Ḥizkuni’s Commentary on the Pentateuch,” [Hebrew] in Sefer ha-Yovel li-Khvod R. Mordekhai Breuer, ed. M. Bar-Asher et al. (Jerusalem, 1992), 1:107; idem,“The Nature and Distribution of Compilatory Commentar- ies ,” [Hebrew] in...

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