Samuel ben Samson (fl. 1210)

by Zhao Luyang 赵鲁阳 (See Chinese translation)

Also known as Samuel ben Shimshon, Samson ben Abraham of Sens, "the Rash" and "the Prince of Sens", and referred to in Tosafot as "Rashba" (alternative names), Samuel ben Samson lived from the end of the 12th century to the early 13th century. He was a Rabbi who dwelled in France and made a pilgrimage to Palestine in 1210, visiting a number of villages and cities, including Jerusalem. He travelled to the Holy Land with Rabbi Jonathan ben David ha-Cohen, to whom Samuel was believed to have served as secretary, and who was said to be “the most influential and wealthy French Jew of his time”. Two other Rabbis, Saadiah and Tobiah, were believed to have travelled together with them and the four of them made it as far east to Mosul in northern Iraq.

Travelling via Egypt, Samuel arrived in Jerusalem in 1210, when the city was under the rule of the Ayyubid Muslims. Samuel described his feelings on arrival in Jerusalem in a letter to the Jewish diaspora, “We arrived in Jerusalem by the western end of the city, rending our garments on beholding it, as it has been ordained we should do. It was a bitter moment of tenderest emotion, and we wept bitterly...” This passage clearly expresses both Samuel’s excitement at being in this holy place and his lament over the loss of Jerusalem to Islam. From there, he went to the caves of Machpelah located in the heart of the old city of Hebron. It is believed that he entered the caves with the help of a wool dyer, who was the only Jew in Hebron at that time.

After visiting Hebron, Samuel went back to Jerusalem, passing through Bethlehem, and then heading further north to Shiloh, Shechem, Beit She'an and Tiberias, where he also visited historical Jewish tombs. From there, he visited Safed, in Upper Galilee, one of the four holy cities of Judaism. He recorded in his travelogue the graves of the pious, as well as the ruins of ancient synagogues that he visited, some of which he believed to be among the 24 synagogues erected by Simeon b. Yohai. He also mentioned the existence of a Jewish community of at least fifty people in Safed, and noted that two Muslim guarded and managed the cave tomb of Rabbi Hanina ben Horqano in this location. Samuel’s account of Safed is believed to be the first mention of Safed in Jewish history.

In Upper Galilee, he travelled to Kafr Bir'im (a Christian village), Gush Halav (called Jish in Arabic), Mount Meron and Alma, a Jewish moshav (settlement). As recorded in Iggerot Ereẓ Yisrael by Abraham Yaari, Samuel testified that “in all these places there are communities of more than eight minyanim” -- this means that more than eighty Jewish families lived in each village he visited in Upper Galilee. He claimed that settlers had already lived there before the First Crusade (1096-1099) and the Ayyubid interregnum (1188-1219), and remained after the conquest of the country by the crusaders. After visiting Upper Galilee, he went further north to Dan, an ancient city described as the northmost city of the Kingdom of Israel, and Damascus. He then went south to visit Naveh, a Jewish moshav in the Transjordan region close to the Egyptian border.

After returning to Europe, Samuel delivered a letter from John de Brienne, King of Jerusalem, to encourage Jews in Europe to migrate to Palestine. This led to over 300 pilgrimages by English and French Rabbis to Palestine in 1211.

Samuel was believed to have been born in Falaise, Calvados, in the north-west of France, where his grandfather, tosafist Samson ben Joseph originated. Rabbi Samson’s father was Abraham, who was praised by Rabbi Meïr Abulafia as a pious, saintly and noble man. He went to school in Troyes, in northern France, and his teacher was Rabbeinu Tam, one of the most well-known Jewish Rabbis and leading French tosafists in the 13th century. He studied there together with his brother Isaac for ten years and then attended the Yeshiva, a Jewish educational institute focusing on the study of traditional religious tests, primarily the Talmud, with Rabbi Isaac ben Samuel (the Ri) at Dampierre, north-western France. After his teacher’s death, Samuel ben Samson became the Principal of the Yeshiva of Sens, north of Paris. This explains why he is also called Samson ben Abraham of Sens.

Samuel ben Samson and his brother Isaac were two of the most outstanding students and the spiritual heirs of Rabbi Isaac ben Samuel ha-Zaken of Dampierre (the Ri). Samson’s brother Isaac, who also became a Rabbi, was also called Isaac the Younger to distinguish him from their teacher, who was also one of the most prominent Tosafists. Isaac the Younger succeeded his teacher as Principal of the school of Dampierre, reflected on his title Isaac of Dampierre. Isaac the Younger authored some liturgical poems (known as piyyutim in Judaism) and also wrote a commentary on the Torah. Isaac the Younger passed away in 1210, not long before Samson emigrated to Palestine.

Samuel ben Samson authored many Tosafots, which are commentaries on the Talmud. Many of his comments were significant, forming some of the principal sources for interpreting Talmud. His Tosafots were mostly abridged by Eliezer of Touques, who was also a French Tosafist living in the latter half of the thirteenth century. Besides composing Tosafots, he also wrote reviews on the two orders in the Mishnah (known as the Oral Torah): Zeraim and Tohorot.

Most of Samuel ben Samson’s original work covering the whole Talmud has been preserved, and the abridgement based on his work forms the foundation of the Tosafots in the present Talmud.