Rabbeinu Tam
Rabbeinu Jacob ben Meir Tam | |
---|---|
Title | Rabbeinu Tam |
Personal | |
Born | 1100 Meir ben Shmuel and Yocheved bat Shlomo |
Buried | Ramerupt |
Jacob ben Meir (1100 – 9 June 1171 (4 Tammuz)),
Biography
Jacob ben Meir was born in the French country village of
His reputation as a legal scholar spread far beyond France.
Rabbeinu Tam gave his
In or around 1160, a synod was held in Troyes as part of the Takkanot Shum. This synod was led by Rabbeinu Tam, his brother, the Rashbam, and Eliezer ben Nathan (the Ra'avan). Over 250 rabbis from communities all over France attended as well. A number of communal decrees were enacted at the synod covering both Jewish-Gentile relations as well as matters relating internally to the Jewish community.[3]
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Notes:
|
Halakhic disputes
Phylacteries
Legend has it that when Rashi was holding his infant grandson, the baby touched the phylacteries (tefillin) that were on Rashi's head. Rashi predicted that this grandson would later disagree with him about the order of the scripts that are put in the head tefillin. Regardless of the episode's veracity, Rabbeinu Tam did disagree with the opinion of his antecedent. Today, both "Rashi tefillin" and "Rabbeinu Tam tefillin" are produced: the Shulchan Aruch requires wearing Rashi's version and recommends that God-fearing Jews wear both in order to satisfy both halakhic opinions. However:[4]
"It is worth noting that the Shulchan Aruch ... rules that Rabbeinu Tam Tefillin should be worn only by one who is known to be a very pious person; the Mishnah Berurah ... explains that it is a sign of haughtiness for anyone else to do this because the accepted practice is to wear Rashi Tefillin."
However, many
Mezuzah
Another halakhic disagreement between Rabbeinu Tam and Rashi concerns the placement of the
Liturgical poet
In the field of Hebrew poetry the importance of R. Tam is not slight. He was influenced by the poetry of the Spaniards, and is the chief representative of the transition period, in Christian lands, from the old "payyeṭanic" mode of expression to the more graceful forms of the Spanish school. According to Zunz,[8] he composed the following pieces for the synagogue: (1) several poems for the evening prayer of Sukkot and of Shemini Atzeret; (2) a hymn for the close of Sabbath on which a wedding is celebrated; (3) a hymn for the replacing of the Torah rolls in the Ark on Simchat Torah; (4) an "ofan" in four metric strophes;[9] (5) four Aramaic reshut; (6) two selichot (the second is reproduced by Zunz in S.P. p. 248, in German verse).[10] It must, however, be remarked that there was a synagogal poet by the name of Jacob ben Meïr (Levi) who might easily have been confounded with the subject of this article, and therefore Tam's authorship of all of these poems is not above doubt.[11]
The short poems which sometimes precede his responsa also show great poetic talent and a pure Hebrew style (see Bacher in Monatsschrift, xliv.56 et seq.). When Abraham ibn Ezra was traveling through France R. Tam greeted him in verse, whereupon Ibn Ezra exclaimed in astonishment: "Who has admitted the French into the temple of poetry?" (Kerem Ḥemed, vii.35). Another work of his in metric form is his poem on the accents, which contains forty-five strophes riming in; it is found in various libraries (Padua, Hamburg, Parma), and is entitled Maḥberet. Luzzatto has given the first four strophes in Kerem Ḥemed (vii.38), and Halberstam has printed the whole poem in Kobak's "Jeschurun" (v.123).
Gravesite
Rabbeinu Tam and his brothers, the Rashbam and the Rivam, as well as other Tosafists, were buried in Ramerupt. The unmarked, ancient cemetery in which they are buried lies adjacent to a street called Street of the Great Cemetery. In 2005, Rabbi
Works
Rabbeinu Tam's best known work is Sefer HaYashar, which contained both
Notes
- ^ Solomon Schechter; Max Schloessinger. "Jacob Ben Meïr Tam (known also as Rabbenu Tam)". The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
- ^ "Or Zarua'," ii., § 52
- ^ "Synods". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2022-08-17.
- ^ "Parshas Bo: Rabbeinu Tam Tefillin". www.tzemachdovid.org. Archived from the original on July 13, 2007.
- ^ "Torah scrolls, Sefer Torah projects, tefillin, mezuzah scrolls & Megillah scrolls from Israel". Stam.net. Retrieved 2013-04-05.
- ^ מנשה אלישיב. "שני זוגות תפילין". www.biu.ac.il (in Hebrew).
- ^ "soc.culture.jewish FAQ: Torah and Halachic Authority (3/12)Section – Question 4.12: Who was Rabbeinu Tam?". Faqs.org. 2012-08-08. Retrieved 2013-04-05.
- ^ Zunz, Literaturgesch. pp. 265 et seq.
- ^ see Luzzatto in Kerem Ḥemed, vii.35
- ^ see also "Nachalat SHeDaL" in Berliner's Magazin ["Oẓar Ṭob"], 1880, p. 36.
- Landshuth, "'Ammude ha-'Abodah", p. 106; comp. also Harkavy, "Ḥadashim gam Yeshanim", supplement to the Hebrew edition of Graetz, "Hist." v. 39; Brody, "Ḳunṭras ha-Piyyuṭim", p. 72
- ^ Friedman, Yisroel (7 January 2004). "A Man with a Grave Mission – Part I". Dei'ah VeDibur. Archived from the original on 30 December 2009. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ^ Published by Mekize Nirdamim in Kobez Al Yad, new series, book 7 (17), Jerusalem 1968, pages 81-100. (Reprinted in Rabbi Kafih's Collected Papers, Volume 1, pages 453-470.)
- OCLC 914866602.
References
- Attribution
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Max Schloessinger, Solomon Schechter (1901–1906). "Jewish Encyclopedia name". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
External links
- "Tam, Jacob ben Meir". The Jewish Virtual Library, a project of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.
- "Essay on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin". Archived from the original on 2004-10-14.