Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tam

by Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy

TAM, commonly called Rabbenu Tam, more correctly Rabbenu Tham (ר״ח=רבכחם) By this title are known two eminent Rabbinic scholars, both named Yaʿaḳob, to whom this epithet was given in allusion to Genesis xxv. 27: "And Jacob was a perfect man" (Ish Tam, ותלול). They belonged to the north of France, lived in the 12th century, and were master and pupil. 1. Rabbenu Yaʿaḳob b. Meir. b. Shemuel was, on his mother’s side, a grandson of Rashi (q.v.). He was his parents’ third son, younger brother of Ribam and Rashbam (q.v.), older brother of Rabbenu Shelomoh of Rameru,^[1] and brother-in-law of Rabbenu Shemuel b. Simḥah of Vitry the younger^[2] (the reputed author of the Maḥzor Vitry,^[3] now apparently lost^[4]). Rabbenu Tham had, like his grandfather Rashi, six teachers:—(1) his own father, (2) his brother Ribam, (3) his brother Rashbam, (4) Rabbenu Ya'akob b. Shimshon,^[5] (5) his grandfather Rashi,^[6] and (6) Rabbenu Yoseph Tob-ˤElem the younger.^[7] Rabbenu Tham had at least five children.^[8] The names of three of his sons were Yoseph,^[9] Yiṣḥaḳ,^[10] and Shelomoh.^[11] Rabbenu Tham was unquestionably among Jews the foremost man of his age. For not only was he the greatest Talmudist after his maternal grandfather’s death, hut he also added reading wide and varied to a stupendous memory and a marvellous power of combination, such, as appeared only again in the last century in the persons of R. Yehonathan Eybenschütz (ob. 1764) and R. Yeḥezkel Landau (ob. 1793). Let us add that he was a lexicographer, grammarian, and Biblical commentator of no mean order; that he was a poet in Hebrew and Aramaic^[12] inferior only to Ibn Gebirol (Avicebron, q.v.) Mosheh Ibn ‘Ezra, and Yehudah Hallevi (and by far greater in this art than the commentator Abraham Ibn ‘Ezra); that he was held in high esteem by prince and nobles;^[13] and that he was a man of great wealth, with which he generously supported, not merely his own poorer hearers, but other itinerant scholars also.^[14]

His works are the following:—

(1) Commentary on Job, and, no doubt, on other parts of the Bible (see Camb. Univ. Lib. MS. Dd. 8. 53, leaves lb, 4a, 11a, 12b). All these are apparently now lost. (2) Hakhra'oth, i.e., lexical and grammatical decisions between Menaḥem Ibn Seruḳ and Dunash b. Labrat (see Sephcr Teshuboth Dunash b. Labrat, Edinburgh, 1885, 8vo). That these "decisions" are really by Rabbenu Tham is proved by the before-named MS., leaves 10a and 16a, where the book is quoted by an author of the 13th century. (3) Sepher Hayyashar (Vienna, 1810, folio). Although this work, in its present form, is the compilation of one of Rabbenu Tham's disciples, R. Yiṣḥak b. Durbal by name (also called Isaac of Russia; see Schiller-Szinessy, Catalogue, i. p. 164, and ii. p. 66), not only is the foundation Rabbenu Tham’s (see Preface), but the contents also are virtually his. Compare the Cambridge MS. Add. 667. 1, passim. (4) The greater part of the Tosaphoth in the Babylonian Talmud are indirectly also by Rabbenu Tham; and he is virtually the first Tosaphist. It is true that his father, his brother Rashbam (q.v.), and his uncle Rabbenu Yehudah b. Nathan had written Tosaphoth before him, and that this kind of literary activity lasted to within the first quarter of the 14th century. Still, most and the best of the Tosaphoth now in our hands rest on Rabbenu Tham and his school. (5) Mahzor, i.e., a prayer-book, &c., for the whole year, with Rabbinic ordinances, &c. See Tosaphoth on T. B., Berakhoth, leaf 37a, catchword הכוםם, and Birckhoth Maharam of R. Meir b. Barukh of Rothenburg (Riva di Trento, 1558, 8vo), leaf 4a. (6) Poems. These are partly didactic and partly liturgical. Of the former kind a specimen will be found (“On the Accents,” communicated by Halberstam) in Kobak’s Yeshurun, v. p. 125 sq. The liturgical poems, again, are of two kinds: (a) such as have no metre and rhyme only by means of plurals, possessive pronouns, and such like (rhymed prose), and which perfectly resemble most of the productions of the Franco-Ashkenazic school (see, for example, the facsimile in Muller’s Catalogue, Amsterdam, 1868, 8vo); (b) such as have metre and rhyme, and resemble the productions of the Sepharadic school, e.g., the one beginning הציגי ייבך (and not בו; see MS. Add. 667, leaf 102a).^[15] (7) Various ordinances, &c., are to be found in later writers (see MS. Add. 667, in Cambridge, passim, and Teshuboth Maharam, Prague, 1608, folio, § 1023, &c.). Rabbenu Tham died in 1171; see Rashi’s Siddur, ii. (formerly Luzzatto’s, then Halberstam’s, and now the property of the master of St John’s College, Cambridge), leaf 48a}}

2. Rabbenu Ya'aḳob of Orleans, rabbi of London (?). He is often quoted in the Tosaphoth (both on the Pentateuch and on the Babylonian Talmud). No independent works of his, however, are extant. He was killed at London in the tumult on the coronation day of Richard Cœur-de-Lion (September 3, 1189; Schiller-Szinessy, Catal., i. p. 117). (s. m. s.-s.)

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1. See MS. Add. 27,200 in the Br. Mus., leaf 158b.
2. See Rashi's Siddur, i. leaf 1b.
3. See Schiller-Szinessy, Catalogue, ii. p. 88.
4. See art. Rashi (vol. xx. p. 284, note 10).
5. This rabbi was a disciple of R. Shemuel Hallevi (see Schiller-Szinessy, Catal. ii. p. 65, note 1) and of Rashi, and was not only a great Talmudist, as were all the disciples of the last-named eminent teacher, but also a great mathematician and astronomer, though a terribly bad poet. His commentary on Aboth is in part printed, and is to be found, more or less perfect, in various libraries in Europe, although not recognized as his. It is ascribed variously to Rashi, to Rashbam, and others. There are copies of it in Cambridge (Add. 1213; Add. 1523), Oxford (Opp. 317), the British Museum (Add. 27201), the Beth Hammidrash of the Ashkenazim in London, &c. (The master of St John's, Cambridge, is preparing an edition of it.) A work on intercalation by Rabbenu Ya'aḳob b. Shimshon exists in MS. at the Bodleian (Opp. 317) under the name of Sepher Haelḳoshi. From him, no doubt, Rabbenu Tham imbibed his love for science. On the fact that Rabbenu Ya'akob b. Shimshon was Rabbenu Tham’s teacher (against Zunz), see Schiller-Szinessy, Catal., ii. p. 66, note.
6. Rabbenu Tham, dying an old man, must have been, from fourteen to sixteen years of age when Rashi died.
7. See Sepher Hayyashar, § 620 (leaf 74a, col. 2).
8. See Camb. MS. Add, 667, 1, leaf 64b, col. 1.
9. See Brit. Mus. MS. Add. 27200, leaf 158b.
10. See Sepher Hayyashar, § 604.
11. See Shibbole Halleḳet (ed. Buber), p. 10.
12. See his Yeṣib Pithgam (in the Ashkenazic ritual; it is introductory to the prophetic lesson for the second day of Pentecost). If we have the correct reading of that poem there, Rabbenu Tham must have been a Levite; and if so, the Shemuel Hallevi mentioned by R. Ya'aḳob b. Shimshon as his teacher, in the Cambridge MS. Add. 1213, leaf 27b, is very possibly Rabbenu Tham’s paternal grandfather.
13. See Sepher Hayyashar, § 595 (leaf 67a, col. 1), and § 610 (1st) in fine. To this high position it is no doubt to be ascribed that his life was saved by a knight during the second crusade, in which the whole congregation of Rameru was reduced to beggary, after many of its members had been ruthlessly slain.
14. For example, the poverty-stricken Abraham Ibn ’Ezra, to whom he not only gave money but kind words also, in good verses (Kerem Ḥemed, vii. p. 35).
15. For other metrical poems by Rabbenu Tham, see Zunz, Literaturg. der Syn. Poesie (Berlin, 1865, 8vo), p. 266.