Samuel ben Solomon of Falaise
SAMUEL BEN SOLOMON OF FALAISE
SAMUEL BEN SOLOMON OF FALAISE (Sir Morel ; 13th century), tosafist. All that is known of Samuel's father is that he was a scholar, as was his father-in-law Abraham b. Ḥayyim ha-Kohen, possibly the son of the tosafist *Ḥayyim ha-Kohen. His teachers included *Judah Sir Leon, Solomon of Dreux, and *Baruch b. Isaac of Worms. He wrote a commentary on the *kerovah El Elohei ha-Ruḥot le-Khol Basar in which he explains all the Passover laws in the piyyut according to the traditions of the elders of Falaise and Dreux. Samuel's teachings are incorporated in the Or Zaru'a of his colleague, *Isaac b. Moses of Vienna. Samuel was patently apprehensive about rendering halakhic decisions and hesitated to permit what it had been customary to forbid, even when he was certain that the custom was an erroneous one and not a definite tradition. The most eminent of his pupils was *Meir b. Baruch of Rothenburg. The standard tosafot mention Samuel only in the tosafot to the tractates Pesaḥim and Yoma, but the standard tosafot to Avodah Zarah are simply adaptations of his tosafot and often quote him verbatim. His biblical exegesis is included in the various collections of the biblical commentaries of the tosafists. He was a participant in the *disputation in Paris with Nicholas *Donin.
bibliography:
Gross, Gal Jud, 478–80; J. Jacobs, Jews of Angevin England (1893), 53, 146, 421; Urbach, Tosafot, index.
[Israel Moses Ta-Shma]