Rabbi Baruch ben Shmuel of Mainz רבי ברוך בן שמואל ממגנצא
author of the Sefer ha-Chochmah, which reaches us in fragments
Jewish books have two fates. Some come down whole; others disappear and live on in other men's quotations. The Sefer ha-Chochmah of Rabbi Baruch ben Shmuel of Mainz is of the second kind: the book itself is lost, and hundreds of its passages are cited by those who held it in their hands.
Baruch belonged to the Rhineland school, a student of the circle descending from the Raavan, and one of the chief authorities of Mainz in his years. Other communities wrote to him, his rulings were copied out; the Or Zarua cites him constantly and the Mordechai after him. His piyutim survive too: like many in Ashkenaz he could both take apart a law and lament a community.
He is also among those who said plainly that custom does not set aside the law, and the law does not set aside a custom that came from the teachers—the argument Ashkenaz lived by for that whole century.
On the timeline
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Sources
Rishonim
- Or Zarua of Rabbi Yitzchak of Vienna — extracts from the Sefer ha-Chochmah, cited by name
- The Mordechai of Rabbi Mordechai ben Hillel — his rulings, taken into the Ashkenazi code
Basis: documents and evidence.