Rash of Sens—Rabbi Shimshon רבי שמשון משאנץ
the Tosafist who explained the Mishnah where the Talmud is silent
Rabbi Shimshon ben Avraham of Sens (d. c. 1214) is the most prominent of the Ri's sixty students. The Tosafot of Sens became the basis of the Tosafot text that stands on the Talmud page today.
His chief work is the commentary on the Mishnah of the orders Zeraim and Taharot. To these orders there is no Babylonian Talmud at all, and before him they were studied almost blind; he gathered the Yerushalmi, the Tosefta and the baraitot and built an explanation that in printed editions of the Mishnah stands where for other tractates the Gemara stands.
About 1211 he went up to the Land of Israel with a group of rabbis of France and England—the event later chronicles called "the aliyah of the three hundred rabbis". He is buried at the foot of Mount Carmel.
The sources give no exact years of life; the window of activity is set by generation, following Aharon Hyman and the lists of Seder haDorot.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- The Rash's commentary on the Mishnah, Zeraim and Taharot — the explanation where there is no Babylonian Talmud
Documents of the period
- Chronicles of the aliyah of the rabbis of France and England, c. 1211 — the ascent to the Land of Israel
Basis: documents and evidence.