Rabbi Simcha ben Shmuel of Speyer רבי שמחה בן שמואל משפיירא

The Speyer yeshiva, begun by the Riva, had stood a hundred years by the start of the thirteenth century, and it was held by Rabbi Simcha ben Shmuel. He is named among the chief teachers of the generation; Rabbi Yitzchak of Vienna studied with him, and in the Or Zarua his rulings are cited by the dozen—often with the addition that this is how the teacher himself acted.

What he is chiefly remembered for in law is communal right. The Ashkenazi community governed itself, and the question of how a lone man could obtain justice from his own elders was not abstract. The answer fixed by Rabbi Simcha: the wronged party may halt the reading of the Torah and the prayer until the community hears his case. This order came down to modern times and is written into the Ashkenazi customs.

Behind it stands a thought worth reading closely: the prayer of a community is not more important than justice to one of its people—it is held up by it.