Ta-Shma on Isaiah di Trani

I've started reading Israel Ta-Shma's chapter on Italian commentators on the Talmud in the 13th century. There really is only one, he says, and that is Isaiah di Trani (roughly 1165-1240). This is because Italian Jewry, even in the area around Rome and to the north, was still closely associated with Greek Jewry through the end of the 13th century; and Greek Jews, through at least the 14th century, did not write commentaries on the Talmud -- and therefore, neither did most Italian Jews. (What did Greek Jews write? Commentaries on Scripture, on midrashim [both halakhic and aggadic], and commentaries on the She’iltoth.)

However, Isaiah di Trani studied in Ashkenaz, and he wrote a commentary on the Talmud, like the Ashkenazim. (Ta-Shma does not say explicitly that R' Isaiah got the idea of writing such a commentary from the Ashkenazim.) This influence of Ashkenazic interpretation, that of the school of the Tosafists, is evident in R' Isaiah's commentary, as well as in his halakhic works (Sefer Ha-pesaqim and Sefer Ha-makhria‘). His work prevented Maimonides’ halakhic opinions from becoming accepted in Italy until the end of the 13th century. (When they finally did get fairly well accepted there, this was a result of the Italian love of Maimonides’ philosophical writings. Thus, this was the opposite of the situation in many other regions, where Maimonides’ philosophical writings were accepted, reluctantly, only because his halakhic works had already become popular.)

R' Isaiah traveled around the Greek-speaking world, where he tried to convince the local rabbis to give up the traditional halakhic rulings of Greek Jewry, and adopt the rulings of the Tosafists, which he had learned in Ashkenaz. He also traveled twice to the Holy Land.

R' Isaiah's commentary on the Talmud survives in only a single manuscript, from the late 13th century, and is barely quoted in medieval works, other than those of R. Isaac Or Zarua‘ and his circle, for they had known R' Isaiah personally when he had studied in Ashkenaz. The commentary lay unknown for centuries, until it was printed in the 1860s. Since then, it has become wildly popular in yeshivoth.

What is prominent about Isaiah’s commentary on the Talmud? It is called תוספות רי"ד, but it is not really a “tosafoth”. It is the work of a single man, like the “ḥiddushim” of the scholars of Christian Spain, not a compilatory work like the French or Ashkenazic “tosafoth”. On the other hand, it does make use of the techniques of the Tosafists -- analyzing the concepts behind the halakhic opinions cited in the Talmud, and resolving contradictions between different talmudic passages.

Perhaps most notable, in Ta-Shma's eyes, is the extent to which R' Isaiah argues with himself, and attacks his own previous views. He wrote his commentary on the entire Talmud four or five times. Unlike revisers in Christian Spain, who might add a word or a paragraph to their previous work, R' Isaiah actually re-studied the Talmudic passages from scratch, and came to entirely new conclusions. He often writes things such as: מה שתירצתי שם הכל הבלים -- “the explanation that I gave their [in the earlier version of this commentary] is utter nonsense.