ISAAC BEN TODROS

ISAAC BEN TODROS (mid-fourteenth century), known as Isaac Tauroci (ben Todros) in Latin; French physician. Isaac ben Todros practiced in Carpentras and audited the accounts of the Jewish community in 1367. He was the pupil of the astronomer, immanuel b. jacob bonfils , with whom he calculated the constellations in Avignon during the month of Nisan (April) 1373. Isaac possessed a profound knowledge of theology and philosophy. He wrote a work dealing with the plague in Avignon entitled Be'er la-Ḥai ("Source of Life"). This work included a study of the dietetics and the therapeutics of the sick, as well as of the healthy. He declared that there were many Jewish victims of the epidemic. This treatise was published by Baron David guenzburg from the only existing Hebrew manuscript on the occasion of the 90th birthday of leopold zunz . Isaac also wrote another medical work on facial convulsion (Avit ha-Panim; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Heb. Ms. 2141, 31). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. Wickersheimer, Dictionnaire Biographique des Médecins en France au Moyen Age (1936), 311f.; Kaufmann, Schriften, 3 (1915), 482–6. (Isidore Simon) ISAAC BEN TODROS OF BARCELONA ISAAC BEN TODROS OF BARCELONA (c. end of the 13th, beginning of the 14th century), Spanish talmudist, a pupil of Naḥmanides. Isaac occupied himself with the kabbalah to a considerable extent. No biographical details of him are known. His signature appears on the well-known ban on the study of philosophy promulgated in Barcelona in 1305 (Responsa Rashba 1, nos. 415–6). He was the author of a commentary to the maḥzor, remnants of which were discovered by G. Scholem in manuscript (H. Zotenberg, Catalogues des manuscrits (1866), 839:11); a commentary to the seliḥot (M. Steinschneider, Die hebraeischen Handschriften… in Muenchen (18952), 237); a commentary to the azharot of Solomon ibn Gabirol (see bibl. freimann , introd. 10 (99), n. 45). The work Be'er la-Ḥai edited by D. Guenzburg (in: Jubelschrift… L. Zunz; 1884) is not by him (see freimann p. 11). E. Gottlieb too has shown that the ascription of the commentary on the Ginnat ha-Bitan attributed to Isaac is a forgery. Among his pupils were shem tov gaon b. abraham who describes his relation with his teacher in the introduction to his Keter Shem Tov (not in the printed edition but in the Ms., see bibl., Loewinger, p. 30 and Gottlieb, p. 65). His kabbalistic teachings are included in the works of Naḥmanides' disciples, e.g., ibn shuaib 's commentary to the Sodot ha-Ramban, meir b. solomon abi sahula , Keter Shem Tov, Me'irat Einayim, and Ma'arekhet ha-Elohut. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nathan b. Judah, Sefer ha-Maḥkim, ed. by J. Freimann (1909), introd. 9–11 (= Ha-Eshkol, 6 (1909), 98–100); Loewinger, in: Sefunot, 7 (1963), 11, 27, 38; Gottlieb, in: Studies in Mysticism and Religion Presented to Gershom G. Scholem (1967), Heb. pt. 63–86. (Shlomoh Zalman Havlin)