Medieval rabbinic conceptions of the messianic age: The view of the tosafists

Abstract

The Tosafists, who flourished in northern France and Germany during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, devoted the bulk of their studies to a critical reading of the talmudic corpus, and to the reconciliation and explication of divergent talmudic and rabbinic texts. 1 These aims, coupled with the fact that the Tosafists were not exposed to any philosophical systems or training, make it difficult to identify, with any precision, the religious conceptions that they themselves espoused, even · in regard to fundamental issues of thought and belief.' ¶This study will assess Tosafist views on the nature of the messianic era. In a variety of texts, both exegetical and self-contained, Tosafist, portray the messianic age as a combination of natural and miraculous developments. The Tosafist view stands in marked contrast to Maimonides' approach to the messianic era in his Mishneh Torah, but is no less cohesive or systematic. Indeed, we shall see that Tosafists adumbrate an important aspect of Abravanel's critique of Maimonides' view, although we cannot be certain that all of these Tosafists were actually aware of Maimonides' position.