m, Isaac of Dompaire, Baruch of Ratisbon, Perez of
Corbeil.--Nachmanides' Commentary on the Pentateuch.--Public
controversies between Jews and Christians.

Nachmanides was one of the earliest writers to effect a reconciliation
between the French and the Spanish schools of Jewish literature. On the
one side, his Spanish birth and training made him a friend of the widest
culture; on the other, he was possessed of the French devotion to the
Talmud. Moses, the son of Nachman (Nachmanides, Ramban, 1195-1270),
Spaniard though he was, says, "The French Rabbis have won most Jews to
their view. They are our masters in Talmud, and to them we must go for
instruction." From the eleventh to the fourteenth century, a French
school of Talmudists occupied themselves with the elucidation of the
Talmud, and from the "Additions" (_Tossafoth_) which they compiled they
are known as Tossafists. The Tossafists were animated with an altogether
different spirit from that of the Spanish writers on the Talmud. But
though their method is very involved and over-ingenious, they display so
much mastery of the Talmud, such excellent discrimination, and so keen a
critical insight, that they well earned the fame they have enjoyed. The
earliest Tossafists were the family and pupils of Rashi, but the method
spread from Northern France to Provence, and thence to Spain. The most
famous Tossafists were Isaac, the son of Asher of Speyer (end of the
eleventh century); Tam of Rameru (Rashi's grandson); Isaac the Elder of
Dompaire (Tam's nephew); Baruch of Ratisbon; and Perez of Corbeil.

Nachmanides' admiration for the French method--a method by no means
restricted to the Tossafists--did not blind him to its defects. "They
try to force an elephant through the eye of a needle," he sarcastically
said of some of the French casuists. Nachmanides thus possessed some of
the independence characteristic of the Spanish Jews. He also shared the
poetic spirit of Spain, and his hymn for the Day of Atonement is one of
the finest products of the new-Hebrew muse. The last stanzas run thus:

Thine is the love, O God, and thine the grace,
That holds the sinner in its mild embrace;
Thine the forgiveness, bridging o'er the space
'Twixt man's works and the task set by the King.

Unheeding all my sins, I cling to thee!
I know that mercy shall thy footstool be:
Before I call, O do thou answer me,
For nothing dare I claim of thee, m