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Lekach Tov (Pesikta Zutarta)

Lekach Tov (Pesikta Zutarta)

1050 CE1108 CE · Rishonim · Kastoria

Rabbi Tobiah ben Eliezer was an eleventh-century scholar of Byzantine Greece, based in Kastoria, where around 1097 he composed the Lekach Tov (also called Pesikta Zutarta) — a running commentary on the Five Books of Moses and the Five Megillot that blends close grammatical reading with aggadic homily drawn from rabbinic literature. Widely studied by the sages of Germany, France and Italy, it became a foundational exegetical work for later Eastern scholars. (Some evidence suggests he spent his final years in the Land of Israel.)

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Stop 1 of 11050–1108Wrote

KastoriaקסטוריהByzantine Macedonia (Greece)

What they did here

Born in Kastoria in Byzantine Greece, he wrote the Lekach Tov (Pesikta Zutarta) around 1097 — a midrashic work covering the Five Megillot together with the Torah.

About Kastoria

Kastoria, a town in Macedonia in northern Greece, had a significant Romaniote (Byzantine-Greek) Jewish community in the medieval period. It was the home of Rabbi Tobiah ben Eliezer, the eleventh-century Talmudist and author of the midrashic Torah commentary Lekach Tov (also called Pesikta Zutarta).

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The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Lekach Tov (Pesikta Zutarta)’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

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