R. Solomon David Sassoon (1915–1985), son of David Solomon and Selina Sassoon, was ordained as a rabbi in 1936. He lived in Letchworth outside London until 1970 when he settled in Jerusalem. He inherited his father's valuable collection of Hebrew manuscripts and increased the total collection to 1,350 items. He retained his father's scholarly tastes and published Moshav Zekenim (1959), a commentary of the tosafists on the Pentateuch from a manuscript in his collection; Abraham b. Maimon’s commentary on Genesis and Exodus, from a Bodleian manuscript (1965); and an elegant facsimile edition of the Mishnah commentary of Maimonides (3 vols., 1956–66), with an introduction, from manuscripts in his collection and in Oxford, which are claimed to be autographs of Maimonides. He wrote a Critical Study of Electrical Stunning and the Jewish Method of Slaughter (1955) and The Spiritual Heritage of the Sephardim (1957).

The Tosafists were medieval scholars, beginning with the sons-in-law and grandsons of Rashi who saw their work as supplements to Rashi's basic commentary. They are mainly known for their commentaries on Talmud, which are printed in the Talmud itself on the outer margin of the page. Through questioning Rashi's statements, on the basis of the talmudic theme under discussion, or of one found elsewhere, or of Rashi's own comments on some other passage, the tosafists sought to answer their questions by pointing to differences and distinctions between one case and another or between one source and another. In this way they produced new halakhic deductions and conclusions, which in turn became themselves subjects for discussion, to be refuted or substantiated in the later tosafot.

The techniques and style of tosafot literature were not limited specifically to the Talmud, there being an extensive literature of tosafot on the Pentateuch. These have Rashi as their starting point also, but they go far beyond him by propounding questions and answers to them, by curtailing and expanding, in the exact manner of the tosafot to the Talmud. Like the latter, they are divided into German and French tosafot, the German "style" being generally recognizable by its numerous gematriot, which were used as a significant exegetical principle. Usually the same scholars are mentioned in the tosafot both to the Talmud and to the Pentateuch. Some scholars, however, devoted themselves exclusively to biblical exegesis, such as Joseph Bekhor Shor, Joseph Kara, and others of whom almost nothing except their names is known, and who were apparently mainly aggadists. The chief characteristic of the tosafists to the Pentateuch is their halakhic approach. On the basis of the talmudic halakhah, the actions of each biblical figure, whether righteous or evil, are weighed and explained. Thus this literature created a unique fusion between the argumentation characteristic of the talmudic halakhah and biblical exegesis that, in its own way, aimed at arriving at the literal interpretation.

עמ' [תקכ]-תקכא: סקירה קצרה על פירושי וקובצי רבותינו בעלי תוספות על התורה.