However, Jacob Tam, or, to call him by his title of honor, Rabbeun Tam, - in allusion to Gen. xxv. 27, where Jacob is described as "tam," a man of integrity - owed his renown to his Talmudic activity, which he exerted in an original line of work though he was not entirely free from the influence of Rashi. If he was not the creator of a new sort of Talmudic literature, he was at least one of its first representatives. Either because he considered the commentaries of his grandfather impossible to imitate, or because he could not adapt himself to their simplicity and brevity, he took pleasure in raising ingenious objections against them and proposing original solutions. These explanations joined to his Decisions and Responsa were collected by him in a work called <I>Sefer ha-Yashar</I> (Book of the Just), of which he himself made two redactions. The one we now possess was put together - rather inaccurately - after the death of the author according to the second recension. The <I>Sefer ha-Yashar</I> was used a great deal by later Talmudists. It may be said to have inaugurated the form of literature called <I>Tossafot.</I> As the word signifies, the Tossafot are "additional notes," "Novellae," upon the Talmud. They display great erudition, ingenuity, and forcible logic, and they represent a prodigious effort of sharp analysis and hardbound dialectics. The authors of the Tossafot, the Tossafists, were marvellously [marvelously sic] skilful [skillful sic] at turning a text about and viewing it in all its possible meanings, at discovering intentions and unforeseen consequences. Their favorite method was to raise one or more objections, to set forth one or more contradictions between two texts, and then to propound one or more solutions, which, if not marked by simplicity and verisimilitude, none the less bear the stamp of singularly keen insight. In their hands the study of the Talmud became a sturdy course in intellectual gymnastics. It refined the intellect and exercised the sense of logic. Yet it would be a mistake to see in the Tossafot nothing but the taste for controversy and love of discussion for the sake of discussion. The Tossafists, even more than Rashi, sought to deduce the norm, especially the practical norm, from the Talmudic discussions, and discover analogies permitting the solution of new cases. Thus, while Rashi's commentary is devoted to the explanation of words, and, more generally, of the simple meaning of the text, the Tossafot enter into a searching consideration of the debates of the Talmud. Moreover, Rashi composed short but numerous notes, while the Tossafists wrote lengthier but less consecutive commentaries. At the same time one of Rashi's explanations is a fragment of the Tossafot explanation. Thus, the commentary of the Tossafists exists in abridged form, as it were, in germ, in the commentary of Rashi. Rashi was the constant guide of the Tossafists. His commentary, "the