Rashi
Authors: Elie Wiesel
Jonathan Rosen, General Editor
Jewish Encounters is a collaboration between Schocken and Nextbook, a project devoted to the promotion of Jewish literature, culture, and ideas.
THE LIFE OF DAVID • Robert Pinsky
MAIMONIDES • Sherwin B. Nuland
BARNEY ROSS • Douglas Century
BETRAYING SPINOZA • Rebecca Goldstein
EMMA LAZARUS • Esther Schor
THE WICKED SON • David Mamet
MARC CHAGALL • Jonathan Wilson
JEWS AND POWER • Ruth R. Wisse
BENJAMIN DISRAELI • Adam Kirsch
RESURRECTING HEBREW • Ilan Stavans
THE JEWISH BODY • Melvin Konner
RASHI • Elie Wiesel
THE CAIRO GENIZA • Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole
THE WORLD OF SHOLOM ALEICHEM • Jeremy Dauber
MOSES • Stephen J. Dubner
BIROBIJAN • Masha Gessen
JUDAH MACCABEE • Jeffrey Goldberg
YEHUDA HA’LEVI • Hillel Halkin
NACHMAN/KAFKA • Rodger Kamenetz
THE DAIRY RESTAURANT • Ben Katchor
THE SONG OF SONGS • Elena Lappin
A FINE ROMANCE • David Lehman
ABRAHAM CAHAN • Seth Lipsky
THE EICHMANN TRIAL • Deborah Lipstadt
SHOW OF SHOWS • David Margolick
JEWS AND MONEY • Daphne Merkin
DAVID BEN GURION • Shimon Peres and David Landau
WHEN GRANT EXPELLED THE JEWS • Jonathan Sarna
HILLEL • Joseph Telushkin
MESSIANISM • Leon Wieseltier
For Elijah and Shira
from their grandfather
WHEN THEY GROW UP
THEY WILL STUDY THE GREAT WORK
OF OUR ADMIRABLE ANCESTOR
.
3.
Israel, the People, and the Land
Why Rashi?
And why me?
For centuries, others—many others—in lots of different countries, have written about his life and work in their native or sacred tongues. Why should I add my own analysis and my own commentary to these?
I could almost invoke our personal, not to say private, ties. But so could others, indeed some do, and they do so well. Did they hear from their parents that they had their place in a genealogy that could be traced back to the illustrious Rabbi Shlomo, son of Yitzhak? Mine referred to this often. I was not supposed to forget that I was the descendant of Rabbi Yeshayahu ben Abraham Horovitz ha-Levi, the author of
Shnei Luchot ha-Brit
and the
Shi a ha-Kadosh
whose brilliant depth haunted my adolescence, and of his contemporary, Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann ha-Levi, the author of
Tosafot Yom Tov
, whose dramatic life and erudite work on the Talmud and its commentaries are indispensable to anyone who devotes himself to the study of ancient texts.
According to tradition, the two great Teachers were descendants of Rashi.
Is that the real reason for my doing this? To state publicly what my understandably proud parents told me in private as a way of impressing my obligations? I don’t think so. If, at my age, I decided to say yes to Jonathan Rosen and interrupt my work in progress to sketch this portrait of Rashi, it is because I feel the need to tell him everything I owe to him.
I think of Rashi and I feel overwhelmed by a strange nostalgia: my reaction appears to be both intellectual and emotional. And why not say it? I discover I am sentimental.
Ever since childhood, he has accompanied me with his insights and charm. Ever since my first Bible lessons in the heder, I have turned to Rashi in order to grasp the meaning of a verse or word that seemed obscure.
He is my first destination. My first aid. The first friend whose assistance is invaluable to us, not to say indispensable, if we’ve set our heart on pursuing a thought through unfamiliar subterranean passageways, to its distant origins. A veiled reference from him, like a smile, and everything lights up and becomes clearer.
Of course, it is the Jewish child in me who thanks him. But Rashi’s appeal is addressed to everyone. What I mean is this: his passion for delving into a text in order to find a hidden meaning passed on by generations can move, interest, and enrich all those whose life is governed by learning.
His voice comes to us from afar, from a great distance in time and space, but it allows us to never turn our back on the goal and never go astray along the way.
Impressions
I
stroll around the new and old streets of the city of Troyes, in Champagne. It still vibrates with medieval history. I am shown the Hôtel-Dieu at the corner of the rue de la Cité and the quai des Comptes: this is where the
Porte de la Juiverie
, the old gateway to the Jewish neighborhood, was located. And what about the fairs where the Jews from the nearby cities met to discuss business and the rules of ritual? As always, these are to be found in books.
Cited by Irving Agus and again by Gérard Nahon, the Hebraic name of Troyes (or Troyias) first appears in a document written by Yosef bar Shmuel Tov-elem of Limoges in the eleventh century: “Concerning our brothers in Rheims who used to go to the fair in Troyes and whom an enemy lord captured (or persecuted).”
Who were these Jews? What enemy is he referring to? We know there used to be a synagogue here (there is even a street named after it), and there used to be a street of the Jews, a
rue des Juifs
(now gone as well). There were rabbis,
hence students. There were leaders, Jewish families loyal to the Law of Moses, who fought against the outside enemy and the poverty in their midst, helped the poor, and did everything they could to pay the ransom and free their co religionists when they were taken as hostages. In spite of distances, there were deep contacts between the communities: their right to intervene in one another’s affairs was recognized by the competent rabbinical authorities. After all, didn’t they share a common destiny?
As for me, today, I am looking for the traces of a man whose learning still influences my life, as it does the lives of all those who have a thirst for study.
Houses, large and small, stores, gardens. The man I am looking for must have walked here, dreamed here, shed tears here over the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, comforted broken hearts, counseled those who had gone astray, taught them to overcome fear and hope for the arrival of the Messiah.
I remember: as a child, his cursive script frightened me; more than that of the Bible, it suggested a world that was doubtless complex and probably mysterious, where only adults had the right and competence to enter.
Later, with the years, in the heder or yeshiva, before the candles on the table, every time someone asked, “What does Rashi say?” I rushed to look at his countless commentaries. Whenever I couldn’t grasp the meaning of a word, it was he, the Teacher of my Teachers, who rescued me. An intimate
relationship, from child to elderly man, person to person. He said to me, as if confidentially: look, my child; fear nothing, everything must be grasped and conveyed with simplicity. Strange words stand in the way like obstacles? Start all over again with me. It happened to me too. I started all over again. You just have to break through the shell of a word, a sentence, an expression. Everything is inside them. Everything is waiting for you.
Thanks to his life, his erudition, his work, his generosity, he remains the spring from which we all drink. Without him, my thirst would never have been quenched. Without him, I would have gone astray more than once in the gigantic labyrinth that is the Babylonian Talmud.
Yet he doesn’t try to impress us with his learning, his vast religious and secular culture, his originality, or even his inventive mind. He confines himself to quoting the ancients or his precursors, sometimes his peers, and even his own disciples.
Rashi or the celebration of commentary? Better yet: Rashi or the celebration of memory, and of fraternity too. The danger lies in oblivion. Were I to forget where I come from, my life would become barren and sterile. Were I to forget whom I am the descendant of, I would be doomed to despair.
I loved him. I couldn’t make headway without him. Of course, I explored other approaches, other commentaries:
those of Abrabanel, Sforno, Radak, Or ha-Hayim, Ibn Ezra, but Rashi’s are unique, different, indispensable. He radiates warmth and friendship. And simplicity. He is great because he remains faithful to the text, and to its literal meaning. He never uses his learning to make things complicated but to simplify. He never flaunts his erudition to impress students with the originality of his reasoning. Reconciling two words, two sentences, two verses is enough for him. To those who are timid he seems to be saying, Don’t be afraid, I am here by your side.
Sometimes, in my small town, it seemed to me that Rashi had been sent to earth primarily to help Jewish children overcome loneliness.
And fear.
Under a cloudless blue sky, alone with my thoughts, and my nostalgia, I wander through the back streets of Troyes.
Where was his house? No one can tell me. His vineyard? Again, no one knows. His grave in the Jewish cemetery? His parents’ graves or his wife’s? The graves of his three daughters? Are there any remains of his house or his school?
I find none.
I try to use my imagination.
The father and his three daughters during the grape harvest.
Their Sabbath dinners. The discussions with his students. His solitude as he bent over his worktable, consulting books and ancient documents, and writing his oeuvre whose immensity never ceases to surprise us—his commentary on the Bible and the Talmud, and his vast body of responsa, the answers he furnished to questions posed from faraway rabbis.
Yes, we need imagination in order to write about him.
In those days, the Jewish communities in the provinces along the Rhine lived between fear and hope. At times the former dominated as though attracted by unfathomable gloom, at times the latter, making the dawning sun shine bright.
Often bound to one another through religious study and commerce, they flourished at the whim or self-interest of the church authorities and political sovereigns.
At the center of the Talmudic schools, the last in the Gaonic period, was Rabbenu, our Teacher, Gershom, Meor ha-Golah, the Light of the Exile, the uncontested leader of Jewish life. In dealing with complicated questions concerning the interpretation of the Law and doubts about matters of faith, it was to him that they flocked from all over the Diaspora.
We think he died in 1040, but we’re not absolutely positive. We like to think this because that was the year of Rabbi Shlomo’s birth—Rabbi Shlomo, son of Yitzhak, known by
his initials, Rashi. According to Rabbi Shlomo Luria, this coincidence proves the validity of the verse in Ecclesiastes, “The sun also arises, and the sun goeth down”: in the world of men, as soon as a spiritual sun sets, another rises. It is simple: humanity could not survive, not even temporarily, in darkness.
Actually, other more reliable sources refer to 1028 as the date of the Gaon’s death. Let us leave it up to medieval historians to decide. On the other hand, most agree on the date of Rashi’s birth, 1040, and all on the date of his death, 1105.
At the time, the Jews in France lived more or less normal lives, depending on the disposition of the Church, and the mood and interest of the Capetian kings Hugh, Henry I, Philip I, Louis VI, and Louis VII. When the Jews were needed, they were left in peace. Afterward, they were disposed of.
In France, the Jewish communities considered themselves well established because they dated from ancient times. They were already there in Roman times, at first in certain specific areas, particularly near the Mediterranean coast. A
rue des juifs
could be found everywhere and, in some cities, can still be found today: the stones are a testament to history.