Rashi: A Portrait

I specifically chose this title as an introduction to Rashi, knowing that it would not be a full biography. Having said that, other titles in the series have gone in to more depth about the subject's background and influence (especially if background information is sparse, as with Rashi). Overall I enjoyed it but had to continue on to other books about Rashi to get a better feel for his influence.

Rashi is Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhak - a biblical and Talmudic commentator of the Middle Ages - and this book provides not just a biography of the man but a review of medieval European Jewry where scholars existed in closed communities surrounded by anti-Semitism. Scholar Rashi has been in every printing of the Talmud since the 15th century: beginners and advanced students of the Bible will relish this explanation of his life and times.

Elie Wiesel faced at least four formidable problems in writing this biography of the most popular and pleasing Jewish Bible and Talmud commentator. First, how can a writer, even one as expert as Elie Wiesel, write about someone when virtually no facts are known about his life, only legends? Second, since all that is really known about Rashi is his commentaries on the Bible and Talmud, how should these commentaries be presented to a popular audience? Third, scholars know that Rashi wrote his commentary based on certain suppositions - many of which would not interest the general reader and many would be rejected by the general population - should these suppositions be discussed? Isn't it necessary to point them out since a person cannot understand Rashi's Bible comments without knowing these suppositions? Fourth, Rashi believed in supernatural beings, including demons, should a biographer mention these disquieting matters or hide them? This volume is part of a series of books published in a collaboration between Schocken and Nextbook on Jewish personalities and subjects. The publishers decided not to have scholars write these books, but to use people who write well. As a result, virtually all the books fail to delve into their subjects in any great depth, certainly not scholarly depth, and they generally present some facts that scholars would dispute. Yet, despite this, the books in the series are very readable and they offer information that the general public does not know and should know. By picking the Noble Prize winner Elie Wiesel to write this volume, the publishers chose a man who, although not a scholar on the subject of Rashi, knows Judaism and Rashi very well and knows how to present his story in an exemplary fashion. The first problem is dramatized by a rabbi who delivered a rather long lecture in which he introduced his congregants to this French Bible and Talmud commentator Rashi. He mentioned Rashi's date of birth as 1040 although this is uncertain and his date of death as 1105, even though the first mention of this date is in a document written about two centuries after the scholar's death. Unable to relate any facts, the rabbi told legends that he obviously found in some book written for children. He awed his audience with a narration of miraculous events associated with Rashi's birth. He described how Rashi made his money by growing vines and bottling wines, when there is no evidence that this is true. Wiesel recognized this problem and wrote: "Yes, we need imagination in order to write about him." Wiesel tells some of the legends that fascinated the rabbi and his audience, but unlike the rabbi, he informs his readers that they are legends. Instead of inventing facts about the man, Wiesel relates the history of the time that Rashi lived and reasonably assumes the impact that the persecutions must have had upon him. Wiesel resolves the second problem by devoting the bulk of his book to the commentaries that Rashi wrote on the Bi

Rashi is famous for his commentary on the Talmud, the first choice of students struggling with talmudic texts for nearly 900 years. Rashi is an abbreviation for Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhak who was born in 1040 and died in 1105 in France. Elie Wiesel, famous for his writings on the Holocaust and a recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize, is descended from Rashi. In this book we get a brief biography of Rashi, a number of examples of his commentary on Genesis and other parts of the bible, and some very interesting examples of Responsa, Rashi's responses to questions sent to him from Jewish communities throughout Europe. These reveal a lot about the gentle character of this famous rabbi. The book ends with a really interesting description of how the first Crusade impacted Rashi and the Jewish communities in medieval France and Germany. The Crusades, first urged by Pope Urban II in 1095, resulted in the deaths of many Jews caught in the path of these armies. The parallels to the Holocaust in Europe in the 1940's are obvious and painful to consider. A superbly written book about a very interesting man - highly recommended!

Wiesel, Elie. "Rashi", translated by Catherine Temerson, Schocken Books, 2009. A Master on a Master Amos Lassen Elie Wiesel is a name that many of us quickly identify with the Holocaust but he has written other books as well and "Rashi" is one of the best of them. This is a personal look at Rashi, commentator of the Torah and scholar. Rashi was able to read a text and find the hidden meanings and I, like Wiesel, am mystified by both Rashi the man and his levels of interpretation, Rashi was Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhak, a great Biblical and Talmud commentator who lived during the Middle Ages and Wiesel takes us back to medieval Jewish history where scholars lived in closed communities which were torn asunder by anti-Semitism. Rashi was the true scholar of the period. He managed to look at the Torah (The Five Books of Moses) and give a phrase-by-phrase explication and explanation of what is written. His thoughts have been included in the Talmud (the written law) ever since the fifteenth century and they are profound. He was a witness to the heartbreak of a people who suffered at the hands of others and is still considered to be the greatest interpreter of the word of the Torah. Many rely upon Rashi's ideas. Wiesel, himself, is a descendant of Rashi and this is the personal link Wiesel gives us a loving portrait of Rashi and shows how his own life was influenced by the great sage.