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Rashi, Teacher of the Jewish People
Rashi's house in Worms, Germany. Now a museum.
In this post, I would like to discuss Rashi, the greatest of commentators to the Torah and Talmud. “Rashi” is an acronym for the name Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, but Jewish tradition tells us it also stands for “rebbe shel Yisrael,” which means, “the teacher of the Jewish people.”
Rashi occupies a unique place in the Jewish world, on par with Moses. The sages who wrote the Mishnah and Talmud and even the Rambam were not the teachers of the entire Jewish people. They were the teachers of scholars, of those who were able to appreciate them.
Rashi is our kindergarten teacher. When little children learn his commentary on the Bible for the first time, it makes perfect sense to them. Then, as we graduate to Talmud, Rashi takes us by the hand and leads us through that vast sea of unpunctuated words, telling us, “The sentence ends here. This is what it means. This is the question. This is the answer.” So as we grow older and hopefully wiser, we realize that Rashi was not only our kindergarten teacher, Rashi signed our PhD. click here to read more
Recent Blog Posts:
- Sunday, March 7, 2010 The Origins of Sephardim and Ashkenazim
- Saturday, March 6, 2010 Lasting Heroes: An Introduction to Rashi and the Rambam
- Friday, March 5, 2010 The Weimar Republic, Hyperinflation, and How They Paved the Way for Hitler
- Thursday, March 4, 2010 The Birth of Greater Jerusalem
- Tuesday, March 2, 2010 Rosh Pina, Phase Two: The 20th Century
