Rashi on the Torah: What Kind of Commentary Is It?

Many believe he also influenced Christian Bible interpretation. See e.g. Herman Hailperin, Rashi and the Christian Scholars (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1963). See also Sarah Kamin and Avrom Saltman, eds., על פי רש"י: פירוש לטיני לשיר השירים מהמאה הי"ג [Secundum Salomonem: A Thirteenth Century Latin Commentary on the Song of Solomon] (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1989) and, more generally, Sarah Kamin בין יהודים לנוצרים בפרשנות המקרא [Jews and Christians Interpret the Bible], 2^nd ed. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2008 [1^st ed. 1991]).

We do not have Rashi’s commentaries on Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles and part of Job. Avraham Grossman suggests, with some hesitation, that Rashi did write those commentaries and that they are now simply lost. See Avraham Grossman חכמי צרפת הראשונים: קורותיהם, דרכם בהנהגת הציבור, יצירתם הרוחנית [The Early Sages of France: Their Lives, Leadership and Works], 2^nd ed. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996 [1^st ed. 1995]), 183.

His achievement is especially impressive when you consider that for most medieval Ashkenazic Jews, Bible commentary took second place to Talmud, halakhah, and responsa, all also areas in which Rashi excelled.

Eric Lawee, Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic (Oxford University Press, 2019).

For an analysis of the development of this idea, see Lawee, Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah, 60–61, and notes on p. 306.

Grossman, The Early Sages of France, 182–195.

Elazar Touitou, “על גלגולי הנוסח של פרוש רש"י לתורה” [Concerning the Presumed Original Version of Rashi’s Commentary on the Pentateuch], Tarbiz 56 (1987): 211–242.

Rashi prefers the longer term peshuto shel miqra’¸sometimes shortened to peshuto, and not the term that later became more popular, peshat. Peshuto shel miqra’ is a Hebrew translation of the Aramaic term pashtei diqera, which appears a few times in the Babylonian Talmud (e.g. b. Eruvin 23b).

The Hebrew above follows the text of Rashi’s commentary found in Mikraot Gedolot Ha-keter, ed. by Menahem Cohen. The precise wording of the final phrase of this comment has been the subject of debate and its meaning is not totally clear. See Sarah Kamin, רש"י: פשוטו של מקרא ומדרשו של מקרא [Rashi’s Exegetical Categorization in Respect to the Distinction Between Peshat and Derash] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2007 [repr. of 1986]), 71–77, 209–247.

E.g. Kamin, ibid., p. 161: “. . . explaining the verse according to an immediate literal meaning appropriate with context and the syntactical structure.”

See, for example, the arguments of Yedida Eisenstat, Rashi’s Midrashic Anthology: The Torah Commentary Re-Examined (Ph.D. diss., JTS, 2014).

Commentary to Gen 25:31, based on Genesis Rabbah 63.

Commentary to Gen 25:32.

Lawee (p. 98) refers to Mizrahi as the “dean” of Rashi super-commentaries. See also Lawee’s discussion of Mizrahi on pp. 259-262.

See e.g. b. Baba Batra 16b and Genesis Rabbah 63:12.

In the same comment he writes: ואף על גב ד"עיף" נאמר גם כן ברעב, “even though the word עיף can be used to mean hungry....”

Or perhaps Rashi is relating this midrash to the doubling of the word “דור—generation,” in the phrase שנות דור ודור, which could be translated as “the years of generation after generation.”

See e.g. Genesis Rabbah 23:7.

In Ibn Ezra’s grammar book, Safah berurah, ed. by Gabriel Lippmann (Fürth, 1839; reprint edition Jerusalem, 1967), p. 5.

Parashat ha-kesef, Paris ms. 184, page 4a., cited by Avraham Gross, “רש"י ומסורת לימוד התורה שבכתב בספרד” [Spanish Jewry and Rashi’s Commentary on the Pentateuch], in רש"י : עיונים ביצירתו [Rashi Studies], ed. Zvi Arie Steinfeld (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1993), 35. Gross also cites other critics of Rashi’s reliance on midrash on pp. 36, 37, 44 and in note 80 on page 46.

See e.g. the vituperative language in Rashbam’s epilogue to his Torah commentary, found in my Rashbam’s Commentary on Deuteronomy, pp. 205–207.

Lawee, Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah, 150–195.

Literally: “our rabbi descends to midrash only when compelled.” David Pardo, Maskil leDavid, (reprint edition: Jerusalem, 1986), introduction, p. 5.

See Exodus Rabbah 1, Tanhuma (Buber ed.) Shemot 6 and Tanhuma Pequdei 9.

First published in 1525 under the title, Perushim le-rashi ([Super-]commentaries on Rashi. On this super-commentary, see Lawee, pp. 98-102 and passim.

See Almosnino’s super-commentary on Rashi to Exod 12:12, s.v. אני ה', ed. by Moshe Filip, p. 125:

הנה רש"י רדף אחר פשט הכתוב כי לפי הפשט אין מקום אל דרשת הסימנים האחרים, רצוני ועברתי והכתי אעשה.

Notice that Rashi pursued the peshat of the verse. Following peshat considerations, there is no justification for the other proofs [that God acted alone] from the phrases, “I will go through” and “I will strike” and “I will mete out” [and accordingly Rashi did not cite them in his Torah commentary].

While the point that Almosnino makes about Rashi’s method is, generally speaking, solid, this specific example might not be the best. Rashi may not have even known the midrashic reading that Almosnino claims Rashi rejected. On the history of this midrash, see Menachem M. Kasher, Torah Sheleimah, vol. 11, pp. 117–118 and note 250 there.

For a different solution to this textual difficulty, see Rashbam’s commentary to Exod 2:3, s.v. ותשם and note 12 on p. 22 of my Rashbam’s Commentary on Exodus.

Nehama Leibowitz, “דרכו של רש"י בהבאת מדרשים בפירושו לתורה” [Rashi’s Method when Including Midrashim in his Torah Commentary], עיונים חדשים בספר שמות [New Studies in the Book of Exodus] (World Zionist Organization, 1969/70), 497–524.

Leibowitz’s Hebrew biographer recounts an anecdote about a class that the young Nehama Leibowitz taught in Israel at the beginning of her career, where she challenged her students to figure out what possible ambiguity Rashi’s short comment here was addressing. None of the students could figure it out except one very recent new immigrant to Israel from Germany, who said in pidgin Hebrew: לא מטריאל (lo material). Leibowitz was delighted that the new immigrant had figured it out: the word עץ in Hebrew is potentially ambiguous; it can mean either processed “wood” (material) or “tree.” Hayuta Deutsch, נחמה-סיפור חייה של נחמה ליבוביץ [Nehama: The Life of Nehama Leibowitz], (Tel Aviv: Yedioth-Aharonot/Sifrei Hemed, 2008) 83–84.

See e.g. commentary to Gen 37:14: לא מהכרח הכתוב דרש כן . . . רק שלפי האמת כן הוא.

See Leibowitz, ibid., p. 500 and footnote 4 there.

See e.g. commentary to Deut 25:6, and other sources cited by Moshe Filip in his introduction to Sefer Zikkaron, in the footnotes on pages 29–34. Bokrat also has a fascinating theory that Rashi chooses one midrashic compilation that served as his Ur-text for each book of the Torah. He often uses a midrashic interpretation from that compilation even when it lacks any textual basis. See e.g. Bokrat to Gen 4:15:

לא ידעתי הכרע לפירוש זה אם לא נאמר שרצה לקיים מדרש תנחומא

I can see no purpose for this comment other than Rashi’s desire to transmit the midrash found in the Tanhuma.

See also his commentary to Exod 13:17.

Commentary to Lev 21:3:

ואין לסייע קבלתם ז"ל בשנאמר שאם לא כן הויא לה "לה יטמא" מיותרת, שאין דברי קבלה צריכין חיזוק ולא סיוע

There is no need to bring support for the rabbis’ tradition [of interpretation of this verse] by pointing out that the words “for her he may defile himself” are unnecessary [since verses 2 and 3 were already introduced by the Torah as the list of relatives for whom the priest may defile himself]; the words of tradition require no support or strengthening [from alleged anomalies in the biblical verse].

Gross, “Spanish Jewry and Rashi’s Commentary on the Pentateuch,” 46.

See Liber, REJ 50 (1905), p. XLVIII and Liber, Rashi, translated by H. Szold, esp. p. 111.

See his introduction to Bokrat’s Sefer zikkaron, p. 53, note 70. In this introduction, Filip also decries those who attempt to recast Rashi as an exegete committed to peshat and writes that a careful analysis of Rashi’s sources and his comments leads to the conclusions that Bokrat reached.

I offer some arguments to prove this in my essay, “Peshat and Derash in Northern France,” which appears in my Rashbam’s Commentary on Deuteronomy: An Annotated Translation, esp. pages 12-14.

This approach is promoted by a number of modern scholars, including Avraham Grossman (in his Rashi, trans. Joel A. Linsider [Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2012]) and Yedida Eisenstat in her dissertation mentioned above.

Many have pointed out, for example, that the phrase אין נא אלא לשון בקשה must mean “נא in this particular passage must be understood as a word of request,” not “נא always is a word of request.” See Mizrahi to Gen 22:2, Exod 11:2 and Deut 3:25. Rabbi Isaac Horowitz (as cited by N. Leibowitz in ‘Iyyunim hadashim besefer Shemot, p. 130) expands this claim, saying that it applies to all sayings with a similar construction in rabbinic Hebrew. (ודע שזה כלל גדול בדבריהם ז"ל).

For example, his commentary to Gen 35:13.

In his essay “רקע היסטורי” [“Historical Background”], in Nehama Leibowitz and Moshe Ahrend, פירוש רש"י לתורה: עיונים בשיטתו [Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Studies in His Methodology] (The Open University, 1994), 2.523.

In Mikraot Gedolot ha-Keter, ed. by Menahem Cohen. The standard printed texts obscure Rashi’s explicit reference to Christians.

Personally, I am convinced by the case made by Shaye Cohen that Rashi’s commentary on the Torah never addresses Christianity. See Shaye J.D. Cohen, “Does Rashi’s Torah Commentary Respond to Christianity? A Comparison of Rashi with Rashbam and Bekhor Shor,” in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel, ed. Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 449-472. See also Daniel J. Lasker, “Rashi and Maimonides on Christianity,” in Ephraim Kanarfogel and Moshe Sokolow, eds., Between Rashi and Maimonides: Themes in Medieval Jewish Thought, Literature and Exegesis, 3-21. Cf. the arguments of Yedida Eisenstat, "Does Rashi's Torah Commentary Respond to Christianity?" TheTorah (2018), who argues that while Rashi may not contain polemics against Christianity, his commentary contains apologetics directed against Christianity.