8 - The Uniqueness of the Jewish People

Summary

Methodological Introduction

In his book Rashi: His Jewish World-View, published in 1995, Dov Rappel wrote that ‘thousands of studies have been devoted to Rashi, but not one of them attempts to present his view of the world’. Though perhaps somewhat overstated, the observation is essentially accurate. This odd situation may be attributed to the fact that Rashi left no detailed, explicit ideological legacy. Like other sages in eleventh-century Germany and France, he never offered his readers a statement of his beliefs and opinions. In Spain, Provence, and the Muslim lands, the study of philosophy had a powerful impact on Jewish culture and led Jewish sages to formulate their beliefs and world-views in ordered and explicit terms. That was not so in eleventh-century Germany and France, where the study of philosophy was widespread neither among the Jews nor among their Christian neighbours. Rashi instead integrated his thoughts and perspectives into his responsa, his liturgical poems, and his biblical commentary. On rare occasions he did so in his talmudic commentary. Using measured words and gentle allusions, he conveyed his ideas and his polemic against the Christian surroundings. Not surprisingly, therefore, many scholars have maintained that Rashi's commentaries shed no light on his world-view. Nehama Leibowitz took a particularly strong stand on this, and her position exercised considerable sway. In her view, Rashi set out to do one thing and one thing only in his commentary on the Torah— to interpret the text:

Rashi made use of midrashim only when they respond to a question raised by the written text, resolve some difficulty, cut through a knot, or fill in a gap. Which is to say: when they help the reader understand the verse. He does not cite midrashim to ‘adorn words of Torah with rabbinic pearls’, to engage in ‘mere homiletics’, to preach morality, or for other similar purposes.

Rashi was not guided in his exegetical work by his broad perspective, his beliefs and opinions, or his personal experiences. The biblical text itself, the wording of Scripture, provided his context.

In recent years, several scholars have called Leibowitz's basic premise into question. They maintain that Rashi's commentaries, including the rabbinic legends he often incorporated into them, were influenced not only by exegetical considerations but also by his perspective on the world and by current needs.