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Among the great Jewish scholars and Rabbis none is more renowned than Rashi. H s name s equally familiar to schoolchildren and to scholars of the - Yeshivot - the Academies of Talmudic Study The basis of Torah study, both for the child taking his first steps and for the well-versed adult, is what is known as "Chumash-Rashi", the five books of Moses with Rashi's Commentary. And as he works through each page of the Talmud, the learned scholar s f nger never strays far from Rashi's Commentary at the s de The greatness of Rashi in his commentary on the Torah lies in that he is not satisfied with just providing the meaning of a word but he also quotes Talmudic lore. These bring the characters of the Pentateuch to life in front of us, making us aware of their special life styles and qualities and filling out the events described with tangible content. In the other books of the Bible the stories give us a deeper understanding of the development of the history of the Jewish People for better and for worse.
His clear distinctive style served as a model for Rabbinic literature that was to follow in Europe and his telling aphorisms have become part and parcel of the collective mind and language of the people.
Christian commentators have also referred to his work at least those who honestly sought to explain the meaning of the Bible, and have even translated it into Latin.
His commentaries were very soon known and propagated by Jewish communities everywhere, as hundreds of manuscripts bear witness to manuscripts which, today, are carefully preserved in libraries around the world. Even in the nineteenth century his commentaries were copied by the Jews of yemen.
It is no wonder then, that the first Hebrew book to be printed was Rashi's Commentary on the Torah (Reggio, 1475). The type-style used in this book is still, today, called 'Rashi-script". Shortly afterwards, his other works were also printed; the Babylonian Talmud with Rashi's commentary was first published in Venice in 1520-1522, his commentary still in "Rashi-script".
Further evidence of the importance which the Rabbis scribed to Rashi's commentaries can be found in the hundreds of commentaries which have been written on is original one and in the multitude of books which have been published on his work. To this day no Talmud printed without his commentary.
In addition to his commentaries, we also know of his Responsa to rabbis who referred questions to him and which have been brought together in works such as Sefer ha-Pardess, Sefer ha-Orah and Sefer Issur ye-letter, the Responsa of his students, particularly Rabbi hemalab. Another of his students, Rabbi Simhah ben amuel of Vitry edited Mahazor Vitry, which also includes many legal decisions of his teacher.
Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac was born in Troyes in the province of Champagne, in France, in 1040, to a family north Italian origin. He died in Troyes in 1105. When e was still young he envisioned writing a complete commentary on "the two pillars of Judaism", The written Torah (the Bible) and the Oral Torah (the Talmud). With this in mind he went with his family to the cities of the Rhineland, Worms and Mainz in order extend his knowledge and to secure the various 3mmentaries which circulated there, in the schools founded by the disciples of Rabbenu Gershom Meorh-aGoIah.
On his return to Troyes, his house became the seat of swish studies in northern France. Together with his pupils and his family, he edited and dictated his remarkable commentaries, which they called the "Kunters". They, particularly his grandchildren (the greatest of them being Rabbenu Tam and Rashbam) completed his work after his death and even continued, sing his approach, to write their own commentaries on the Bible and those on the Babylonian Talmud, called Tosafot.
Rashi's School brought about the dissemination of Torah study in northern France and the establishment of a large number of Yeshivot there.
