Rashi

by Maurice Liber

From an intellectual point of view the Jews resembled the people among whom they lived. Like them, they were pious, even extremely devout; and they counted few unbelievers among their number. Sometimes it happened that a religious person failed to obey precepts, but no one contested the foundations of belief. In the matter of religion, it is true, outward observance was guarded above everything else. The Jews, settled as they were on foreign soil, came to attach themselves to ceremonials as the surest guarantees of their faith. Naturally superstitions prevailed at an epoch marked by a total lack of scientific spirit. People believed in the existence of men without shadows, in evil demons, and so on. The Jews, however, were less inclined to such conceptions than the Christians, who in every district had places of pilgrimage at which they adored spurious bones and relics.

It would be altogether unjust not to recognize the ethical results of the constant practice of the law, which circumscribed the entire life of the Jew. Talmudic legislation must not be regarded, as it sometimes is, as an oppressive yoke, an insufferable fetter. Its exactions do not make it tyrannical, because it is loyally and freely accepted, accepted even with pleasure. The whole life of the Jew is taken into consideration beforehand, its boundaries are marked, its actions controlled. But this submission entails no self-denial; it is voluntary and the reason is provided with sufficient motives. Indeed, it is remarkable what freedom and breadth thought was able to maintain in the very bosom of orthodoxy.

"The observance of the Law and, consequently, the study of the Law formed the basis of this religion. With the fall of the Temple the one place disappeared in which the Divine cult could legitimately be performed; as a result the Jews turned for the expression of their religious sentiment with all the more ardor toward the Law, now become the real sanctuary of Judaism torn from its native soil, the safeguard of the wandering race, the one heritage of a glorious and precious past. The recitation and study of the Law took the place of religious ceremonies-hence the name "school" (<I>Schul</I>) for houses of worship in France and in Germany. The endeavor was made to give the Law definite form, to develop it, not only in its provisions remaining in practical use, such as the civil and penal code, regulations in regard to the festivals, and private observances, but also in its provisions relating to the Temple cult which had historical interest only. This occupation, pursued with warmth and depth of feeling for a number of centuries, appealed at once to the intellect and the heart. It may be said that the entire Jewish race shared in the work, the scholar being removed from the general mass only in degree, not in kind."[6]

The high level of general instruction among the Jews was all the more remarkable since only a small number of literary works were known. Though copies were made of those which enjoyed the greatest reputation, the number of manuscripts was limited. Nevertheless, soon after their appearance, important productions in one country came into the hands of scholars of other countries. Just as Christendom by force of its spiritual bond formed a single realm, so two strong chains bound together Jews of widely separated regions: these were their religion and their language. Communication was difficult, roads were few in number and dangerous; yet, countervailing distance and danger was devotion to religion and to learning.

But religion and learning were one and the same thing. As was the case in Christianity, and for the same reasons, religion filled the whole of life and engrossed all branches of knowledge. There was no such thing as secular science; religion placed its stamp on everything, and turned the currents of thought into its own channels. One must not hope therefore to find, among the Jews of Northern France, those literary species which blossomed and flourished in Spain; philosophy did not exist among them, and poetry was confined to a few dry liturgic poems. Their intellectual activity was concentrated in the study of the Bible and the Talmud; but in this domain they acquired all the greater depth and penetration. Less varied as were the objects of their pursuits, they excelled in what they undertook, and inferior though they were in the fields of philosophy and poetry, they were superior in Biblical exegesis, and still more so, possibly, in Talmudic jurisprudence.

II

The history of the beginnings of rabbinical learning in France is wrapped in obscurity. Tradition has it that Charlemagne caused the scholar Kalonymos to come from Lucca to Mayence. With his sons he is said to have opened a school there, which became the centre [center sic] of Talmudic studies in Lorraine. Legends, however slight their semblance to truth, are never purely fictitious in character; they contain an element of truth, or, at least, symbolize the truth; and this tradition, which cannot be accepted in the shape in which it has been handed down, seeing that Kalonymos lived in the tenth century, is nevertheless a fairly exact representation of the continuity of the intellectual movement. If the fact is not established that Charlemagne accomplished for the Jews what he did for the Christians, that is, revived their schools and promoted their prosperity, it seems more certain that rabbinical learning penetrated into the northwest of Europe through the intermediation of Italy, which bridged the gap between the Orient and the Rhine lands.

As is well known, Christian Italy during the early middle ages, despite the successive invasions of the barbarians, remained the centre [center sic] of civilization and the store-house of Occidental learning. It is in Italy, without doubt, that the Romanesque style of architecture had its origin, and in Italy that the study of the Roman law was vigorously resumed. It is to Italy also that Charlemagne turned when he sought for scholars to place at the head of his schools. Moreover, it was on Italian soil, in the fifteenth century, that the magnificent blossom meriting its name, the Renaissance, was destined to open and unfold its literary and artistic beauties.

Italy owes its glorious part in the world's history both to its geographical position and its commercial importance. So likewise with the Jews of Italy, their commercial activities contributed to their intellectual prosperity. In the ninth century they possessed rabbinical authorities, and in the tenth century, centres [centers sic] of Talmudic study. At this period, the celebrated family of the Kalonymides went to Lorraine to establish itself there. For some time Mayence was the metropolis of Judaism in the Rhine countries; and by its community the first academies were established, the first Talmudic commentaries were composed, and decisions were made which were accepted by all the Jews of Christian Europe. Soon this intellectual activity extended to Worms, to Speyer, and a little later to the western part of Germany and the northern part of France.[7] A veritable renaissance took place, parallel with the movement of ideas which went on in the schools and convents of the eleventh and fourteenth centuries;[8] for Jewish culture is often bound up with the intellectual destinies of the neighboring peoples.

For some time the schools of Lorraine stood at the head of the Talmudic movement, and it was to them that Rashi came a little later to derive instruction.