After the death of Rashi's teachers (about 1075) his school 'assumed even more importance. It eclipsed the academies of Lorraine, and from all the neighboring countries it attracted pupils, who later went forth and spread the teachings of their master abroad. Rashi came to be considered almost the regenerator of Talmudic studies, and in the following generation Eliezer ben Xathan said with pious admiration: "His lips were the seat of wisdom, and thanks to him the Law, which he examined and interpreted, has come to life again."
In this school, justly renowned as the centre [center sic] of Jewish science, master and pupil were animated by equal love for their work. Entire days were spent there in study, and often, especially in winter, entire nights as well. The studies were regulated by a judicious method. The teacher began to explain a treatise of the Talmud on the first of the month, in order that the students might take their measures accordingly, and not delay coming until after the treatise had been begun. The pupils took notes dictated by the teacher, and thus composed manuscripts which are still of great value. In so doing they fixed all the minutiae of a detailed process of argumentation. On the other hand, books were rare, and students poor. The master himself, in order to facilitate his task, wrote explanations during the lesson, and these served as textbooks, which, like the students' notebooks, became treasure houses for later generations.
Rashi not only imparted knowledge to his pupils, but received knowledge from them in turn. He set great store by their observations. His grandson Samuel ben Meir once drew his attention to a certain form of Biblical parallelism, in which the second hemistich completes the first, as in the following verse from Psalm xciii:
"The floods have lifted up, O Lord,
The floods have lifted up their voice."
After this, each time Rashi came across a similarly constructed verse, he would say with mock gravity: "Here's a verse for my Samuel."
The Jewish student led a pure, regulated existence, with only wholesome distractions, such as the little celebrations when the study of a Talmudic treatise had been completed. His greatest pleasure he found in the swordplay of mind against mind, in the love of knowledge and religion.
Rashi did not content himself with giving instruction only to students under his immediate influence. He desired that his teachings should not be lost to men unknown to him and to unborn generations. He realized that everything so far accomplished in the field of Talmudic and even Biblical exegesis was inadequate, and he therefore undertook the works that were to occupy him the rest of his life. His school was, so to speak, the laboratory of which his Biblical and Talmudic commentaries were the products. They involved a vast amount of toil, and though death overtook him before his task was accomplished, he doubtless began the work early in life.[23] A legend goes that he was forbidden to write commentaries on the Bible before he was a hundred years old. Rashi with all his ardor for learning could not curb himself and postpone his activity for so long a time, and he turned the prohibition in his own favor by explaining that the sum of the Hebrew letters forming the word "hundred" amounted to forty-six.
Rashi's disciples were in very truth his sons, for no sons were born to the illustrious rabbi. But he had three daughters, who each married a Talmudist, so that Rashi's descendants, no less than himself, were the bearers of rabbinic learning in France. Rashi did not limit his association with his pupils to the school-house, but invited them to enter his family circle. Indeed, this was the highest honor to which they could aspire. It has always been the greatest piece of good fortune for a Jew to marry the daughter of a learned and pious man, and the suitors most desired by and for young girls were scholars. In this way arose veritable dynasties of rabbis, who cherished learning as a heritage, a family treasure, and the Rashi "dynasty" was one of the greatest and most renowned among them.
Tradition has delighted in representing Rashi's daughters as highly endowed. Unfortunately, it seems that the education of women among the Jews of the middle ages was greatly neglected, though they were taught the principles of religion and the ordinances which it was their special duty to fulfil [fulfill sic]. They possessed the domestic virtues, and above all modesty and charity. They helped their husbands in business, thus enabling them to devote themselves more freely to study, and though the women themselves lacked learning, they concerned themselves with the learning of their men-folk, and were eager to contribute to the support of schools and pupils. They were extremely pious, often scrupulously so. The women in a family of scholars had sufficient knowledge to be called upon in ritual questions, as, for instance, Bellette, sister of Isaac ben Menahem the Great, of Orleans, a contemporary of Rashi, who appealed to her authority. Other cases of the same kind are mentioned, some occurring in Rashi's own family, his granddaughter Miriam having been asked to adjudicate a doubtful case. One of Rashi's daughters, also called Miriam, married the scholar Judah ben Nathan. Rachel, another daughter, given a French epithet, Bellassez,[24] also seems to have been learned. Her union with a certain Eliezer, or Jocelyn, was unhappy. Not so the marriage of the third daughter of Rashi, Jochebed, whose husband was the scholar Meir, son of Samuel, of Rameru, a little village near Troyes. She had four sons, named Samuel, Jacob, Isaac, and Solomon. The three first, and in a less degree the fourth, too, continued in glorious wise the traditions of their grandfather. I shall have occasion again to mention them, their life, and their work.
The renown of his posterity, far from dimming Rashi's brilliance, only added fresh lustre [luster sic] to the name of him who was both father and revered master. Even in his life-time Rashi could reap the harvest of his efforts, and though death intervened before his work was completed, he saw at his side collaborators ready to continue what he had begun.