They also imposed themselves, as we have seen, upon the Spanish rabbis, who freely recognized the superiority of the Jews of France and Germany in regard to Talmudic schools. Isaac ben Sheshet[150] said, "From France goes forth the Law, and the word of God from Germany." Rashi's influence is apparent in the Talmudic writings of this rabbi, as well as in the works, both Talmudic and exegetic in character, of his successor Simon ben Zemah Duran,[151] and in the purely exegetic works of the celebrated Isaac Abrabanel (1437-1509), who salutes in Rashi "a father in the province of the Talmud." It was in the fifteenth century that some of the supercommentaries were made to Rashi's commentary on the Pentateuch. The most celebrated-and justly celebrated-is that of Elijah ben Abraham Mizrahi, a Hebrew scholar, mathematician, and philosopher, who lived in Turkey. His commentary, says Wogue, "is a master-piece of logic, keen- wittedness, and Talmudic learning."
However, as if the creative force of the Jews had been exhausted by a prolific period lasting several centuries, Rashi's commentaries were not productive of original works in a similar style. Accepted everywhere, they became the law everywhere, but they did not stimulate to fresh effort. Scholars followed him, as the poet said, in adoring his footsteps from afar.
For if his works had spent their impulse, his personality, on the other hand, became more and more popular. Legends sprang up ascribing to him the attributes of a saint and universal scholar, almost a magician.[152] He was venerated as the father of rabbinical literature. In certain German communities, he, together with a few other rabbis, is mentioned in the prayer recited in commemoration of the dead, and his name is followed by the formula, "who enlightened the eyes of the Captivity by his commentaries." Rashi's commentaries not only exercised profound influence upon the literary movement of the Jews, but also wove a strain into the destinies of the Jews of France and Germany. During this entire period of terror, the true middle ages of the Jews, for whom the horrors of the First Crusade, like a "disastrous twilight," did not draw to an end until the bright dawn of the French Revolution, the thing that sustained and animated them, that enabled them to bear pillage and exploitation, martyrdom and exile, was their unremitting study of the Bible and the Talmud. And how could they have become so passionately devoted to the reading of the two books, if Rashi had not given them the key, if he had not thus converted the books into a safeguard for the Jews, a lamp in the midst of darkness, a bright hope against alien persecutions?
Rashi's prestige then became so great that the principal Jewish communities claimed him as their own,[153] and high-standing families alleged that they were connected with him. It is known that the celebrated mystic Eleazar of Worms (1160-1230) is a descendant of his. A certain Solomon Simhah, of Troyes, in 1297 wrote a casuistic, ethical work in which he claims to belong to the fourth generation descended from Rashi beginning with Rashi's sons-in-law. The family of the French rabbi may be traced down to the thirteenth century. At that time mention is made of a Samuel ben Jacob, of Troyes, who lived in the south of France. And it is also from Rashi that the family Luria, or Loria, pretends to be descended, although the titles for its claim are not incontestably authentic. The name of Loria comes, not, as has been said, from the river Loire, but from a little city of Italy, and the family itself may have originated in Alsace. Its head, Solomon, son of Samuel Spira (about 1375), traced his connection with Rashi through his mother, a daughter of Mattathias Treves, one of the last French rabbis. The daughter of Solomon, Miriam (this name seems to have been frequent in Rashi's family), was, it appears, a scholar. It is certain that the family has produced illustrious offspring, among them Yosselmann of Rosheim (about 1554), the famous rabbi and defender of the Jews of the Empire; Elijah Loanz (about 1564-1616), wandering rabbi, Kabbalist, and commentator; Solomon Luria[154] (died in 1573 at Lublin), likewise a Kabbalist and Talmudist, but of the highest rank, on account of his bold thinking and sense of logic, who renewed the study of the Tossafists; and Jehiel Heilprin (about 1725), descended from Luria through his mother, author of a valuable and learned Jewish chronicle followed by an index of rabbis. He declared he had seen a genealogical table on which Rashi's name appeared establishing his descent from so remote an ancestor as Johanan ha-Sandlar and including Rashi in the steps.[155] This family, which was divided into two branches, the Heilprins and the Lurias, still counts among its members renowned scholars and estimable merchants.
As if the numberless copies of his commentaries had not sufficed to spread Rashi's popularity, the discovery of printing lent its aid in giving it the widest possible vogue. The commentary on the Pentateuch is the first Hebrew work of which the date of printing is known. The edition was published at Reggio at the beginning of 1475 by the printer Abraham ben Garton. Zunz reckoned that up to 1818 there were seventeen editions in which the commentary appeared alone, and one hundred and sixty in which it accompanied the text. Some modifications were introduced into the commentary either because of the severity of the censors or because of the prudence of the editors. Among the books that the Inquisition confiscated in 1753 in a small city of Italy, there were twenty-one Pentateuchs with Rashi's commentary.
All the printed editions of the Babylonian Talmud are accompanied by Rashi's commentaries in the inner column and by the Tossafot in the outer column.
Rashi's authority gained in weight more and more, and he became representative in ordinary, as it were, of Talmudic exegesis. This fact is made evident by a merely superficial survey of the work <I>Bet Yosef</I> (House of Joseph), which is, one may say, an index to rabbinical literature. Rashi is mentioned here on every page. He is the official commentator of the Talmudic text. The author of the <I>Bet Yosef</I>, the learned Talmudist and Kabbalist Joseph ben Ephraim Karo (born 1448, died at Safed, Palestine, at 87 years of age), places Rashi's Biblical commentary on the same plane as the Aramaic translation of the Bible. He recommends that it be read on the Sabbath, at the same time as the Pentateuch and the Targum. Luria goes even further. According to him, when the Targum and Rashi cannot be read at the same time, preference should be given to Rashi, since he is more easily understood, and renders the text more intelligible.
Rashi's commentary, therefore, entered into the religious life of the Jews. It is chiefly the commentaries on the Five Books of Moses and the Five Megillot, the Scriptural books forming part of the synagogue liturgy, that were widely circulated in print and were made the basis of super-commentaries. The best of these are the super-commentary of Simon Ashkenazi, a writer of the seventeenth century, born in Frankfort and died at Jerusalem, and the clear, ingenious super-commentary of Sabbatai ben Joseph Bass, printer and bibliographer, born in 1641, died at Krotoszyn in 1718.
The other representatives of the French school of exegetes have fallen into oblivion. Rashi alone survived, and what saved him, I greatly fear, were the Halakic and Haggadic elements pervading his commentary. An editor who ventured to undertake the publication (in 1705) of the commentary on the Pentateuch by Samuel ben Meir,[156] complains in the preface that his contemporaries found in it nothing worth occupying their time. Rashi's commentary was better adapted to the average intellects and to the Talmudic culture of its readers.
Rashi's Talmudic commentary, also, was more generally studied than other commentaries, and gave a more stimulating impulse to rabbinical literature. Teachers and masters racked their brains to discover in it unexpected difficulties, for the sake of solving them in the most ingenious fashion. This produced the kind of literature known as <I>Hiddushim</I>, Novellae, and <I>Dikdukim</I>, subtleties. A rabbi, for example, would set himself the task of counting the exact number of times the expression "that is to say" occurs in the commentary on the first three Talmudic treatises. Jacob ben Joshua Falk (died 1648), who believed Rashi had appeared to him in a dream, attempted in his "Defense of Solomon" to clear the master of all attacks made upon him. Solomon Luria and Samuel Edels (about 1555-1631), or, as is said in the schools, the Maharshal and the Maharsha, explain the difficult passages of Rashi's Talmudic commentary, sometimes by dint of subtlety, sometimes by happy corrections. Still more meritorious are the efforts of Joel Sirkes (died in 1640 at Cracow), who often skilfully altered Rashi's text for the better.