Rashi Read Online Free Page A

many Midrashic commentaries Rashi cites. But Rashi sets about making a personal choice to support his hypothesis. Since Israel has and will have an enemy, this enemy must be named; it is Christianity, which, in Esau, existed well before the common era.
    Grossman stresses this point. According to him, Esau is not the only person Rashi presents in a negative light. He sees other protagonists as having negative traits as well: for him, Lot, Abraham’s nephew, did nothing commendable. Ifhe lived in the sinful city of Sodom, it was because he felt comfortable among the impious.
    Ishmael? Not attractive either. He kept company with brigands and imitated their habits. Idolatrous and violent, he was not really loved by his father.
    How are we to explain these seemingly unjust allegories if not by the more or less hostile political, social, and religious environment of the period? Weren’t the people of Israel assailed, threatened, attacked, and tormented by both Christians and Muslims?
    A general rule: whenever he can, Rashi chooses passages in the Midrash that can be interpreted as arguments against “the other nations.” Why? There again, let us draw on Grossman who attributes Rashi’s animosity to theological pressures to which were added the horrendous persecutions Christendom inflicted on the Jews in that part of Europe.
    The forced “disputations” in the royal courts and cathedrals, the violent anti-Semitic propaganda that resulted from these, the preparations for the first Crusade whose victims included Rashi’s disciples and friends, surely influenced his conception of the world. Was it his reaction to those events that were to leave traces of fire and blood in the Jewish memory forever after?
    Did he ever forgive Esau whose descendents—in Rome, according to him—bore down on the Jews whose tragic destiny was supposed to be proof that God had changed his chosen people?
    One should read Rashi’s commentary on the Song of Songs, a cry of distress and a song of love. It reflects the suffering of the Jews in exile. And so do some of the Psalms. For Rashi, King David predicts the martyrdom of the Righteous who sacrificed themselves in order to sanctify the Name of God.
    But let us return to the Scriptures:
    Rashi, as opposed to other great interpreters and sages, seems to favor the patriarchs exclusively: although the Talmud never hesitates to describe them as deeply human and mentions their failings and errors, Rashi depicts them as Righteous Men if not absolute saints. No misdemeanor, no blunder, never an ethical shortcoming when it comes to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is proud of them for all eternity and so is he.
    And yet.
    Throughout his work, usually what counts most for Rashi is the concern for truth. Revealing the deep, hidden meaning of a biblical verse or a Talmudic statement, the very meaning that our distant precursors had bequeathed to their descendants—that’s the ultimate objective of his approach.
    An approach that calls for a great deal of daring. Breaking down closed doors, disputing standard interpretations,going beyond the superficial, beyond what meets the eye, reaching higher and higher and delving deep down: courage is needed to aspire to this and consent to it. Rashi has courage, and he shares it with his pupils. In some instances he almost goes too far. Concerning the person of Flavius Josephus, for example.
    Flavius Josephus is too demanding of the Jews besieged in Jerusalem. He asks them to resign themselves and accept defeat. He finishes his life as a patrician, near Rome. It is hardly surprising that the Jewish tradition kept its distance from the work of Flavius Josephus, Jewish historian. For centuries, the writer was treated as a marginal figure in the religious literature of the Jewish people. Too moderate, too conciliatory, too weak with regard to the besieging Romans: he was regarded with genuine antipathy. But apparently not by Rashi, who admires his work
The War of the