Rashi

<H> ... </H> bracket English transliterations of Hebrew terms which appeared in this location in the original text. The transliterations were created with the aid of Rabbi Manes Kogan of Beth Israel Synagogue in Roanoke, Virginia during fall, 2000. Occasionally no transliteration was available. When transliterating a multi word phrase, the transliteration is done using the Hebrew word ordering of right to left. Following the transliteration, if present, but still within the brackets, are the parenthesized names of the Hebrew letters. The name of each letter is capitalized, and multiple words are separated by commas.

In all cases, the closing bracket will include any punctuation that immediately followed the associated textual material.

The Hebrew letters, vowels and punctuation are named according to the Unicode standard (which is itself based upon ISO 8859-8) as follows: (The Unicode value is in hexadecimal).

Vowel Unicode Letter Unicode Sheva 05B0 Alef 05D0 Hataf Segol 05B1 Bet 05D1 Hataf Patah 05B2 Gimel 05D2 Hataf Qamats 05B3 Dalet 05D3 Hiriq 05B4 He 05D4 Tsere 05B5 Vav 05D5 Segol 05B6 Zayin 05D6 Patah 05B7 Het 05D7 Qamats 05B8 Tet 05D8 Holam 05B9 Yod 05D9 <unused> 05BA Final Kaf 05DA Qubuts 05BB Kaf 05DB Dagesh 05BC Lamed 05DC Meteg 05BD Final Mem 05DD Maqaf 05BE Mem 05DE Rafe 05BF Final Nun 05DF Paseq 05C0 Nun 05E0 Shin dot 05C1 Samekh 05E1 Sin dot 05C2 Ayin 05E2 Sof Pasuq 05C3 Final Pe 05E3 Pe 05E4 Other punctuation Final Tsadi 05E5 Geresh 05F3 Tsadi 05E6 Gershayim 05F4 Qof 05E7 Resh 05E8 Shin 05E9 Tav 05EA

[#] bracketed #s are superscripts in the original and note identification numbers. There are some problems with these. Note #4 (Chapter 1) is not referenced in the text. Note #36 appears twice (Chapter 4) and #102 appears twice in Chapter 7.

hyphenation of terms is suppressed, so any hyphens appearing at the end of the line are infix grouping operators from the original.

Two spaces or eol follow each sentence terminator.

One blank line separates each paragraph.

Multiline quotations (that are in a different font in the original), are here indented 3 spaces

Reference 3 is at the bottom of page 20 in the original, Reference 5 is at the top of page 23, I cannot find Reference 4 anywhere.

Spelling errors are denoted by [correct_spelling sic]. Most of these are just variants and currently archaic terms, but some appear to be actual errors. Correct version is from my on line dictionary, or when in doubt, from my printed Collegiate Dictionary. This is also used when, IMHO, there is an error in the text.

The index is not included, as the pagination used in it is irrelevant.

The duplication of reference [36], ([36],[37],[36],[38]) in chapter 4 is in the original.

There are many places (see especially chapter 6) where an unbalanced right square bracket appears, often after either an italicized phrase or a Hebrew phrase. These are in the original.

RASHI

BY

MAURICE LIBER

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH

BY

ADELE SZOLD

THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA

TO THE MEMORY OF

ZADOC-KAHN

GRAND-RABBIN OF FRANCE

PREFACE -----

Some months ago the Jewish world celebrated the eight hundredth anniversary of the death of Rashi, who died at Troyes in 1105. On that occasion those whose knowledge authorizes them to speak gave eloquent accounts of his life and work. Science and devotion availed themselves of every possible medium-lectures and books, journals and reviews-to set forth all we owe to the illustrious Rabbi. The writer ventures to express the hope that in the present volume he has made at least a slight contribution toward discharging the common debt of the Jewish nation-that it is not utterly unworthy of him whose name it bears.

This volume, however, is not a product of circumstances; it was not written on the occasion of the centenary celebration. It was designed to form one of the series of the biographies of Jewish Worthies planned by the JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA, the first issue of which was devoted to Maimonides. The biography of Rashi is the second of the series. It is not for the author to endorse the order adopted, but he hazards the opinion that the readers will find the portrait of Rashi no unfitting companion-piece even to that of the author of the <I>Moreh.</I>