Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/303

Rh R A S H A S 285 terpreting' in his presence, and the budding intelligence of a third, who became the greatest Talmudist of his age. Rashi, though not the originator of all that he teaches in his commentary on the Talmud, had so digested the whole literature bearing on that stupendous work that his teaching, even when it appears to be imitative, is really creative. In his Biblical com- mentaries he has not, of course, grammatical and philological knowledge of the modern type, but he had a very fine sense for linguistic points, which was not equalled, much less surpassed, by the greatest rabbis who followed him. He gave satisfaction, if not to all, at least to the best of his time, and, as the great German poet says, " he who has given satisfaction to the best of his time lives for all ages." RASHI'S WORKS. A. Bible Comincntary (KT1Q). Rashi com- mented on the whole of the Hebrew Bible except Job, chaps, xl. 21 to the end, and the books of Chronicles. 1 Kimhi's is the only Rabbinical commentary which can be said to have successfully approached this great work in its influence on Jewish scholarship ; and on the Pentateuch Rashi had no rival. For centuries too his was the text-book in boys' schools throughout the Jewish world and in some countries it is so still, its depth and subtilty being com- bined with simplicity of exposition. Its currency is attested by more than a hundred supercommentaries, translations, extracts, and the like, of which there are about fifty in print. An eminent rabbi declares that Rashi may be substituted for the Targum " in the reading of the weekly pericope " (Reshal, Yam shd Shelomoh on Kiddushin, ii. 14). Rashi's influence on Christian scholars has already been alluded to. N. de Lyra copied him so closely as to be called his "ape." 2 Translations. The whole commentary was rendered into Latin by PELLICANUS (q.v. but never printed, and again by Breithaupt (3 vols. 4to, Gotha, 1710-14). This version includes the spurious commentary on Chronicles and is accompanied by notes. Of separate parts there are printed versions of Gen. i.-vi. (Scherzer, 1663), Gen. vi.-xi. (Abicht, 1705), Gen. xlix. (Loscani, 1710), Hosea (Mercier, 1621), Joel, Jonah (Leusden, 1656), Joel (Genebrard, 1563), Jonah, Zephaniah, Obadiah. (Pontac,1556), Obadiah (Crocius, 1673), Malachi (S. de Muis, 1618), Ps. xix. (Id., 1620), Proverbs (Giggreus, 1620), Canticles (Genebrard, 1570), Ruth (Carpzov, 1703), Esther (Aquinas, 1622). The Pentateuch was translated into German by L. Dukes (Prague, 1833-38, 8vo) ; Genesis was done by L. Haymann (Bonn, 1833, 8vo). Editions, especially of the Pentateuch, are very numer- ous. Only some of the chief can here be named, (a) on the whole Bible, with the sacred text Venice, 1545, 1595, 1607 (all three in 4to) ; Cracow, 1610, 4to ; Basel, 1618, folio ; (b) Pentateuch with text (all sm. folio) Bologna, 1482; Ixar, 1490; Lisbon and Naples, 1491 ; (c) Pentateuch without text Reggio, 1475, folio (the first Hebrew book printed with date); s. I. eta., but before 1480, 4to ; Soncino, 1487, folio. MSS. of Rashi on the whole Bible are very rare, and even those which are supposed to be such turn out, on examination, to be either incomplete or defective, or both. There lies a precious MS. in Leyden (1 Seal.) ; but it is a trifle defective in Exodus. St John's College, Cambridge, possesses a still more ancient and precious MS. (A. 3; dated 1239) ; but it lacks the Penta- teuch and Ezra(-Nehemiah), and is defective in the end (though, it is true, only in Chronicles, which is not Rashi's, as mentioned before). But MSS. of Rashi on the Pentateuch, both old and good, abound. There are few libraries in Europe that have not one or two of this commentary. It is to be hoped, therefore, that Dr A. Berliner, who has already edited critically Rashi on the Pentateuch (Berlin, 1866, 8vo), although not on the faith of a sufficient number of MSS., will soon issue a second and superior edition. B. Commentary on the. Babylonian Talmud, DIEJ'Ip. 3 Rashi had not been dead a hundred years when it was felt in the learned world that no such master in the Talmud had ever existed before him, and that without his aid and especially his corrections of the text (then only embodied in his commentary), the sea of the Baby- lonian Talmud could not safely be sailed on. He became now the teacher even of the Jews in the East. He commented on the whole of the Talmud to which Gemara is attached (see MISHNAH), except on Nedarim from leaf 22b to the end, Nazir and Tamid from begin- ning to end, Baba Bathra from 29a to the end, and Makkoth from leaf 19b 4 to the end. In commenting on the two last-named 1 The supplement to the former is generally ascribed to R. Ya'akob Nazir ; its relation to the author of the MS. commentary on Job (Camb. Univ. Lib., Del. 8. 53) has still to be worked out. The commentary on Chronicles in which Rashi is three times cited by name (2 Chron. iii. 15, xxii. 11, and xxiii. 14) is the work of a German rabbi residing in Provence. 2 See J. H. Maius, Vita Reuchlini, 1687, Prsef. The thanks of the present writer are due to the curators and librarian of the Bodleian for the loan of this book. 3 On this word see Schiller-Szinessy, Catalogue, i. p. 181, note. 4 His disciple, son-in-law, and continuator Rabbenu Yehudah b. Nathan writes : " At the word ' tahor ' (pure) the soul of our teacher went out in purity." massekhtoth death surprised him. Rashi on the Talmud has never been printed apart from the text, and so the first complete edition is that contained in the editio princeps of the Babylonian Talmud (Venice, 1520-23, folio). Portions had come out before with parts of the Talmud (Soncino, 1483, and elsewhere later). There are MSS. containing Rashi on isolated Talmudic treatises in various libraries : the Cambridge University Library and British Museum have six each, the Bodleian twelve, the Paris National Library seven. C. The Religious Decisions (D'pDD) given by Rashi are to be found in various works, principally in the so-called Siddur (i. and ii.) and Happardes (Warsaw, 1870, folio) called Happardes Haggadol to distinguish it from the abridgment by R. Shemuel of Bamberg (13th century) called Likkute Happardes (Venice, 1519, 4to) a work of which Rashi himself seems to have laid the foundation, though other literature on other subjects is now mixed up with it. Of the same nature are "inm ~I1DK (kindly lent to the writer by Dr Merzbacher of Munich) and Haorah (only in part printed). Various halakhoth, &c., are also to be found in various mahzorim (e.g., the Cambridge MS. Add. 667, leaves 153-156, and elsewhere), the Shibbole Halleket, ii. (by R. Sidkiyyahu b. Abraham Harophe, Cambridge MS. Add. 653). D. Poems (D^tDVS). Rashi was no poet by profession and much less by genius ; but he had a tenderly feeling heart, and saw the horrors of the first crusade ; and he wrote Selihoth (propitiatory and penitential prayers), which are by no means without their value. One is embodied in the additional service of the day of atonement and begins " Tannoth Saroth " (Reshal's Eesponsa, xxix. ), and several more, which form the acrostic Shelomoh bar Yishak, are found in the collection of the Selihoth of the Ash- kenazic rite. It is not improbable also that the Aramaic Reshuth iv. to the Haphtarah in Targum (introduction to the prophetic portion as given in Yonathan b. 'Uzz'iel's Aramaic paraphrase), which is to be found in the Reuchlinian Codex (De Lagarde, Prophetse chaldaice, Leipsic, 1872, 8vo, leaf 492), is his. It is much his style, and the acrostic is Shelomoh (and not JiyDS?). It is also very probable that Reshuth v. is his. If so, he must have composed it when very young, as several expressions in it testify. E. Le'azim (D^y?). In his commentaries Rashi, like R. Gershom before him and others after him, often introduces French words (chiefly verbs and nouns) to give precision to his explanations. Of these Le'azim there are certainly more than 3000, and they are most valuable to the student of old French. Unfortunately copyists, notably in Italy, and printers subsequently, have often substituted their own vernacular for the original French ; there are now even Russian words to be found in Rashi. Four hundred years ago explanations of some of these Le'azim and of those of Kimhi were offered by the author of Makre Dardeke (Naples, 1488). Other contributions have followed intermittingly down to the present time (Brothers Bondi in Or Esther, Dessau, 1812; Dormitzer and Landau in Marpe Lashon, Odessa, 1865, 12mo). The labours of M. Arsene Darmsteter promise to be exhaustive, and are based on ex- tensive collations, see Romania, April 1872, p. 146 sq. There is no satisfactory life of Rashi ; most recent accounts rest on a Life by Zunz (1S22), which has not been reprinted in his collected works. (S. M. S.- S.) RASHT (also Rascht, Rescht, Rashd, and Resht), a town in northern Persia, situated in 37 18' N. lat. and 49 37' E. long., capital of the richly wooded maritime pro- vince of Gilan, contains from 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. Eastwick, who was there in 1861, accepts the former estimate, but states that the place was four times as popu- lous before the plague of 1831. The distance from Enzelli, on the southern shores of the Caspian, the actual port of dis- embarkation for passengers and goods from Russia, is about 16 miles, of which 12 (to Pari Bazaar) are accomplished in an open boat, the last part by river, but for the most part over a widespread brackish lake or lagoon (murddb), abounding in wild fowl, surrounded by reeds, and separated from the sea by a narrow belt of sand. From Pari Bazaar to Rasht the road, piercing through forest and swamp, had for many long years been memorable only for its puddles and pools, its ruts and ruggedness, but it has more recently undergone great improvement. As for the town itself, the tiled houses in the streets, and the lanes, lined with hedge and cottage, in the environs, impart a cheer- fulness to the locality little in unison with the sickly and fever-stricken faces and forms of the inhabitants. Yet the beauty and hazel eyes of the children, with their " true English pink and white complexions" noticed by Eastwick, are not significant of inherited enervation. Rasht is the residence of a Russian and an English