Rashi and the Exegetical School of Troyes

Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzhak, 1040–1105), born and established in Troyes in Champagne, is without doubt the most influential commentator in all of Jewish history. His commentary on the Bible, lucid and attentive to the literal meaning (peshat) while integrating the best of midrashic teaching, and his running commentary on the Talmud, which became the indispensable key to the text, have accompanied printed editions since the fifteenth century. A winegrower by trade according to tradition, trained in the Rhenish academies of Mainz and Worms, he founded a school in Troyes whose influence radiated throughout Ashkenazic Judaism. His sons-in-law and grandsons, among them Rabbenou Tam and the Rashbam, gave rise to the Tosafist movement, which developed a dialectical method of comparative analysis of talmudic passages, extending and debating the master's explanations. This body of work—the commentary of Rashi and the Tosafot—constitutes the classical apparatus for studying the Talmud and one of the summits of medieval rabbinic exegesis.

Sources & resources

• Sefaria ↗
• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan