Rashi by Maurice Liber

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Rashi by Maurice Liber was originally published by Jewish Publicaton Society. Since then it has gone through many reprintings.

If you are unfamiliar with Rashi, he was an 11th century rabbi who wrote responsa, Torah commentary, Talmud commentary and died in 1205. Maurice Liber devotes many chapters to his Torah commentary. Regardless of your faith, this makes for a fascinating study in medieval philosophy as well as the tensions between Christian and Jewish communities.

Written in 1905 with a completely different set of biases, this book at times feels like the antithesis of those Artscroll biographies. Liber places Rashi in a particular time and place before Christian Jewish relations went to hell (the Crusades and the Black Death were either not happening or much less vicious in Rashi's time) and he also discusses the ways that later commentators would disagree with Rashi. Ibn Ezra was particularly vicious towards the Rashi commentaries. Rather than lower Rashi in one's estimation, Liber manages to make Rashi into a more respectable figure as he's human and some of his commentaries are not without problems for the modern reader.

 

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