In so doing they fixed all the
minutiae of a detailed process of argumentation. On the other
hand, books were rare, and students poor. The master himself, in
order to facilitate his task, wrote explanations during the
lesson, and these served as textbooks, which, like the students'
notebooks, became treasure houses for later generations.
Rashi not only imparted knowledge to his pupils, but received
knowledge from them in turn. He set great store by their
observations. His grandson Samuel ben Meir once drew his
attention to a certain form of Biblical parallelism, in which the
second hemistich completes the first, as in the following verse
from Psalm xciii:
"The floods have lifted up, O Lord,
The floods have lifted up their voice."
After this, each time Rashi came across a similarly constructed
verse, he would say with mock gravity: "Here's a verse for my
Samuel."
The Jewish student led a pure, regulated existence, with only
wholesome distractions, such as the little celebrations when the
study of a Talmudic treatise had been completed. His greatest
pleasure he found in the swordplay of mind against mind, in the
love of knowledge and religion.
Rashi did not content himself with giving instruction only to
students under his immediate influence. He desired that his
teachings should not be lost to men unknown to him and to unborn
generations. He realized that everything so far accomplished in
the field of Talmudic and even Biblical exegesis was inadequate,
and he therefore undertook the works that were to occupy him the
rest of his life.
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