His school was, so to speak, the laboratory of
which his Biblical and Talmudic commentaries were the products.
They involved a vast amount of toil, and though death overtook
him before his task was accomplished, he doubtless began the work
early in life.[23] A legend goes that he was forbidden to write
commentaries on the Bible before he was a hundred years old.
Rashi with all his ardor for learning could not curb himself and
postpone his activity for so long a time, and he turned the
prohibition in his own favor by explaining that the sum of the
Hebrew letters forming the word "hundred" amounted to forty-six.
Rashi's disciples were in very truth his sons, for no sons were
born to the illustrious rabbi. But he had three daughters, who
each married a Talmudist, so that Rashi's descendants, no less
than himself, were the bearers of rabbinic learning in France.
Rashi did not limit his association with his pupils to the
school-house, but invited them to enter his family circle.
Indeed, this was the highest honor to which they could aspire.
It has always been the greatest piece of good fortune for a Jew
to marry the daughter of a learned and pious man, and the suitors
most desired by and for young girls were scholars. In this way
arose veritable dynasties of rabbis, who cherished learning as a
heritage, a family treasure, and the Rashi "dynasty" was one of
the greatest and most renowned among them.
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