"[90]
It seems, therefore, that Rashi only gradually, as the result of
experience and discussion, attained to a full consciousness of
the requirements of a sound exegesis and the duties of a Biblical
commentator. What the grandfather had not been able to do was
accomplished by the grandson. The commentary of Samuel ben Meir
realized Rashi's resolutions. Though Rashi may not have been
irreproachable as a commentator, he at least pointed out the way,
and his successors, enlightened by his example, could elaborate
his method and surpass it, but only with the means with which he
provided them. We must take into account that he was almost an
originator, and we readily overlook many faults and flaws in
remembering that he was the first to prepare the material.
* * * * *
Grammar and lexicography are the two bases of exegesis. Rashi
was as clever a grammarian as was possible in his time and in his
country. At all events he was not of the same opinion as the
Pope, who rebuked the Archbishop of Vienna for having taught
grammar in his schools, because, he said, it seemed to him rules
of grammar were not worthy the Sacred Text, and it was unfitting
to subject the language of Holy Scriptures to these rules. Rashi
in his explanations pays regard to the laws of language, and in
both his Talmudic and Biblical commentaries, he frequently
formulates scientific laws, or, it might be said, empiric rules,
regarding, for instance, distinctions in the usage of words
indicated by the position of the accent, different meanings of
the same particle, certain vowel changes, and so on.
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