Ibn Ezra[93] and Rashi present the most vivid contrast. Though
Ibn Ezra was open-minded and clear-sighted, he was restless and
troubled. He led an adventurous existence, because his character
was adventurous. Rashi's spirit was calm, without morbid
curiosity, leaning easily upon the support of traditional
religion, frank, throughout his life as free from the shadows of
doubt as the soul of a child. Ibn Ezra had run the scientific
gamut of his time, but he also dipped into mysticism, astrology,
arithmolatry, even magic. Rashi, on the contrary, was not
acquainted with the profane sciences, and so was kept from their
oddities. With his clear, sure intelligence he penetrated to the
bottom of the text without bringing it into agreement with views
foreign to it. But the characteristic which distinguishes him
above all others from Ibn Ezra is the frankness of his nature.
He never seemed desirous of knowing 'what he did not know, nor of
believing what he did not believe. Finally, and in the regard
that specially interests us, Ibn Ezra, who belonged to the school
of Arabic philosophers and scholars, who knew the Spanish
grammarians, and was their inheritor, always employed the Peshat
- that is, when he was not biassed by his philosophic ideas. In
this case he saw the true meaning of the text, perhaps more
clearly than any other Jewish commentator. Rashi did not possess
the same scientific resources.
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