And how could they have become so
passionately devoted to the reading of the two books, if Rashi
had not given them the key, if he had not thus converted the
books into a safeguard for the Jews, a lamp in the midst of
darkness, a bright hope against alien persecutions?
Rashi's prestige then became so great that the principal Jewish
communities claimed him as their own,[153] and high-standing
families alleged that they were connected with him. It is known
that the celebrated mystic Eleazar of Worms (1160-1230) is a
descendant of his. A certain Solomon Simhah, of Troyes, in 1297
wrote a casuistic, ethical work in which he claims to belong to
the fourth generation descended from Rashi beginning with Rashi's
sons-in-law. The family of the French rabbi may be traced down
to the thirteenth century. At that time mention is made of a
Samuel ben Jacob, of Troyes, who lived in the south of France.
And it is also from Rashi that the family Luria, or Loria,
pretends to be descended, although the titles for its claim are
not incontestably authentic. The name of Loria comes, not, as
has been said, from the river Loire, but from a little city of
Italy, and the family itself may have originated in Alsace. Its
head, Solomon, son of Samuel Spira (about 1375), traced his
connection with Rashi through his mother, a daughter of
Mattathias Treves, one of the last French rabbis. The daughter
of Solomon, Miriam (this name seems to have been frequent in
Rashi's family), was, it appears, a scholar.
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