Some modifications were introduced
into the commentary either because of the severity of the censors
or because of the prudence of the editors. Among the books that
the Inquisition confiscated in 1753 in a small city of Italy,
there were twenty-one Pentateuchs with Rashi's commentary.
All the printed editions of the Babylonian Talmud are accompanied
by Rashi's commentaries in the inner column and by the Tossafot
in the outer column.
Rashi's authority gained in weight more and more, and he became
representative in ordinary, as it were, of Talmudic exegesis.
This fact is made evident by a merely superficial survey of the
work
Bet Yosef (House of Joseph), which is, one may say,
an index to rabbinical literature. Rashi is mentioned here on
every page. He is the official commentator of the Talmudic text.
The author of the
Bet Yosef, the learned Talmudist and
Kabbalist Joseph ben Ephraim Karo (born 1448, died at Safed,
Palestine, at 87 years of age), places Rashi's Biblical
commentary on the same plane as the Aramaic translation of the
Bible. He recommends that it be read on the Sabbath, at the same
time as the Pentateuch and the Targum. Luria goes even further.
According to him, when the Targum and Rashi cannot be read at the
same time, preference should be given to Rashi, since he is more
easily understood, and renders the text more intelligible.
Rashi's commentary, therefore, entered into the religious life of
the Jews.
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