A rabbi, for example, would set
himself the task of counting the exact number of times the
expression "that is to say" occurs in the commentary on the first
three Talmudic treatises. Jacob ben Joshua Falk (died 1648), who
believed Rashi had appeared to him in a dream, attempted in his
"Defense of Solomon" to clear the master of all attacks made upon
him. Solomon Luria and Samuel Edels (about 1555-1631), or, as is
said in the schools, the Maharshal and the Maharsha, explain the
difficult passages of Rashi's Talmudic commentary, sometimes by
dint of subtlety, sometimes by happy corrections. Still more
meritorious are the efforts of Joel Sirkes (died in 1640 at
Cracow), who often skilfully altered Rashi's text for the better.
By a curious turn in affairs it was the Christians who in the
province of exegesis took up the legacy bequeathed by Rashi.
While grammar and exegesis by reason of neglect remained
stafionary among the Jews, the humanists cultivated them eagerly.
Taste for the classical languages had aroused a lively interest
in Hebrew and a desire to know the Scriptures in the original.
The Reformation completed what the Renaissauce had begun, and the
Protestants placed the Hebrew Bible above the Vulgate. Rashi, it
is true, did not gain immediately from this renewal of Biblical
studies; greater inspiration was derived from the more methodical
and more scientific Spaniards.
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