Winner of the Jewish Book Council Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award in Scholarship
This book explores the reception history of the most important Jewish Bible commentary ever composed, the Commentary on the Torah of Rashi (Shlomo Yitzhaki; 1040-1105). Though the Commentary has benefited from enormous scholarly attention, analysis of diverse reactions to it has been surprisingly scant. Viewing its path to preeminence through a diverse array of religious, intellectual, literary, and sociocultural lenses, Eric Lawee focuses on processes of the Commentary's canonization and on a hitherto unexamined--and wholly unexpected--feature of its reception: critical, and at times astonishingly harsh, resistance to it. Lawee shows how and why, despite such resistance, Rashi's interpretation of the Torah became an exegetical classic, a staple in the curriculum, a source of shared religious vocabulary for Jews across time and place, and a foundational text that shaped the Jewish nation's collective identity.
The book takes as its larger integrating perspective processes of canonicity as they shape how traditions flourish, disintegrate, or evolve. Rashi's scriptural magnum opus, the foremost work of Franco-German (Ashkenazic) biblical scholarship, faced stiff competition for canonical supremacy in the form of rationalist reconfigurations of Judaism as they developed in Mediterranean seats of learning. It nevertheless emerged triumphant in an intense battle for Judaism's future that unfolded in late medieval and early modern times. Investigation of the reception of the Commentary throws light on issues in Jewish scholarship and spirituality that continue to stir reflection, and even passionate debate, in the Jewish world today.
Industry Reviews
"His work is [written] from a palpably interdisciplinary angle. From this point of view, it uncovers an entire cultural world that until now had only been known in bit and pieces. Hence, this book is of great importance for the understanding of an interpretive and theological dynamic and tracing the coming into existence of cultural modalities of knowledge transmission in late medieval times." -- Dov Schwartz, Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient
Near Eastern Studies
"This lucid and comprehensive book should be found in every library of Judaica. It should be studied in courses in the history of Jewish exegesis of Scripture, and it should be on the desk of every teacher, scholar, and student who cherishes the third most important book in the Jewish sacred canon." -- Mayer I. Gruber, The Review of Rabbinic Judaism
"Lawee's masterful book is really two works in one. The second is the more academically novel, but the first is both stunningly impressive and of greater interest to RBL readers." -- Aaron Koller, Society of Biblical Literature
"... in every way remarkable, expressed in rich language, at times subtle in thought and informed by theories of hermeneutics beyond the basic requirements of the history of Jewish commentaries, yet always clearly expressed." -- Jean-Pierre Rothschild, Revue des études juives
"The study is ambitious in its scope, thoroughly researched and authoritative, judicious in its evaluations and extremely well written... The story of the Commentary's modern reception remains to be told, Lawee has certainly done an excellent job in tracing its vicissitudes during the centuries of the late Middle Ages. This is a remarkable story and Lawee has told it well. It is a demanding read, but an enlightening and rewarding one." -- Barry Dov
Walfish, Journal of Jewish Studies
"It is very unusual for a scholar to identify a subject of manifestly great importance that has barely been addressed, but Eric Lawee has succeeded in doing so...We owe Lawee a debt of gratitude for his sweeping, learned, and original contribution to our understanding of how this classic text achieved its well-deserved renown." -- David Berger, Yeshiva University, Tradition
"An important work to be able to appreciate the impact of Rashi's biblical exegesis on posterity and to understand a good deal of medieval and modern Jewish exegesis." -- Carlos del Valle Rodriguez, Iberia Judaica
