Rashi
RASHI, acronym (RaSHI) of Rabbi Shelomoh ben Yitsḥaq of Troyes (1040–1105) was the most influential Jewish commentator on the Bible and the Babylonian Talmud. Nine hundred years after his death, Rashi's writings remain the standard commentaries for any serious student of the Hebrew Bible or the Babylonian Talmud, and new scholarly studies of his achievement continue to be published.
Rashi was born in Troyes, the political center of the county of Champagne, in northeastern France, but outside the close-knit rabbinical circles of the founding families of German Jewry. After pursuing his preliminary studies in Troyes, including studies with his father, he married and around 1060 traveled to the yeshivot of the Rhineland, then the most advanced in northwestern Europe. He studied there with the two heads of the Mainz academy, Yaʿaqov ben Yaqar, whom he considered his most important teacher of Talmud and Bible, and after the master's death in 1064, his successor, Yitsḥaq ben Yehudah, for a short time. Almost immediately, he went to Worms to study with Yitsḥaq ha-Levi, whose academy was superseding the Mainz school in advanced Talmud instruction. By the end of the decade he was back home, but he continued to correspond with Yitsḥaq ben Yehudah and Yitsḥaq ha-Levi.
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