personality is striking and at the same time he is the
representative of a civilization and of a period. He has this
double interest for us to an eminent degree. His physiognomy has
well-marked, individual features, and yet he is the best exponent
of French Judaism in the middle ages. He is somebody, and he
represents something. Through this double claim, he forms an
integral part of Jewish history and literature. There are great
men who despite their distinguished attributes stand apart from
the general intellectual movements. They can be estimated
without reference to an historical background. Rashi forms, so to
say, an organic part of Jewish history. A whole department of
Jewish literature would be enigmatical without him. Like a star
which leaves a track of light in its passage across the skies,
Rashi aroused the enthusiasm of his contemporaries, but no less
was he admired and venerated by posterity, and to-day, after the
lapse of eight centuries, he is, as the poet says, "still young
in glory and immortality."

His name is most prominently connected with Rabbinical
literature. Whether large questions are dealt with, or the
minutest details are considered, it is always Rashi who is
referred to-he has a share in all its destinies, and he seems
inseparable from it forever.

It is this circumstance that makes the writing of his biography
as awkward a task for the writer as reading it may be for the
public. To write it one must be a scholar, to read it a
specialist. To know Rashi well is as difficult as it is
necessary. Singularly enough, popular as he was, he was
essentially a Talmudist, and at no time have connoisseurs of the