jewish-rabbinic · 1040-1105

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

northern France (biographical detail unsourced in corpus)

Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki)

Background

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (1040–1105), known by the acronym Rashi, is the most influential medieval Jewish Bible commentator; his glosses became the default accompaniment to the Hebrew Bible and Talmud in Jewish study. In this wiki he matters chiefly for one exegetical decision: his commentary on Isa 52:13–53:12, identifying the suffering servant with the people Israel in exile, became the touchstone of the Jewish collective-servant reading engaged in Isaiah 53: Christian vs Jewish Readings. {{UNSOURCED: biographical detail (Troyes, school, Tosafist descendants) — no biographical source for Rashi in corpus}}

Positions held in this wiki

Isaiah 53: Christian vs Jewish Readings — the classic medieval statement of Israel-as-servant. A first installment of his Isaiah commentary is now in corpus: on Isa 53:1 ("Who would have believed our report") Rashi glosses, "So will the nations say to one another, Were we to hear from others what we see, it would be unbelievable" (Rashi on Isa 53:1) — establishing in his own words the load-bearing move of the collective reading, that Isa 53:1-9 is the astonished confession of the Gentile nations about the servant, not Israel's confession about a third party. Corpus limit: the acquired file covers Isa 53:1 only; the full identification of the servant with Israel across 52:13–53:12 remains to be ingested. {{UNSOURCED: Rashi on Isa 52:13 and 53:2-12 — extend the Sefaria acquisition}}
The reading Rashi canonized is older than him: the Targum of Jonathan — now in corpus in the 1871 London translation — reads 52:13 messianically ("Behold, my servant the messiah shall prosper") yet transfers the suffering to Israel among the nations: "As the house of Israel anxiously hoped for him many days, (which was poor among the nations...)" and "Lo, we are in contempt and not esteemed, as a man of pain" (Targum Jonathan, Isa 52:13-53:3). Rashi's doctrinal complement is Maimonides' codification of a national, non-suffering Messiah (Mishneh Torah, Melakhim 11:1, 4).

Key works in our corpus

Rashi on Isaiah 53:1 — Judaica Press translation with Hebrew, via Sefaria (CC-BY); phase-3 defect-curing acquisition replacing the earlier corpus gap.
Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 52–53 — the ancient Aramaic antecedent of the deflection of the servant's sufferings away from the Messiah.
His Torah and Talmud commentaries are not in corpus.

Principal critics

Origen of Alexandria — pressed the collective reading in living debate a millennium before Rashi: "how is the man said to be led away to death because of the iniquities of the people of God, unless he be a different person from that people of God?" (Contra Celsum I.55).
Justin Martyr — the Dialogue with Trypho stakes the Christian individual-messianic reading against the synagogue's exegesis.
David Friedrich Strauss — the modern critical corroborator: the Targum's transfer of the suffering "to a different subject, namely, the people of Israel" shows suffering seemed "irreconcilable with the idea of the Messiah" (Strauss 1835, §112).