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Zusatztext “Wiesel’s contribution to the Jewish Encounters series is an informative gem.” —Ray Olson! Booklist Informationen zum Autor ELIE WIESEL was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The author of more than fifty internationally acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, he was Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University for forty years. Wiesel died in 2016. Klappentext Part of the Jewish Encounter series From Elie Wiesel! winner of the Nobel Peace Prize! comes a magical book that introduces us to the towering figure of Rashi-Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki-the great biblical and Talmudic commentator of the Middle Ages. Wiesel brilliantly evokes the world of medieval European Jewry! a world of profound scholars and closed communities ravaged by outbursts of anti-Semitism and decimated by the Crusades. The incomparable scholar Rashi! whose phrase-by-phrase explication of the oral law has been included in every printing of the Talmud since the fifteenth century! was also a spiritual and religious leader: His perspective! encompassing both the mundane and the profound! is timeless. Wiesel's Rashi is a heartbroken witness to the suffering of his people! and through his responses to major religious questions of the day we see still another side of this greatest of all interpreters of the sacred writings. Both beginners and advanced students of the Bible rely on Rashi's groundbreaking commentary for simple text explanations and Midrashic interpretations. Wiesel! a descendant of Rashi! proves an incomparable guide who enables us to appreciate both the lucidity of Rashi's writings and the milieu in which they were formed. Chapter 1 Impressions I stroll around the new and old streets of the city of Troyes, in Champagne. It still vibrates with medieval history. I am shown the Hôtel-Dieu at the corner of the rue de la Cité and the quai des Comptes: this is where the Porte de la Juiverie, the old gateway to the Jewish neighborhood, was located. And what about the fairs where the Jews from the nearby cities met to discuss business and the rules of ritual? As always, these are to be found in books. Cited by Irving Agus and again by Gérard Nahon, the Hebraic name of Troyes (or Troyias) first appears in a document written by Yosef bar Shmuel Tov-elem of Limoges in the eleventh century: “Concerning our brothers in Rheims who used to go to the fair in Troyes and whom an enemy lord captured (or persecuted).” Who were these Jews? What enemy is he referring to? We know there used to be a synagogue here (there is even a street named after it), and there used to be a street of the Jews, a rue des Juifs (now gone as well). There were rabbis, hence students. There were leaders, Jewish families loyal to the Law of Moses, who fought against the outside enemy and the poverty in their midst, helped the poor, and did everything they could to pay the ransom and free their co- religionists when they were taken as hostages. In spite of distances, there were deep contacts between the communities: their right to intervene in one another’s affairs was recognized by the competent rabbinical authorities. After all, didn’t they share a common destiny? As for me, today, I am looking for the traces of a man whose learning still influences my life, as it does the lives of all those who have a thirst for study. Houses, large and small, stores, gardens. The man I am looking for must have walked here, dreamed here, shed tears here over the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, comforted broken hearts, counseled those who had gone astray, taught them to overcome fear and hope for the arrival of the Messiah. I remember: as a child, his cursive script frightened me; more than that of the Bible, it suggested a world that was doubtless complex and probably mysterious, where only adults had...
