The Reception of Rashi's Commentary on the Torah in Spain

The Case of Adam's Mating with the Animals

Bibliographic Data

ID16810402
AuthorsEric Lawee (0000-0003-4615-7209, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume97
Issue1
Pages33-66
Publication date2007-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Jewish Quarterly Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-6682 • E-ISSN: 1553-0604
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/jqr.2007.0002
OpenAlexW2077477276
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited22

The Reception of Rashi's Commentary on the Torah In Spain: The Case of Adam's Mating with the Animals Eric Lawee While Rashi's Biblical Commentary has profited from extensive and more or less uninterrupted scholarly inquiry,1 considerably less attention has been devoted to the varied reactions over the ages to his scriptural exegesis.2 The sorts of questions rightly posed with respect to Maimonides' Mishneh Torah should also be asked about Rashi's Commentary on the Torah: "Where and when did the book penetrate first? Who were its sponsors and opponents? What were the initial steps, or stages, in its adoption everywhere?"3 This essay seeks to illumine an aspect of the [End Page 33] reception of Rashi's biblical commentaries by focusing on the Nachleben of a single exegetical comment in four pre-expulsion Spanish supercommentaries. According to this comment, which Rashi cited from a rabbinic source, Adam experienced sexual intercourse "with every [species of] domesticated animal and wild animal." Had it not appeared in Rashi's Commentary, this startling idea might have gone the way of so many thousands of midrashic notions aired in rabbinic literature; that is, it would have been encountered fleetingly, if at all, and then, in most cases, soon been forgotten. Broadcast by the most influential Jewish biblical commentator of all time, however, the midrash entered the Jewish exegetical mainstream. What is more, in consequence of its inclusion in Rashi's Commentary, the midrash won ongoing, often protracted attention from a wide range of Jewish scholars over centuries. This study, which centers on the reception of Rashi's comment on Adam's relations with the animals in pre-expulsion Spain, illustrates how operations of interpretation performed by Rashi's Spanish glossators on his rabbinically based insight yielded a reading of it that, by comporting with longstanding Hispano-Jewish sensibilities, opened the way for this midrash's assimilation into the Spanish commentary tradition.4 As the biblical story in which Rashi's interpretation is embedded deals with Adam's attachments with the primordial beasts and first woman, the interpretive history which follows summons a number of evocative issues, among them: differing visions of the primeval human condition; the character of the prototypical human couple's union in the garden at a time when masculinity and femininity were first being defined; and the sometimes blurred boundaries separating humans from beasts.5 This case study also points to a number of larger issues, highlighting points of interaction between Sefarad and Ashkenaz,6 yielding another chapter in the [End Page 34] venerable history of the interpretation of nonlegal rabbinic dicta (including the manner in which Christian criticism could influence medieval Jews as they interpreted classical rabbinic texts),7 and, by delving into the prolific fifteenth-century Spanish exegetical literature on Rashi's Commentary, contributing to a picture of Jewish religious and literary vibrancy in late medieval Spain.8 Most importantly, by focusing on a forgotten body of commentaries on Rashi's Commentary, the essay seeks to draw attention to a hitherto largely neglected literature: exegetical supercommentaries.9 The serious, searching supercommentary tradition that developed in Spain around Rashi's Commentary amply testifies to its stature beyond the Pyrenees. As will also be seen, however, the composition of prodigious glosses on the Commentary by Spanish writers by no means reflects their simple acceptance of Rashi's religious attitudes or stance toward rabbinic dicta. Rather, despite the exegetical supercommentary's outward appearance as a subordinate [End Page 35] literary form that defers both to a "sacred and obligatory" text (Scripture) and a "revered and indispensable" one (the work of scriptural commentary),10 this genre afforded Spanish exegetes a medium for interpreting Rashi in ways that reflected their individual religious allegiances as well as widely shared teachings of the Hispano-Jewish tradition. I Signs of Rashi's growing presence in Iberia date from the inception of Hispano-Jewish scholarship's second brilliant creative

Art · Exegesis · Judaism · Literature · Mainstream · Midrash · Theology · Torah · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy