BASHI (i.e., Rabbi Solomon [Shelomo] Izaaki, or Ben Izaak, often erroneously called Jarchi), the greatest Jewish commentator and exegete, was born about 1040, in Troyes, in France. The range of his studies was as extraordinarily wide as were his early developed faculties brilliant, and his industry and perseverance enormous. Philology, philosophy, medicine, astronomy, civil and canonical law, exegesis, were the chief branches of his learning; and to a rare proficiency in them, he united a complete mas tery over the whole range of Scripture and the Talmudical sources. In order further to perfect himself for his gigantic task, he traveled for seven years, visiting the acade mies of Italy, Greece, Germany, Palestine, Egypt, where he sat at the feet of the great masters of the age, collecting their sayings and legal decisions. His chief work—and one universally recognized as the principal work of all scriptural exegesis—is his com mentary to the whole of the Old Testament. Up to this day it has not been superseded by any other, although in the province of philology and antiquities, investigation has been much furthered since his time. Rashi's style is extremely brief and concise, yet clear and pregnant; obscure and abstruse (as it has been pronounced by some) only to those who lack the necessary preliminary knowledge. According to the fashion of its
day, it is replete with allegorical or rather poetical illustrations, gathered from the wide fields of the Midrash within and without the Tahnud; and many a passage is thus pre served to us, which, in the disordered state of those manuscripts, would probably other wise have been lost. This commentary—entirely translated into Latin by Breithaupt, and partly also into German—was the first book ever printed in Hebrew (Reggio, 1474), and has since been reprinted with almost every complete edition of the Hebrew Bible. Of his numerous other works is first to be mentioned his commentary to 23 treatises of the Talmud, supplemented after his death by his grandson, Samuel ben Meier; further, a commentary to the Pirke Aboth ; the parries, of laws and ceremonies; a col lection of legal votes and decisions; a commentary to Midrash Rabbah; a book of medi cine; a poem on the unity of God, etc., etc. He died about 1105; and such was his piety and his surpassing eminence, that later generations wove a shining garland of legends around his head. The confusion of Rashi with two Jarchis, who lived long after him, has not hitherto been properly accounted for. They bore that surname because they were born at Lunel, Jerach being the Hebrew for moon, lane in French.