Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (22 February 1040 NS - 13 July 1105 NS), universally known by the acronym Rashi (רש“י), was a medieval French Jewish scholar whose commentaries on the Torah and the Babylonian Talmud became the foundational texts of traditional Jewish biblical and rabbinic study. Born in Troyes, in the Champagne region of France, Rashi studied at yeshivot in Mainz and Worms before returning to Troyes, where he spent most of his life as a vintner and communal rabbi. His works were among the first Hebrew texts to be printed, appearing in the earliest known dated Hebrew printed book (Rashi's commentary on the Torah, Reggio di Calabria, 1475).¹⁾

Rashi produced line-by-line commentaries on nearly the entire Hebrew Bible and on the bulk of the Babylonian Talmud. His Torah commentary synthesizes earlier midrashic and Talmudic sources while consistently pursuing the plain meaning (peshat) of the text, though he also incorporates homiletical interpretation (derash) where he considers it essential. His Talmud commentary, which later generations treated as indispensable to basic comprehension of the text, supplies missing context, defines vocabulary - including many terms in Old French rendered in Hebrew characters - and resolves apparent contradictions between passages. Both commentaries are printed in virtually all standard editions of the Mikraot Gedolot and the Vilna Shas, respectively, to this day.

Rashi's grandsons, most notably Rabbenu Tam and Rashbam, founded the school of commentators known as the Tosafot, who engaged in critical and often dissenting dialogue with Rashi's rulings and interpretations. This dialectical tradition became a central feature of Ashkenazic Talmud study.

Rashi's commentary on the Torah is the primary classical reference for traditional Jewish interpretation in Ashkenazic communities and is widely studied in Sephardic and Mizrahi communities as well. His Talmud commentary is considered so integral that passages without it are described in rabbinic literature as exceptionally difficult. Christian Hebraists of the 12th and 13th centuries, including Nicholas of Lyra, drew on Rashi's peshat readings, which in turn influenced later Latin biblical scholarship.

Rashi's commentaries contain incidental remarks touching on cosmology, astronomy, and natural science as understood in 11th-century European Jewish tradition. These passages have attracted attention in discussions of the compatibility of traditional Jewish sources with later scientific developments, including heliocentrism and cosmology. For analysis of how Rashi's statements bear on those questions, see Heliocentrism - Jewish Viewpoint.

• Rashi - History
• Rashi's Talmud Commentary
• Rashi's Torah Commentary
• Tosafot
• Heliocentrism - Jewish Viewpoint
• Medieval Jewish Biblical Interpretation
• Jewish Talmud Study - History

1. Grossman, Avraham. Rashi. Translated by Joel Linsider. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2012. The standard modern scholarly biography in English.
2. Liber, Maurice. Rashi. Translated by Adele Szold. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1906. An earlier but still useful biographical and literary survey.
3. Signer, Michael A., and John Van Engen, eds. Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001. Covers the influence of Rashi's peshat on Christian Hebraism.
4. Hailperin, Herman. Rashi and the Christian Scholars. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963. Detailed study of Rashi's influence on Nicholas of Lyra and subsequent Latin exegesis.
5. Offenberg, A.K. “The First Printed Book Produced at Reggio di Calabria.” Quaerendo 2 (1972): 96-105. Documents the 1475 Reggio di Calabria imprint as the earliest known dated Hebrew printed book.