Commentators:Rashi Leipzig 1/1/en

MS. Leipzig 1 (Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, B.H.1) – Rashi's Torah Commentary

Open Leipzig 1 Text

The popularity of Rashi's Torah commentary¹ and the tendency of medieval scholars and copyists to add to it their marginal glosses combined to create enormous variation between different manuscripts and editions of the commentary. As a result, it is often difficult to determine how Rashi's original text read, and whether words, sentences, and even entire passages from the commentary, were written by Rashi himself or are merely later accretions. These textual issues are significant both for understanding specific interpretations of Rashi,² and for their cumulative impact on an evaluation of the character of his commentary.

On this backdrop, the importance of the Leipzig 1 (Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, B.H.1) manuscript of Rashi can hardly be overstated. This manuscript was written in the 13th century by R. Makhir b. Karshavya, who states that he produced it from a copy of the commentary transcribed and annotated by Rashi's own secretary, R. Shemayah.³ R. Makhir not only copied Rashi's base commentary from R. Shemayah's manuscript, but he also reproduced many of the marginal glosses contained in R. Shemayah's text, a good number of which R. Shemayah explicitly attributes to Rashi himself.⁴

MS Leipzig 1 is, thus, an extremely valuable textual witness which comes tantalizingly close to the original source. In addition, its glosses shed significant light on Rashi's thought processes and the development of his commentary. As such, ready access to the text of this manuscript and a comparative analysis of its readings to other manuscripts is a desideratum. We are therefore grateful for the gracious permission granted by the Leipzig – Universitaetsbibliothek to present here the text and images from this manuscript.

To proceed to a very preliminary edition of selected chapters from the Leipzig 1 manuscript, click here.

¹ Over 200 manuscripts of Rashi's Torah commentary are extant.

² For a few examples where readings from the Leipzig 1 manuscript are important for clarifying Rashi's positions, see Who Sold Yosef, Miracles and Mitzvot at Marah, and Hagar's Pregnancies.

³ For the importance of this fact for reconstructing the original text of Rashi, see Prof. Avraham Grossman's extensive discussions in: "הגהות ר' שמעיה ונוסח פירוש רש"י לתורה", Tarbiz 60 (1991): 67-98, "‏כתב-יד לייפציג 1 ופירושו של רש"י לתורה (תגובה למאמרו של אלעזר טויטו)‏", Tarbiz 61 (1992): 305-315, "‏עוד לטיבו של כתב-יד לייפציג 1 (תגובה למאמרו של אלעזר טויטו)‏", Tarbiz 62 (1993): 621-624 , and חכמי צרפת הראשונים (Jerusalem, 1995): 187-193, 359-366.

⁴ Most of the glosses attributed to Rashi were collected and analyzed by Prof. Jordan Penkower, "הגהות רש"י לפירושו לתורה", JSIJ 6 (2007): 1-48. See also his second article, "הגהות נוספות של רש"י לפירושו על התורה", in אור למאיר (Beer Sheva, 2010): 363-409. A comprehensive database of all of the various additions to Rashi's commentary is currently being assembled at AlHaTorah.org.