I just got a book from Oakville Public Library. The book sat silently on a shelf among other books. What’s so interesting about the book, and that’s why I checked it out, was the author. He is Elie Wiesel. You know him? The winner of the Noble Peace Prize, the author of more than fifty books, and, you perhaps have known it, one of his unforgettable international best sellers is Night.
Oh, I forgot to tell you the book’s title eh? It is Rashi. In this book, Wiesel introduces us Rashi, the initial of Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, the great biblical and Talmudic commentator of the Middle Ages.
Here are some fascinating ideas I found in the book.
When God said, “I will make him a fitting helper for him,” what did He mean?
Rashi comments, fitting helper literally means a “helper facing” or “opposed to him”. Now how is she both a help and in opposition? Rashi answers: if he is deserving, the other will help him; if he is not, the other will fight against him.
What Rashi means by ‘deserving’ here is simply devoting oneself to serve. The word is supposedly translated from ‘deservire’ (Latin) meaning to serve.
Rashi’s question, I paraphrased, why did God have to put Adam first to sleep before He made Eve out of him? Have you thought of it? Rashi answers: “God is about to operate on Adam’s ribs and make his future companion out of one of them; if Adam suspects this, it might disgust him forever.” (p. 36)
Rashi also comments on the story of Cain and Abel. After Cain killed his brother Abel, God reprimanded him: “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood cryeth unto me from the ground.” Rashi explains that the blood is actually written in plural. What does it mean? It means that what God meant by the blood is not only the blood of thy brother, but also of his descendants. In other words, “he who kills, kills more than the victim.”
Okay, that’s all for now, my friends.
Have a blessed advent season.
