Journey to France: Troyes - Legends of Rashi and his Family

this torah class is brought to you by torahanytime.com okay i just wanted to give you a few minutes to think about what we just uh spoke about but now i want to tell you a few legends about rashi's origins and the origins of his family now um yeah i used to say over a lot when you talk about gadolin stories you know the role that they play in uh jewish thought so there's a there's a statement that's attributed to rav miller ninety percent of good olympic stories never happened and i like to add and even that story rav miller never said that either but so you have to understand that condolence stories is not torah messinai we don't know exactly did they happen did they not happen it's not really important whether they happen the point is if you want to get a feel if you want to have a picture for who the person was and what people thought about them so you get a little bit of a feel how people consider them based on the stories that they say and someone of the caliber of the personality of rashi there's no there's no doubt that there must be some special legend about the way rashi was born you can have a personage the caliber of rashi be born on their natural circumstances so the fact that we have this legend means uh the esteem that the jewish people have for rashi so rashi's father contrary to popular uh opinion some want to say that rabino yitzhak the father of rashi was not a learned scholar and that's why rashi wanted to honor him by opening up his comments allah torah amarava yitzhak rashi's father's name was rabbit that's why rashu is called from but in fact rabino yitzhak was a great scholar rashi cites him in zara but rabino yitzhak was a jeweler and he worked on 47th street no we don't know exactly where he worked barashi's father had us grand jewel and the word got out to the emperor that this jewel is only available in the hands of rashi's father and the emperor wanted it wanted that jewel as an eye for his avoid zara so he sent emissaries and they summoned rabbenu yitzhak and they they uh they wanted the jewel rabbenu yutsuk had this great dilemma how could he heaven forbid provide a jewel for the eye of an avid azara and he was on the ship and legend has it that he was forced to give over the jewel and he quote unquote lost his step and the jewel fell out of his hands into the ocean and minha shamayim they came to him and they said as a reward for your vision fish not to provide a jewel for available you will merit a great light a great jewel who will illuminate the eyes of the jewish people that's the story they say about rashi so again that just shows that the jewish people consider rashi to be such a bright luminary that how can his birth be just some kind of natural occurrence it has to be associated with the supernatural i want to tell you a legend about the son-in-law of rashi it's almost hard to say over a very important feature of the of the life of rashi is what we call basoi sharashi rashi's household and we're going to talk about rashi was a torah dynasty that existed for six generations okay here we go because you're going to have to memorize this nobody will walk away from this trip without knowing the six generations of russian number one rabbenu that's generation two generation three the children of robino mayor they are the rashbam the rivam rabino tam and the sister who was ultimately the mother of the greatest going of the next generation rabino yitzchak of dampier says we're the greatest of all the we shine him if i were to ask you who is the greatest of all that we shine him you're with me who is the greatest of all that we shine him so if what's the answer to that question gabriel should say the rambam if you're a safari you should say the rambam that's the tradition of the rambam the ritvar rights from the times of maestro benue there is no one greater than ravenous but ashkenazi maintain the greatest among all the restoring them but the great grandson of rashid generation five robin was killed in the third crusade he was one of the great ballets that's his sin were compiled by his father rabino yitzhak that's generation 5. had a son the sixth generation from rashi the redactor of taisus and masek where did rashid get these son-in-laws from so rashi had no sons and rashi educated his daughters as if they would be sons you have to understand 150 years ago your great grandmothers could not read and write women were not educated to read and write as well as long as a hundred years ago and now we're talking about in the middle ages when the king of friends couldn't read and write they had to he had to go to college and post graduate school to learn how to make an x to sign his name so that when the king of england came he didn't look like a fool that he couldn't sign a document so after 10 years of education the king of france knew how to make an x so we're talking about an age where most men could not read and write rashi trained his daughters to be scribes they rashi dictated to his daughters part of parish rashi rashi's first daughter had an easy time with the shidduch again this is a legend she married student well one of the great students of rashid the rivan rashi's second daughter legend has it this one wasn't good the other one wasn't good she didn't go for any of the suggestions and it was getting a little bit difficult for rashi so rashi took an oath that the first guy that knocks on the door in the morning will be the son-in-law of the based rashi and that night she's crying she's weeping even the other sister the first sister is miriam miriam is married to the rivan miriam is nervous and certainly this girl herself your heaven who's going to come into the house who's going to knock on the door please it should be at least somebody who's one of the primary students of rashi who's it going to be she's nervous nobody could sleep in the house of rashi and early that morning there's a knock on the door and standing at the door was a schlemiel beggar the only milo he had was that he only wore those rags 97 times before he knocked on that door that was the biggest milo he had not not learned ill manner this is the legend that's reported in all of the biographies of rashi has not been published yet by art scroll but in the official biographies of rashi we have this legend and rashi they said rasheed be materned there he's not so passionate you could just be or such a nether so rashi sat down to learn with this boy and he sat there no comment nothing to say and they were weeping they were crying and i said no give if only i had a few hours with him and they said okay let us know and one time rashi sat and learned with him for a few hours and rashi asked him for his feedback and his feedback was uh he had no understanding no comprehension and the days passed and they didn't know what to do rashi was working on a very difficult suggest he was working on that he was spitzing on it the entire day and it came time for minha sarashi went into minha and rashi comes back to his gemara and on his gemara is written in a beautiful clear flowery handwriting a crystal clear approach to explain the sugiya the roush he was working on and rushing with taran there's no one in the basement except for the beggar the schlepper who knocked down the door so rashi what am i gonna do rashi confronts him rashi says are you the person who wrote the interpretation of the sugiya and he had no choice but to admit indeed it was he and they made the sana that day to rabbenu mayor the rashiva of ramarupt the most important yeshiva in the history of france because ramrupt ultimately was taken over by rabino tam and the riha zakin and rabbino mayor himself this second sonola of rashu was who became one of the ballet toys this is the true account published in the official biographies of rashi and this gives you [Music] at least a little bit of a picture how little information we have about rabbenu mayer the second son-in-law of rashi but uh one thing we know is he's one of the good deleolang and he's known as avihara because he was the father of the rashvam the revamp and also the mother of ravenous you've just experienced another torah class brought to you by torahanytime.com