When we learn and teach Tanakh in school, we often learn commentaries—the parshanim—as an integral part of the curriculum. We teach Tanakh in this way for many reasons. To name a few: it is tradition, it passes along wisdom we feel students should have, it’s part of the curriculum, the parshanim elucidate text and answer questions, learning parshanut supports and encourages critical thinking, and it trains our students to think about Tanakh texts in ways that go beyond translation. We spend time on the commentaries, and we may even analyze, compare, and contrast them as closely and rigorously as we would a piece of Talmud or halakha. However, we rarely think about who these parshanim actually were as people: When and where did they live? What was their role in their community and/or outside of it? How did the time and place they lived in impact their worldview, their concerns, and their parshanut? By learning about the person doing the writing, we can deepen our understanding not only of what they wrote, but why they wrote it, and how their words stretch across time and connect with us and our students. 

What follows are three examples of how I use a parshan’s biography and historical context to deepen student appreciation for the “why” of a commentary’s message, rather than just the “what.”

Rashi

Rashi’s biography and historical context is perhaps the best-known and the most often used for this approach. Rashi lived from 1040-1105 in cities along the Seine and the Rhine Rivers in France and Germany. Already during his lifetime, he became hugely influential as a tremendous scholar and halakhic authority, prolific writer, and rosh yeshiva. Even these few biographical pieces of information tell us that Rashi must have been a man of means, that he traveled widely, and that he had the support and respect of a large swath of what was emerging as Ashkenazi Jewry. Rashi must have known that when he spoke, taught, wrote, and paskened (decided halakha), people listened and adhered; he used his position not only to impact people’s intellectual and practical lives but their spiritual ones as well.

During Rashi’s lifetime in the 11th century, Christian religious fervor swelled, and anti-Jewish sentiment rose alongside it; the cathedrals literally and figuratively cast ominous shadows over Jewish communities, with harsh laws, punishing taxation, and ultimatums of conversion or death. When the First Crusade erupted in 1096, 12,000 Jews were murdered in France and Germany; Jews were terrified and traumatized. Rashi used his voice and his parshanut to communicate what he felt were essential messages to the Jews of Franco-Germany, messages that would inspire faith, fortitude, and steadfastness in an incredibly dark time in Jewish history. These ubiquitous and well-known messages included “Hashem loves the Jewish people,” “Hashem’s providence —in the form of reward and punishment —is present and personal,” “Don’t commit idolatry”—aka Christianity, and “Don’t trust idolaters”—aka Christians. 

Perhaps the comment that Rashi makes on Bereshit 40:23 best encapsulates all of these in one place: “Yet the chief cupbearer did not think of Joseph; he forgot him.” Rashi comments, “and he forgot him afterwards.” Because Joseph had placed his trust in him that he should remember him, he was doomed to remain in prison for two years. So it is said (Tehillim 40:5), “Happy is the man who makes God his trust and turns not to rehavim, the arrogant”—i.e. does not trust in the Egyptians who are called arrogant (Bereshit Rabbah 89:3 cf. Yeshayahu 30:7). When we understand Rashi’s historical context and the role he played in the Jewish community, we can better appreciate the message here: Even when you have helped non-Jews, even when they owe you, you cannot trust them. They are arrogant, not God-fearing, and will betray you. Furthermore, you should only trust in God and only trust in God because you are special to God and have a special relationship with God. That relationship comes with rights, but also with responsibility and consequences. 

Rashi’s “backstory” not only illuminates his approach to text, it also provides more clarity as to why he focuses on these aforementioned messages so often. It can also spark a discussion about how we relate to the non-Jewish world around us and what messages our teachers and spiritual leaders could and should use to inspire our faith, hope, and fortitude in challenging times. 

Abarbanel 

Abarbanel was from one of the Iberian Peninsula’s most distinguished Jewish families. He was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1437, and by age 20 had already become highly regarded for his Jewish scholarship and his brilliance in scientific, philosophical, and economic matters. He was recruited by the Portuguese court and became treasurer to the Portuguese king, and he was able to use both his personal wealth and influence to ransom Jewish captives. However, when the king died, he was accused of conspiracy by the new king and had to flee to Spain in the 1480s. In Spain, he became a chief financier to the court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, up close and personal to the court’s enormous opulence, wealth, and perpetual quest for more and more power. When the edict to expel the Jews from Spain came through, he offered a huge sum from his personal fortune to reverse the decree and argued with the monarchs in front of the Grand Inquisitor—to no avail. He went into exile with the Jewish community in 1492 and moved around Italy for the last 15 years of his life. 

Abarbanel’s access to the best that Iberian life and education had to offer, as well as his intimate knowledge of and experience with royal power, greatly impacted his commentary on Tanakh. His writing style is heavily influenced by Greek philosophy in its question-answer format, and he liberally references philosophy, science, and even Christian theology. But it is in his parshanut around power and wealth and its impact that his historical context comes through most poignantly. For example, he explains the root cause of Chava and Adam’s eating from the Tree of Knowledge as the human propensity to never be satisfied, and always wanting more no matter how much you already have, no matter what the ultimate price may be. Another example is in the discussion around anointing a king in Devarim 17, where Abarbanel disagrees vehemently with Rambam, who holds that this is a positive command. Abarbanel writes passionately, even bitterly, about how anointing and having a king is not only NOT a mitzvah, but a singularly bad idea, doomed not only to fail but to corrupt and imperil the Jewish nation. He writes that leadership is necessary, but eloquently outlines how we have that leadership in the form of priests, prophets, and judges. Kingship, he asserts strongly, should be reserved only for God. 

I imagine Abarbanel writing these things either after a long day at court, where he was surrounded by the gold and glitter and machinations that court life entailed, or later in his life, in exile in Italy (where he also ended up in royal matters and negotiations). I imagine his frustration, his pain, and his growing cynicism; not only was the lust for power the root of much evil, but in the end, even his money, his status, and his dedication to his people couldn’t save them. When we understand Abarbanel’s biography and historical context, we gain a deeper appreciation for how he writes and why he says what he does. 

Nechama Leibowitz

Perhaps because Nechama Leibowitz’s lifetime is closer to ours, we can more easily understand her historical context and marvel at her incredible impact on Tanakh study. She was born in Riga in 1905 and moved to Berlin with her family in 1919. She received a doctorate in 1930 for her thesis on Techniques in the Translations of German-Jewish Biblical Translations and moved to Mandatory Palestine that same year. She died in Jerusalem, Israel in 1997. 

These facts belie an extraordinary historical trajectory, as well as personal experiences, dedication, and accomplishments. As a child, she lived through World War I in Riga, she moved to one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities when she was a teenager, and received a rigorous education in both Jewish and general studies, culminating in a Ph.D. At a time when Jews were assimilating en masse, Nechama Leibowitz stayed completely true to her faith and practice. The magnitude of her educational achievement is also not to be understated: as a Jew in Germany, and as a woman, this was almost unheard of. On top of that, her doctorate was in the almost exclusively male-dominated field of Jewish scholarship. That she left all of the physical comforts as well as the intellectual milieu of Berlin to move to the dusty, poor backwater that was Palestine in 1930 speaks volumes about her love for Eretz Yisrael and her dedication to Zionism. 

Her life’s work and legacy—her gilyonot, or study sheets—embody everything she was, and everything she believed in. She revived the study of pshat, the plain meaning of Tanakh, in a way that was rigorous and highly thought-provoking. She taught anyone who wanted to learn—men and women, religious and secular. She spread Torah learning at the most elite university levels in Israel (Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University) but also in person and over the radio, reaching a huge audience. She began publishing her gilyonot in 1942 and taught Torah for the next 50+ years. 

Her unshakeable faith in God, and her profound commitment to Torah learning and observance despite all of the challenges and difficulties of most of her life, comes through in every gilyon she wrote. Simply put, she just learned and taught Torah, no matter what was going on around her. While her own education, and all of the educational and other advances of the 20th century, suffuse all of her work, it is the absence of historical referents that is often the most striking. As I was once preparing a class on Parashat Yitro, I noticed that her first gilyonot came out in 1942. She was studying, writing, and teaching about how we are “a special people” while living in British-ruled Palestine during some of the darkest hours of Jewish history. I had to sit back in my chair—I was so struck by the unbelievable contrast between what she was discussing and when and where she was discussing it. Almost irrespective of what she said, these gilyonot are acts of faith and commitment to Torah. One can only appreciate this within Nechama’s historical context and biography. 

When we learn parshanut in school, we often just focus on what the text says, what the commentary says, and how the commentary addresses a particular problem or issue in the text. If we take the time to learn and think about who these people were, when they lived, and how their work reflects their biographies and historical contexts, we gain a far deeper understanding of and appreciation for them and their work. And by picturing what their lives were like, and how they may connect with our own, we create meaning and connections that can be truly transformative.