The Intention of the Torah and the Intention of Its Readers surveys how traditional Jewish exegesis throughout the ages has coped with the literary and topical difficulties found in the Torah, in the context of the belief in the Torah’s divine source and sanctity. “All problems stem from expectations.” Readers and exegetes of the Torah throughout the ages supposed, and many continue to suppose, that the Torah is perfect and flawless. They expect the Torah to reflect superior and timeless standards of morality, as well as precise and eternal theological principles. They believe that everything written in the Torah is true, essential, and well thought out. The history of Torah scholarship from the end of the Second Temple period until our day can be conceived of as an uninterrupted continuum of challenges which this unique and, frankly, impossible level of expectations has imposed upon its readers and exegetes. These are glorious attempts to bring the Torah nearer to the time and place of its devotees and to adapt its meaning to theirs. This book is the first attempt of its kind to examine the history of the enterprise of Torah exegesis from a distance. It contains an examination of dozens of key texts from the end of the Second Temple period, from Talmudic and Midrashic sources, dicta of medieval Sages, and the reflections and research penned by scholars of the Enlightenment (Haskalah) and the modern era. A bird’s eye view blurs the details which differentiate between these texts, enabling us to more easily focus upon the similarities; this point of view also allows us to note the central crossroads of change and development which characterize each period. This is an indispensable book for anyone interested in the changing nature of biblical exegesis over the generations.

The commentary on Chronicles attributed to Rashi is an important commentary and milestone in Jewish exegesis that had never been the subject of thorough and systematic research. In fact, it has been one of the most neglected medieval commentaries. The objective of the book is to fill in this lacuna by examining all aspects of the commentary: the author’s sources and teachers, the nature of the commentary and its exegetical method, the author’s time and place and how he was influenced by his milieu, his linguistic glosses and literary ideas, his worldview, where the commentary fits into the peshat exegesis of the Middle Ages, and its influence on later commentaries on Chronicles. The commentary composed in Germany, ca. 1155. Its anonymous author was strongly influenced by the Jewish exegetes of northern France, especially Rashi and R. Joseph Qara; but there are clear affinities and links to commentaries from other locales as well. The systematic description of the commentary has cast light on other commentaries, too—familiar and unfamiliar—and retrieved allusive details about a forgotten circle of sages whose initial portrait can now be drawn.