 |
| Extract from a 1364 manuscript of Tzafnat Paneach by R. Eleazar Ashkenazi |
Introduction
This article − based extensively on the research by
Professor Eric Lawee[1]
− is
divided into three parts:
Part 1 is a brief presentation of how the early Rashi texts were
surprisingly diverse, and only emerged in the ‘standard’ form as we know them
today at around the sixteenth century.
Part 2 looks at the early rabbinic reception of the Rashi texts.
Part 3 discusses and examines extracts from a little-known fourteenth-century
‘counter commentary’ to Rashi’s commentary. This ‘counter commentary’ was
authored by R. Eleazar Ashkenazi, a Maimonidean rationalist, and entitled Tzafnat
Paneach (Revealer of Secrets).
