Father of interpretation. Rabbi Shlomo ben Yishaki, known by an acronym of his name, Ra-Sh-I, or “Rashi,” lived in Troyes, France, in the latter half of the 11th century. His commentary on the Torah would become the first book ever printed in Hebrew—in Italy in 1475 (even before the Torah itself). In it, Rashi distilled the scholarship of his predecessors into a compact line-by-line annotation of scripture. Because of its clarity, Rashi’s commentary became the lens through which generations of Jews read and understood the Bible.
