Transcription
Why does the very religion Jesus came from, Judaism, reject him more than anyone else? Why do the very scriptures he claimed to fulfill now seem to argue against him? Is it just spiritual blindness, or there is more going on with this story?
Well, we're digging deep to look into that, and believe it or not, it crystallized around one man. A rabbi whose writings have shaped, or some might say reshaped, how millions read the Bible. A man who didn't just interpret prophecy, he redirected it. A man who rewrote Messiah so that Jesus didn't fit into the prophecies. His name, Rabbi Yitzchaki, or Rashi for short.
Be honest, have you ever heard that name, Rashi, before? Most haven't. Yet, his influence has echoed through time. He lived a thousand years ago, and his voice has reshaped how Hebrew scriptures are understood even today. Especially when it comes to the prophecies that Christians point to as evidence for Jesus' fulfillment as Messiah.
Today, we're starting a new series on the man who rewrote the Messiah. In this episode, we're going to look at who Rashi was, why he mattered, and how his world prepared him to make one of the most important interpretive shifts in all of history. Welcome to Between the Lines, where we dive deeper into scripture and uncover what's hidden in the lines. Thank you for joining me, and let's get into the message.
Let me take you back to 1040 AD in Troyes, France. The town is bustling with people. Cloth from Flanders, wool from England, wine from Champagne. And above it all, the cathedral bells are ringing. But, in the Jewish quarter, it's quite different. Hebrew letters are over shop doors. Bearded men are debating scripture. Children are being called inside from evening meal. It is here a boy named Yitzchaki is born.
This Jewish community is small, no more than 100 people. The Jews of this time are tolerated, but distrusted. They're outsiders in a Christian world. Their cultures are on a collision course. And this is where the story of Rashi begins.
There is a legend of Rashi's father that says he once owned a jewel that was demanded by a bishop. But, rather than sell it for what he considered idolatry, he threw it into the river. Is the story true, or is it legend? We may never know, but it tells us how the Jewish people wanted to remember Rashi's family. Principled, devout, and unwilling to compromise, even at great cost. And that legacy mattered, because soon, Rashi would be the one to defend his people's faith against enormous pressure.
As a teenager, Rashi traveled east to the great yeshivot that were located in Mainz and Worms, which is now Germany. The yeshivot were the academies of Jewish learning. This wasn't just some college university. Imagine candlelit rooms, hand-copied manuscripts, and heated debates in Hebrew and Aramaic.
To understand what Rashi was studying, we have to grasp a core concept of traditional Judaism, the two Torahs. According to the sages, God gave Moses two revelations on Mount Sinai. First, there was the written Torah. This is the text of the Hebrew Bible itself, specifically the first five books of Moses, or the Pentateuch. But, alongside it, God also gave an oral Torah. This was a vast, divinely inspired tradition of interpretations, laws, and explanations passed down through generations to clarify what was only implicitly contained in the written text. This oral law was eventually written down in monumental works, most importantly the Mishnah and the Talmud.
And by the way, if this is new to you, let me know. I'd love to hear where everyone is coming from.
Now, for traditional Judaism, you couldn't fully understand one Torah without the other. They are two pillars of a single faith. This is where Rashi formally learned the scriptures. It's where he's coming from. But, it was also here, at the yeshivot, that Rashi sharpened his greatest gift, the ability to cut through layers of commentary and confusion and get to the peshat, the plain, straightforward meaning of the text. It was simple, clear, accessible, and it gave him enormous authority. Later, he would wield that clarity like a weapon, using it to redefine prophecies Christians had been quoting for centuries as proof that Jesus was the Messiah.
Now, let me pause here so you can really understand what that means. In Jewish interpretation, there are two main approaches, peshat and derash. Peshat is the plain sense, the the text as it reads. It's grammar and context. Derash is the interpreted sense, the creative homiletical explanations the rabbis gave to draw out deeper lessons or connect verses together. Rashi became famous, some would say infamous, for his devote to peshat. He claimed to focus on what the text literally says. But, here's the irony. Rashi didn't really give up derash, either. Instead, he blended the two. He had a knack for choosing midrashic interpretations when they are seemed to fit the simple sense, and then presenting them as if they were the plain meaning instead. That combination, plain reading dressed up with rabbinic interpretation, it was genius. It gave his commentaries both clarity and authority. But, it also gave him the perfect tool to reshape how his people saw the messianic prophecies.
By his late 20s, Rashi had moved back to Troyes. He was teaching students who traveled from all across Europe. Through his teachings, complicated texts became simple. And then, he started writing his notes in the margins of manuscripts. These notes would famously become his commentaries. And centuries later, when the Hebrew Bible was printed, Rashi's commentary would wrap around the text itself. Even today, in traditional Jewish study, you never read the scriptures alone. His commentaries are presented alongside it.
To understand why Rashi reinterpreted the scriptures, we have to understand his world. It's nowhere like it is today. Rashi lived in a Christian-dominated Europe. The church, what we now refer to as the Catholic Church, long before the Reformation, wasn't just a place of worship. It was the central power of society. Kings and nobles bowed to its authority. And in Christian Europe, the Hebrew Bible wasn't just Jewish scripture. It was the evidence for Christianity, the proof of Jesus' divinity. Isaiah 53, Psalms 22, Daniel 9, Zechariah 12. Christians preached these as fulfillment proof of who Jesus really was, the Messiah.
And the Jewish leaders, what was their response? Well, they increasingly found themselves on the defensive. The text seemingly showed that Jesus might have fulfilled these prophecies. However, he couldn't have. There was too much that was wrong. And those Christians, the ones following the supposed Messiah, weren't representing his call for truth and love. They weren't loving their neighbor as themselves. Quite the opposite.
Not too long after Rashi's death, Jewish leaders would be dragged into public disputations, staged debates where losing wasn't an option. It could mean fine, exile, or worse. And Rashi most likely saw it coming. It was that evident. Things, man, they were about to boil over.
For the supposed Christians, those who claimed Christ yet acted in direct contradiction to his teachings, these might have been theological games, ways to entertain themselves, to seem holier-than-thou. But, for the Jews, it was about survival.
Just as things were starting to boil over, the the Crusades came. In 1096, mobs heading for the Holy Land turned on Jewish communities in Mainz, Worms, and Speyer, in the same cities where Rashi had studied. Entire communities were massacred. Families slaughtered for refusing baptism. Just think about that. Rashi, a rabbi, a teacher, a father. Put yourself in his shoes. The teachers and the people that you grew so close to for all those years are now gone. Your classmates? Dead. Your teachers? Dead. The friends you corresponded with, massacred along with hundreds of others. The synagogue where you once worshipped was now destroyed, all in the name of the Messiah that Christians called the Prince of Peace. How would you react? How would you respond to the ones that are claiming your God is their God? And that God is directing them to massacre your people.
This is what shaped how Rashi read the scriptures that Christians were using against his people.
Before Rashi, there wasn't a unified interpretation of messianic prophecies in scriptures. But, there was an understanding of what he would look like and what he would do. Man, Jesus matched that understanding so much that several Jewish believers in the first century received him as the long-awaited Messiah. But, that was the first century. Times had changed, and the church is now largely non-Jewish.
But, before Rashi, Jewish interpretation of messianic prophecies sometimes aligned strikingly close to the Christian interpretations. Isaiah 53 as a suffering Messiah, Daniel 9 as a countdown to his coming. But in medieval times, after the Crusades, with disputations on horizon, Rashi's approach changed everything.
Isaiah 53 no longer person, but Israel as a nation. Psalm 22, not crucifixion, but King David's own troubles. Daniel 9, not Jesus, but events in the Maccabean period. Zechariah 12, not "They will look on me whom they pierced." Just mourning over a righteous man. Piece by piece, Rashi reframed and redirected the prophecies.
This wasn't just honest scholarship. It was defense of a people, a fortress of interpretation built verse by verse to protect them from theological assault. It was a shield for his people. And that fortress, that that shield, they still stand today.
As a Christian living in the 21st century, it is impossible for me to understand the full weight of what Rashi had to go through. And honestly, I don't understand the supposed Christians of his day, either. Cuz Jesus preached love of enemies, mercy, and peace. But not just love of enemies, love of all humankind, regardless if you agree with them or not. Yet in Rashi's lifetime, his name was used to force conversions, staged humiliations, and shed rivers of Jewish blood. Looking at it through that lens, Rashi's reinterpretations weren't just theology. They were indeed survival. What would you do if your sacred text were turned into weapons to be used against you?
While I don't agree with his interpretations and his conclusions, I totally respect his motives. Protect your people, their identity, and their God.
Rashi died in 1105, but his words live on, echoing throughout time. For centuries, Jewish readers have never encountered the scriptures without Rashi by its side. They've never read the scriptures without some hint of his interpretation echoing through those words, whether it's be from his commentaries printed right in the side the scriptures or his ideas being preached and taught by the rabbis.
Understand that before Rashi, and we'll get into this deeper in future episodes, studying the scriptures was an intricate and often confusing task. Rashi created a running commentary that guided readers through the flow of Talmudic argument. It was so successful that it established a single definitive text for the Talmud. And his commentary for the Jewish scriptures, it's one of the most popular works in the entire Jewish library.
And here's the key for Christians. When we engage with Jewish interpretations today, very rarely are we facing the raw, ancient tradition. Rarely are we reading the same scriptures, even though we're looking at the same words. We're facing a tradition created by Rashi, shaped by the trauma of survival instincts of 11th century Europe. He was the rabbi who rewrote prophecy. He was a teacher whose pen became a shield, a man whose reinterpretations still shape Judaism's rejection of Jesus today.
But this is just the beginning. Cuz if you ever read Isaiah 53 and wondered, "How could anyone miss this?" Next episode, you'll find out how and why. Cuz Rashi made it disappear. Make sure you're subscribed and have notifications turned on to not miss out. And if you're wondering about all this, I put together a list for further reading that you can check out. Included in the description, you'll find all this information. Thank you for joining me. Don't forget to hit the like button. It helps others find these videos. Stay blessed, and I will see you next time.