Needless to say, Rashi's conduct was always honorable
and his manners irreproachable. To be virtuous was not
to possess some special merit; it was the strict fulfilment
of the Law. We have seen that Rashi's life was pure;
and his life and more particularly his work reveal a firm,
controlled nature, a simple, frank character, clear judg-
ment, upright intentions, penetrating intelligence, and
profound good sense. The Talmudic maxim might be
applied to him: "Study demands a mind as serene as a
sky without clouds." His was a questioning spirit, ever
alert. He had the special gift of viewing the outer world
intelligently and fixing his attention upon the particular
object or the particular circumstance that might throw
light upon a fact or a text. For instance, although he
did not know Arabic, he remembered certain groups of
related words in the language, which had either been
called to his attention or which he had met with in
reading. He noticed of his own accord that "Arabic
words begin with 'al'." To give another example of
this discernment: he explains a passage of the Talmud
by recalling that he saw Jews from Palestine beating
time to mark the melody when they were reading the
Pentateuch.

The clearness and poise of Rashi's intellect--qualities
which he possessed in common with other French rabbis,
though in a higher degree--stand in favorable contrast
with the sickly symbolism, the unwholesome search for
mystery, which tormented the souls of ecclesiastics, from
the monk Raoul Glaber up to the great Saint Bernard,
that man, said Michelet, "diseased by the love of God."

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