of Solomon ben Adret, ¹⁴⁸ and it is clearly manifest in the
commentary on Alfasi by Nissim Gerundi (about 1350),
who copies Rashi literally, at the same time developing
his thought, not infrequently over-elaborating it. He
also refutes Rashi at times, but his refutation is often
wrong. The man, however, who best represents the
fusion of Spanish and French Talmudism was assuredly
Asher ben Jehiel, ¹⁴⁹ who, a native of the banks of the
Rhine, implanted in Spain the spirit of French Ju-
daism, and in his abridgment of the Talmud united
Spanish tradition, whose principal representative was
Alfasi, with Franco-German tradition, whose uncon-
tested leader was Rashi.

Since that time Talmudic activity, the creative force
of which seems to have been exhausted, has been under-
going a change of character. Asher ben Jehiel, or, as
he has been called, Rosh, terminated an important
period of rabbinical literature, the period of the
Rishonim. We have seen how during this period
Rashi's reputation, at first confined within the limits
of his native province, extended little by little, until it
spread over the surrounding countries, like the tree of
which Daniel speaks, "whose height reached unto the
heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth; whose
leaves were fair, and the fruit thereof much" ( Dan. iv.
20-21).

-209-