How a Medieval Commentary Reimagined the Psalms to Counter Christian Readings

For a millennium, the way Jews have read the Hebrew Bible has been shaped above all by the commentary of Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, known by the acronym Rashi, who lived in France from about 1040 until 1105. In standard editions, Rashi’s gloss on Psalms 2:1 begins, “Our rabbis interpreted this passage as referring to the king Messiah.” This reading, however, appears to be the work of medieval Christian censors; the original likely began, “Many of the students of Jesus interpreted. . . .” Naturally, Rashi rejects this interpretation, found in the New Testament book of Acts, in favor of a more literal reading.

Mordechai Z. Cohen argues that Rashi frequently, although not always so explicitly, engages in exegetical polemic with Christianity throughout his Bible commentary, and especially in his commentary on the Psalms:

In medieval Latin Christendom, the Psalms were highly beloved, with commentators interpreting them as prophecies about Christ and the Church. Aware of this prevailing interpretation, Rashi often deviates from the plain meaning of the text to read the Psalms as a reflection of the Jewish people’s experience and suffering in his own time.

It is becoming increasingly accepted that Rashi reacted polemically to Christian beliefs and Bible interpretation, and that, throughout his commentaries, he was implicitly refuting the Christian claim that God had rejected Israel. He thus made the Bible a vehicle for upholding the faith of the Jewish people in their dark exile in Christian Europe.

In his endeavor to counter Christian exegesis, Rashi . . . transforms Psalms from a book about King David’s personal supplications into a source of religious guidance and solace to his coreligionists in their time of despair. In Rashi’s opinion, King David wrote the psalms prophetically about Israel “in exile”—the exile of his own time.

Read more at theTorah.com

More about: Hebrew Bible, Jewish-Christian relations, Psalms, Rashi

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023