So immense is the impact of the Torah commentary of Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, better known by the Hebrew acronym Rashi (1040-1105), that nearly every Jew who received a traditional education over the past several centuries has encountered it as child, and nearly every subsequent rabbinic Torah commentary uses it as a point of departure. It is also the subject of numerous supercommentaries, as well as works of systematic criticism. In a recent book, Eric Lawee presents the first complete academic study of the work itself, how it achieved its canonical status, and its overall reception in the Middle Ages. David Berger writes in his review:

[T]he book concludes with an explanation of Rashi’s victory over his most distinguished rival: Abraham Ibn Ezra (ca. 1092-1164) and Moses Naḥmanides (1194-1270)—and for that matter, the Maimonidean approach to the Bible. [Certainly], it is self-evident that Ibn Ezra’s commentary and Maimonidean interpretation could not have achieved the sweeping popularity of Rashi’s work, and to a slightly lesser degree the same is true of Nahmanides, whose work is almost certainly the most widely studied of the three rivals to Rashi.

Nevertheless, Lawee’s formulation is more than worth recording. All three of Rashi’s rivals, he says, separated Scripture into esoteric and exoteric layers, with the former inaccessible to all but a small elite. In Rashi’s case, both layers of Scriptural meaning, p’shat [the plain meaning] and midrash [the exegetical readings of the early rabbis], were exoteric and accessible in principle—and for the most part in reality—to the widest audience. I cannot improve on Lawee’s summary statement, and so I simply reproduce it. “Not that [Rashi’s] commentary was a simple text. Scores of supercommentaries, many by leading rabbis, could hardly have come to grace it if it were so. But, as Raymond Aron said of Karl Marx, his teaching lent itself to ‘simplification for the simple and to subtlety for the subtle.’ So it was with the commentary, and that, plus its protean and self-replenishing character was, and remains, a part of its greatness.”

When he called upon Hamas to end the war and release the hostages last week, the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas was also getting ready for a reshuffle within his regime. On Saturday, he appointed Hussein al-Sheikh deputy president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is intimately tied to the PA itself. Al-Sheikh would therefore succeed Abbas—who is eighty-nine and reportedly in ill health—as head of the PLO if he should die or become incapacitated, and be positioned to succeed him as head of the PA as well.

Al-Sheikh spent eleven years in an Israeli prison and, writes Maurice Hirsch, was involved in planning a 2002 Jerusalem suicide bombing that killed three. Moreover, Hirsch writes, he “does not enjoy broad Palestinian popularity or support.”

Still, by appointing Al-Sheikh, Abbas has taken a step in the internal reforms he inaugurated last year in the hope that he could prove to the Biden administration and other relevant players that the PA was up to the task of governing the Gaza Strip. Neomi Neumann writes:

Abbas’s motivation for reform also appears rooted in the need to meet the expectations of Arab and European donors without compromising his authority. On April 14, the EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas approved a three-year aid package worth 1.6 billion euros, including 620 million euros in direct budget support tied to reforms. Meanwhile, the French president Emmanuel Macron held a call with Abbas [earlier this month] and noted afterward that reforms are essential for the PA to be seen as a viable governing authority for Gaza—a telling remark given reports that Paris may soon recognize “the state of Palestine.”

In some cases, reforms appear targeted at specific regional partners. The idea of appointing a vice-president originated with Saudi Arabia.

In the near term, Abbas’s main goal appears to be preserving Arab and European support ahead of a major international conference in New York this June.