His name is most prominently connected with Rabbinical literature. Whether
large questions are dealt with, or the minutest details are considered, it is
always Rashi who is referred to-he has a share in all its destinies, and he
seems inseparable from it forever.
It is this circumstance that makes the writing of his biography as awkward a
task for the writer as reading it may be for the public. To write it one must
be a scholar, to read it a specialist. To know Rashi well is as difficult as it
is necessary. Singularly enough, popular as he was, he was essentially a
Talmudist, and at no time have connoisseurs of the Talmud formed a majority.
This is the reason why historians like Graetz, though they dilate upon the
unparalleled qualities of Rashi's genius, can devote only a disproportionately
small number of pages to him and his works.