ABSTRACT
The Jewish pietists of medieval Germany (Hasidei ’Ashkenaz) and the school of Rashi devoted much of their energy to biblical commentary. In order to explore the contours of French- and German-Jewish approaches to their shared Ashkenazic culture. From ancient times to the present, the Song of Songs has generated more commentaries than most other parts of the Hebrew Bible. When Rashi decided to adopt the more univalent and linear Targum, rather than the multivalent midrash, as the structural basis of his commentary on the Song of Songs, he also chose the Targum’s two emphases as his own. Like the Targum, Rashi focuses on the Song of Songs as being a chronological collective allegory. Like the Targum, Rashi’s commentary on the Song of Songs is at the same time an implicitly anti-Christian, Judeo-centric reading of God’s romance with Israel, understood as Jews, not Christians. In contrast to Rashi’s diachronic reading, the pseudo-Eleazar commentary is mainly synchronic.
