The patriarchs and matriarchs
Judaism gives much importance to the ancestors of the Jewish people: Abraham and Sarah; Isaac and Rebecca; Jacob, Rachel and Leah. Each ancestor has his/her own significance, sends a specific message and enriches the range of human characters in the Hebrew Bible.

Abraham and Sarah
First named Avram (high Father) and Sarai (My princess), Abraham and Sarah were at the source of Jewish genealogy. The Hebrew name for History is toldot (engendering) to show that History was created by generations of human beings contributing to it. Hence the importance of the first generation that, in a break with its own history, created a new people. “Lekh leẖa”, God said to Avram - which can be translated as "Go for you" or "Go to you" - before adding: "Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you" (Genesis 12:1). Because of this mission, the patriarch would be the first to be designated as an Ivri (Hebrew), a name derivated from “to go”, “to go beyond”.
Among the trials affecting the “first” couple, there was the barrenness of Sarai, whereas God had promised an offspring to Sarai and Avram. God made a covenant with Avram, renew the promise of an offspring, with the need for the males to be circumcised, and changed the name of Avram into Avraham (Father of many), and the name of Sarai into Sarah (Princess who governs). As Sarah was a 90-year-old woman living with a 100-year-old man, the divine promise made her smile, which explains the name of the son born from their union: Yitsẖak(He will laugh), a name expressing confidence in a possible future despite past trials.

Isaac and Rebekah
Chosen for her hospitality towards Abraham's servant, who was travelling to select a bride for Isaac, Rivka (Rebecca) decided to leave her family to become Isaac’s wife. Their marital love was exemplary. An anthem in the Jewish liturgy has praised justice and truth with the names of Yitsẖak and Rivka as a double acrostic.
Rebecca was more far-sighted than her husband. She used a ploy so that the youngest of her twins, Yaakov (Jacob), a sensitive man, received the paternal blessing instead of the eldest of her twins, Esav (Esau), a rough man. Instead of the respect of natural law, she favoured a progress in history. This episode illustrates the role of women in Biblical history: despite being often in the background, they had a sound judgment and a power of decision that could change the course of events.

Jacob, Rachel and Leah
Jacob was ready to get married. While visiting the family of Laban, his maternal uncle, he met with Raẖel (Rachel, meaning “sheep”) and fell in love with her. He worked for Laban during seven years to be able to marry Rachel. But his uncle, a much less ethical man than Abraham, fooled him by asking him to marry Lea, his eldest daughter. Jacob then worked for Laban during seven more years to be able to marry Rachel too. The two wives of Jacob and their two maids gave birth to twelve sons and a daughter. Leah, the scorned wife who was less pleasant to Jacob’s eyes, had more children than Rachel, who remained barren for many years before giving birth to two sons - first Yosef (Joseph, meaning “God will add”) and later Binyamin (Benjamin, meaning “son of the right”) - who where Jacob’s favourite sons.
After his fight with an angel, Jacob was renamed Israel, and his children and their descendents were named the Bnei Israel (Children of Israel or Israelites), who later became the Jews.
The Bible recounted the actions of the patriarchs and matriarchs without hiding their weaknesses or even their violence. These beings were deeply human, they moved around the world as it was, and tried to remain faithful to the covenant made between God and their ancestor. In a way, the Hebrew Bible was an account of the tumultuous relationship between God and the faithful who chose to testify His existence.

Hillel and Shammai
Hillel (70 BC - 10 AD) and Shammai (50 BC - 30 AD) were the last two of the five zugot (couples of wise men) who transmitted the Oral Law in the first century BC. Hillel and Shammai were different on many points. Hillel had the reputation of being more flexible than Shammai in interpreting the Torah, as shown in the laws they created.

Hillel, also called Hillel the Elder, was born in Babylon, where he studied before moving to Jerusalem. When he was a student, he could not raise enough money to attend a course, so he climbed on the roof of the school to listen to the course through a skylight, and was later found almost frozen to death under a blanket of snow. His hermeneutical method consisted of seven interpretation rules of the Torah. His method was well regarded, and he became Nassi (President) of the Sanhedrin (High Court of Justice).
Hillel did not hesitate to criticize the opulence in which King Herod lived. He always stayed close to the people. To his eyes, the teaching of the Torah was not only meant for the elites, and the best reason to study was to improve one’s knowledge and to act "for the love of heaven". His lively teaching methods were influenced by the Greek philosophers Socrates and Aristotle. He was patient, indulgent and gave practical examples, including personal ones. To his eyes, the best example that could be given was personal conduct.

Shammai, probably born in the Land of Israel, was said to be a mason or architect. He became the vice president of the Sanhedrin (with Hillel as the president). More idealistic than Hillel and further away from the world realities, he sought a strict way of applying ritual prescriptions. An irascible man, he expressed his thoughts in few words ("Let your words be few and let your acts be many"). He was worried about Jewish people being assimilated by Hellenism and the Roman world, and by the dangers of it.

These two wise men behaved differently, as shown in this famous anecdote. One day a stranger stopped in front of Shammai and asked him: “Teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.” Shammai pushed him back with the architect rule he held in his hands. The stranger then went to Hillel to make the same query. Hillel welcomed him and said: “What is hateful to your eyes, do not do it to your neighbour, here the whole Torah; all the rest only comments this sentence. Go and study!” (Talmud, Tractate Shabbat 31a).

The different behaviour between the two wise men can be explained as follows: although Shammai previously said: “Do welcome anyone with gentleness”, he held in his hands the architect rule symbolising righteousness; to his eyes, the Torah could only be understood and applied if one is fully committed. Hillel saw the understanding of the Torah as a long learning process to be built step by step. He did not choose the Torah verse: “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) but offered a less arduous path by expressing the same requirement in a less idealized way, for it to be closer to the stranger’s experience.
The Talmud recounted the numerous exchanges of views between Beth Hillel (Hillel’s school) and Beth Shammai (Shammai’s school). We can read the following sentence when it was time to make a decision: “The ones and the others are the words of the living God, but the rule will be based on the opinion given by Hillel’s school.” Less frequently, the Halakha (rabbinical law) followed the advice given by Shammai’s school. Yet both opinions were considered “words of the living God”: according to the Jewish tradition, Jewish people from all generations received these words at the foot of Mount Sinai, and the whole Torah - written and oral - was transmitted to them at that time.

Rashi of Troyes (1040-1105)
[See Judaism module I section 3.]
Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzẖak, ha-Tsarfati (Solomon son of Isaac, the French) was born in Troyes, a French town in the Champagne region, and spent most of his life there. He is better known after his acronym Rashi. After studying in Mainz, Worms and Metz, the main centres of Jewish studies at that time, we came back to Troyes to work as a winemaker and be a dayyane (rabbinical judge).
Rashi became famous for his huge work in commenting the Torah and the Talmud. His commentary on the Pentateuch was the first printed book in Hebrew, printed in 1475 in Reggio, Italy. Rashi sought to clarify the pchat, i.e. the obvious meaning of the Torah, through explanations referring to familiar situations. These explanations were written in a simple, clear and concise style. He often made comparisons with the daily work of peasants or artisans, or transliterated into Hebrew the Old French words that could be best understood by his contemporaries. He often began with this formula: “In your language, you call it…” His references to the cultural environment of the time show that the Jewish population was well integrated into the local community.
Rashi also referred to the Hebrew grammar to understand the meaning of the text. While he mainly focused on the pchat, he sometimes used the drach (homiletic interpretation) to illustrate a law or an ethical concept. Outside the Jewish world, the monk Nicolas of Lyra (1270-1340) read Rashi’s books and quoted his writings in his own commentaries. Luther and other translators of the Reformation also extensively used Rachi’s work.
Rashi commented the Talmud using a logical method in order to offer both clear and extensive explanations to students. He rarely presented himself as a theologian, and did not hesitate to write: "I do not know” about a difficult topic.
Rashi had three daughters whom he educated himself, which was not common in the Middle Ages. His sons-in-law and grandsons continued his work. They were known as the Tosafists (from the Hebrew word tossaf, meaning “addition”).
At the end of Rachi’s life, Jews were massacred in the Rhineland during the First Crusade of 1095. Rachi was saddened by these events, as shown in his commentaries on some psalms. He continued his major work until the very end of his life. Some of his commentaries on the Talmud were then completed by his grandson Samuel ben Meir.
Talmud editions have included Rashi’s work, printed on the inner column of the page, and the Tosafists’ work, printed on the outer column of the page. To this day this work has been a major reference work for students of a yeshiva (Talmudic school), showing the vitality of Judaism in France and the influence it had from the eleventh to the fourteenth century.
Here are some quotes by Rashi:

•  “Teachers learn from students’ debates.”
•  “Do not blame a companion and shame him in public.”
•  “To obey out of love is better than to obey out of fear.”
•  “Whoever studies the laws and does not understand their meaning or cannot explain contradictions is just a basket full of books.”

As a tribute to this great figure of Judaism, the European University Institute Rashi (Institut universitaire européen Rachi) <http://www.institut-rachi-troyes.fr/> opened its doors in Troyes in 1989. As a centre for Hebrew and Semitic study and research, it has offered courses in Jewish history, thought and philosophy, as well as Arabic and Hebrew classes.

Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786)
[See Judaism module I section 4.]
Moses Mendelssohn was born in Dessau, Germany, and lived in poverty as a child with his father, who was a sofer (scribe). Because of these difficult living conditions, he contracted a painful disease and became a hunchback at a very young age. He received a traditional Jewish education from his father and from Rabbi David Frankel, who became Chief Rabbi of Berlin in 1743. Mendelssohn followed him in Berlin. While earning his living as a copyist and tutor, Mendelssohn learned mathematics, philosophy, Latin, Greek, French, Italian and English. In 1754, he started a business. The same year, he met with Lessing, a playright and author of Nathan the Wise, with whom he became close friends. They published a satire together, named Pope, a Metaphysician!
Mendelssohn’s reputation steadily grew with the publication of his philosophical and literary essays. In 1763, he won the Grand Prize of the Royal Academy of Prussia for his essay On Evidence in Metaphysical Sciences. He spent the following years writing on Judaism, while working on improving the living conditions of Jews. As a Jew, after being only granted a temporary residence permit in Berlin in 1763, he later moved from the sixth to the third class residence “permit”, with the right to live in Berlin permanently. In 1762, he married Fromet Guggenheim, with whom he had five children.
Mendelssohn was interested not only in Jewish studies but also in secular studies. He translated the Torah, the Psalms and the Song of Songs in German, a language he strongly supported in front of the literary hegemony of French and Latin. His style was recognized as one of the best styles of his time. He was also committed to the defense of Hebrew, and contributed to the publication of haMeasser (the collector), the journal of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment Movement).
Mendelssohn remained faithful to Judaism during his entire life. He composed hymns and sermons. Communities sought his help. He worked for the emancipation of Jews; to his eyes, this emancipation had to be both religious and civic. Although Mendelssohn remained a practicing
Jew until his death, proponents of orthodoxy saw him as an important milestone in their fight against assimilation. He refused to convert to Protestantism, despite being asked to do so, but did not participate in the controversy between Jews and Protestants. He wanted to preserve the relative freedom enjoyed by Jews in Prussia, and he found more important to improve the situation of his coreligionists than to fight Christianity.
Mendelssohn published his book Jerusalem in 1783 to raise awareness of Judaism while linking it to the philosophical trends of his time. He also wrote a précis of Jewish laws and customs for the Prussian court. He encouraged his disciple David Friedlander to develop an educational reform, which led to the opening in 1781 of a Jüdische Freischule (Jewish free school) in Berlin, the first of the many schools created throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The influence of Mendelssohn’s thought is recognized in the literary field, where he developed a psychological theory assessing the need for an autonomous aesthetic judgment and opening the door to authors such as Schiller and Goethe, and in the field of Jewish studies, where he emphasized the importance of reason to access knowledge after being influenced by writers of the Enlightenment.
Mendelssohn showed the way for those who, in the nineteenth century, participated in a trend named Wissenschaft des Judentums (Science of Judaism) and opening Judaism to secular sciences: history, linguistics and literature. However he remained cautious on the influence of the Enlightenment when writing: "The misuse of Enlightenment weakens the moral sense, and leads to hardness, egoism, irreligion and anarchy. The misuse of culture produces abundance, hypocrisy, softening, superstition and slavery.”
Mendelssohn is considered nowadays as the figure who showed Jews how to be themselves while leaving the ghetto. He expressed optimism about human destiny and a strong wish for a better understanding between Jews and Christians when he wrote: "What kind of bliss world would we live in if all human beings adopted the true principles, those that the best Christians and Jews have in common.”

Eliezer ben Yehuda (1858-1922)
Eliezer ben Yehuda was born Eliezer Isaac Perelman Elianov in 1858, in a family of Hasidic Jews living in Loujki, Belarus, that was then located in the Russian Empire. He received an orthodox religious education and acquired a good knowledge of Hebrew from the Bible and the Mishnah. After his religious majority when he was thirteen, he left his family to study in a yeshiva in Polatsk, Belarus, and met a rabbi who was open to the ideas of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment movement).
The young Eliezer progressively moved away from religious studies, with the goal to enter a Russian high school in order to study medicine later on. He broke ties with his family and went to Dunabourg, Latvia, while remaining close to the Jewish culture because of his interest for Hebrew. The maskilim (supporters of the Haskalah) had already translated some secular literature works into Hebrew.
The uprising of Bulgarians against the Ottoman occupation convinced him that Jewish people needed a state and a national language. This language could only be Hebrew, and not Yiddish, that was spoken by most Eastern European Jews but was linked to the concept of exile. When he was twenty years old, Eliezer went to Paris to study medicine. He published several articles to promote both the return to the land of their ancestors and the practice of Hebrew, but received little positive feedback. However he spoke Hebrew during his conversations with his friends, so the Parisian cafes became the first places where the language of the Bible went back to be a spoken language! At that time, he chose the name Ben Yehuda, son of Judah, in reference to a son of Patriarch Jacob who gave his name to Judea and to the Jewish people.
As a student, he first saw the Socialist Revolution as a necessary condition for the emancipation of Jews. Later on, he saw the emancipation of Jews as a precondition for the liberation of the proletariat, with the Jewish people moving to their land and using their own language, Hebrew. During the time Ben Yehuda spent in North Africa to cure his tuberculosis, he met with some Jewish inhabitants, who were speaking some Hebrew. To his eyes, the way they pronounced Hebrew was closer to Biblical Hebrew than Hebrew pronounced by Ashkenazi Jews. After marrying Deborah, whom he knew since his stay in Dunabourg, he settled in Jerusalem in 1881.
Most Jewish people he saw in Ottoman Palestine were very poor. Most Jerusalem inhabitants were Jews, but they were very few Jews in other parts of the land. Ben Yehuda tried by all means to convince people of the need for a rebirth of the Hebrew language that would be in line with the national revival of the Jewish people. Whereas his ideas were well received by the H̱oveve Tsyon (Lovers of Zion), they were unacceptable to Orthodox Jews – to their eyes, Hebrew was a holy language only meant for religious use. His ideas were also unacceptable to those who were eager to use one prestigious European language such as French, English or German. However, he obtained permission to give Hebrew lessons in 1882. Born the same year, his son Ben Tsyon ben Yehuda (Son of Zion, son of Judah) was the first child to be educated with Hebrew as a mother tongue since many centuries.
Ben Yehuda’s publications included:

• Eretz Israel (Land of Israel), a geography book published in 1885;
• haTsvi (the Hart), a newspaper launched in 1888;
• Hachkafa (Vision) a weekly launched in 1897;
• A Dream Come True, his autobiography published in 1918.

Ben Yehuda began working on his Dictionary and Thesaurus of the Hebrew Language in 1901. He searched and listed all resources of the Hebrew language - past and present - and created many neologisms in order to adapt Hebrew to the modern world. In this intent, he applied the linguistic structures used in Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew, and sometimes modelled words from Arabic, another Semitic language. The first word he created was milone (dictionary), from mila (word). He also modelled words from other languages into the structure of the Hebrew language. The first volumes of his dictionary were published in 1910. His dictionary was completed in 1959 by his second wife and his son Ehud.
Ben Yehuda died in Jerusalem in 1922, leaving a unique legacy, i.e. the rebirth of a living language. The Va'ad haLachon (Language Committee) he founded in 1889 became the Academy of the Hebrew Language <http://hebrew-academy.huji.ac.il/English/BenYehuda/Pages/default .aspx> in 1953.
Under his leadership, Hebrew has become an official language of the State of Israel with Arabic, and has ben used in all fields - cultural, scientific and economic. The Israeli writers and filmmakers – both Jews and Arabs – have created works in Hebrew, and these works have been translated or disseminated far beyond the borders of Israel. Classical and contemporary works of the world literature have been extensively translated into this three thousand-year language. Its linguistic structures allow anyone who knows Hebrew to also read the Bible in its original version, and thus link with its cultural roots.