The Path to a Jewish Trifecta

Earlier this week, my colleagues and I were discussing the Rebbe’s Rashi project.

After the passing of his mother in 1964, the Rebbe began a project in which he examined the Torah interpretations of Judaism’s foremost biblical commentator, the 11th-century Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi).

What is unique about Rashi’s commentary is that it was not made for the scholar; rather, its purpose is to explain the text of the Torah at its most elementary level. Its goal is to teach Torah the way it is meant to be taught to a five-year-old embarking on the study of Scripture.

For two decades, at every Shabbat gathering, the Rebbe would examine one comment of Rashi and ask nearly every question possible—from what prompted Rashi to comment to what compelled him to offer alternative explanations. The Rebbe would even examine where Rashi chose to place his sources and whether he chose to disclose them at all.

Even as demands on the Rebbe’s time grew to the point that he had to stop holding his signature “private audiences” and was no longer able to respond to letters in long form, and even though he left a number of manuscripts unpublished and ceased presenting traditional Chassidic discourses, the Rashi project endured.

What was so important about this project? My colleagues and I wondered.

It is the three-legged stool, I believe.

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Our generation has been called upon to bring about a trifecta of shleimut ha’am, shleimut ha’aretz, and shleimut haTorah—the wholeness of the people of Israel, the wholeness of the Land of Israel, and the wholeness of the Torah.

Each and every one of us is tasked with ensuring the wholeness of our people and the integrity of Jewish identity. We are also called upon to uphold the wholeness of the Land of Israel and to firmly claim our rights to it as descendants of Abraham, to whom Hashem promised, “To you, I give this land.”

To fight for our land and secure our identity, we must secure our connection with Torah

But like a three-legged stool, the security of our people and our land stands only with a commitment to the integrity and wholeness of the Torah. To fight for our land and secure our identity, we must ensure and examine our most elemental connection and understanding of Torah, for it is Torah that defines Jewish identity, and through Torah, we are tied to the promised land.

Thus, the Rashi project is not “another” project of the Rebbe. Torah study at its most elementary level is not a “third” component of Judaism; it is the backbone upon which all else depends. Only through an examined understanding of Torah can we ensure clarity of Jewish identity and confidence in the Jewish connection to our land.

Today, the struggle for Jewish identity and the battle over our homeland are as strong as ever. If we are to achieve this trifecta, it will be based on a deep, examined connection with Torah.

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*Many of the Rebbe’s expositions on Rashi have been incorporated in The Gutnick Chumash, and the fve volume Studies in Rashi