A few months ago, a friend showed me a new edition of an old commentary on the Torah. I now finished Bamidbar and by doing so, brought nachas and joy into my life.
Strange to say that of a commentary, no?
Not if the commentary is Rashbam!
Unlike his illustrious grandfather Rashi's commentary, published and republished thousands of times and commented about by hundreds of enthusiastc scholars, Rashbam's pirush barely survived at all. In fact, only one manuscript made it into the modern era, and that one, the basis of all subsequent work on Rashbam, was found in Moses Mendelsohn's library. Presumably, Mendelsohn used it in writing his own German commentary, the Biur. Yet, Rashbam's effort is still better known than other commentaries of the French-German school, such as R. Yosef Kara, R. Yosef Bechor Shor, or Chezkuni.
The new edition is by Meir Yitzhak (Martin) Lockshin and it is put out by Chorev but it looks like and is arranged after Mossad HaRav Kook. The fascinating thing about R. Lockshin's notes is that he focuses on Rashi - Rashbam dynamic, while at the same time he carries on a concurrent conversation with the other modern Rashbam specialist Eliezer Touitou. Lokshin's methodology is to compare Rashbam's interpretations with Rashi. For me, having been learning Rashi weekly for decades, this often revelas crucial and underappreciated nuances in Rashi (see Rashbam's report of his conversation with Rashi about Pshat in the beginning of parshas Vayeshev). For a taste of Lokshin's approach, see Ch. 6 in this book.
Rashbam explains in the first first comment in Bareishis ( some Mikraos Gedolos editions censored the first five verses of his commentary in order to omit a passage where Rashbam implies that the day begins in the morning and not at nightfall) that the Author encoded binding halachic information in the Torah by the means of extra letters, unusual spellings, and variant syntax but the actual meaning of passages and sentences can be legitimately read in a way different than Chazal's interpetation. He often offers strikingly different interpretations than Chazal and that is where the beauty comes in, for those who are conditioned by Rashi and Midrash. When you combine it with a humble stand and heartfelt Yiras Shomayim, the commentary both uncovers unexpected facets of the text and its moral and religious meaning. Here is one example of how Rashbam pursues Pshat:
1. The second verse in Devarim identifies the places near which Moshe spoke to Bnei Yisrael. Unfortunately, most of these places are not mentioned anywhere else; besides why do we need such an exact rendering of the location? Consequently Rashi follows a midrashic explanation, that these are not place names at all but veiled references to rebukes. Rashbam contends that it is the manner of Scripture to identify locations in an exacting manner (siman btoch siman) and shows that such is the case regarding other locations. Thus, he elegantly solves the exegetical problem on all counts.
For those who want to move from Rashi to the wider religious, philosophical, exegetic, and mystical issues, there is no substitute to Ramban. For those who want to gain a narrow but beautiful perspective on the text itself, Rashbam is your man.
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