Rashi occupies the center of this manuscript page. His commentary fills a broad column, while smaller annotations gather in the margins. Readers accustomed to finding Rashi beside the Talmud encounter a different arrangement here: the commentary has a book of its own.
Solomon ben Isaac, known as Rashi (1040–1105), wrote explanations that became indispensable to Talmud study. He clarifies difficult words and guides readers through the argument, often supplying the connection that makes a passage intelligible. For centuries, his commentary commonly circulated separately from the Talmud. A student consulted the two texts together, moving between volumes. Medieval scholars called his commentary the kuntres, a word for a booklet or gathering of leaves. When the Tosafists refer to “the kuntres,” they generally mean Rashi. The name preserves the physical form in which they encountered his work.
The early printed Talmuds of the 1480s brought text and commentary together on the page. European legal books offered an established model: the authoritative text occupied the center, surrounded by explanations. Large manuscript and printed volumes of Justinian’s law carried the Glossa ordinaria, the standard commentary compiled by the medieval jurist Accursius. This enclosing arrangement, sometimes called textus inclusus, provided a precedent for placing Rashi and other commentaries around the Talmud. Printing made that arrangement familiar, but separate manuscripts preserve the older way of reading.
This copy dates to the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Its scribe, Barukh, marked his name at several points in the volume. He wrote on parchment in black ink, using a compact Hebrew semi-cursive hand. The manuscript contains Rashi’s commentary on Beitzah and much of Shabbat, with gaps in the latter tractate.
The displayed page, folio 102r, explains passages now found on Shabbat 83a–83b. The discussion considers how ritual impurity passes through contact, carrying, or movement, including questions about the impurity attributed to idols. It then turns to the Mishnah’s question about ships: why do they remain free from ritual impurity? Short quotations from the Talmud introduce Rashi’s explanations, allowing the reader to follow the discussion without reproducing its full text.
The margins show readers examining the commentary itself. Several notes begin ס״א, an abbreviation indicating a reading from another copy or version. These annotations preserve alternatives to the wording in the main column. One includes הן והסיטן, “they and their hesset,” a technical expression concerning movement that transmits impurity. Such distinctions matter in an argument that carefully separates touching an object from carrying or moving it. Here Rashi has margins of his own: readers compared copies of the commentary and recorded differences beside the explanations they studied.
