The 29th of Tammuz is the yahrtzeit of Rashi. Every Jew who learns Chumash learns his Torah on a regular basis, and anyone who has ever opened a gemara has learned with him. Yet there is one piece of Rashi that almost nobody has seen, and it’s about words we say three times a day.

Rashi never wrote a commentary on the siddur. His peirush on Tanach and on the gemara covers much of what we say in davening, but not all of the text of the brachos. His students did preserve explanations from him on the siddur, and among them one piece stands out: a complete, in-depth pirush hamilos of a single bracha, phrase by phrase, and that bracha is the most important one we say every day, the first bracha of Shemoneh Esrei, ברכת מגן אברהם.

The reason is a halacha. The gemara says that one who davens should have kavanah in all the brachos, and if he can’t, he should have kavanah in at least one. Which one? Avos. The whole Shemoneh Esrei depends on this bracha, and Rashi took that seriously enough to make sure a Jew standing in Shemoneh Esrei knows exactly what he’s saying.

His approach rests on one key: every phrase in the bracha is connected to Avraham Avinu and his family, his son, his grandson, and his descendants, meaning us. Even the words that sound like general praise of Hashem are not general. האל הגדול is Hashem’s own promise to Avraham, ואעשך לגוי גדול, the nation of the great G-d. הגבור והנורא showed itself first in how Hashem carried the Avos, and it still shows in us, one sheep alive among seventy lions. On וימינך תסעדני, Rashi points to the pasuk that says the bris was cut “with him” and not “for him”: Hashem held the milah together with Avraham. The רחם of ברוגז רחם תזכור counts 248, the same as אברהם, so even in a moment of anger, remembering mercy means remembering him. And ומביא גואל לבני בניהם, because the Avos are davening for the geulah right now, as the gemara tells of Eliyahu HaNavi in the yeshiva of Rebbi, and were all three to daven together, Moshiach would come before his time.

This teaching reached us through Rashi’s students, mainly Reb Simcha of Vitry, who recorded it in Machzor Vitry. It appears as well in Siddur Rashi and in the Pardes, the collections that came out of Rashi’s beis medrash, where his talmidim seem to have added further teachings to it. Everyone learns Rashi on Chumash and gemara, but this commentary has stayed unknown to almost everyone except the few who happen to learn Machzor Vitry.

In honor of the yahrtzeit, it now appears in English for the first time. All three versions have been woven into a single vocalized text, with a facing English translation, explanations between the lines for anyone to follow, and footnotes giving the sources in Tanach, gemara, and midrash, along with the differences between the versions.

Click here to download the booklet.

Learning a tzaddik’s Torah is the truest zikaron on his yahrtzeit. And this piece comes with something extra: tomorrow morning, when you reach מגן אברהם, you’ll know whose story every phrase is telling.

In the zechus of our davening with kavanah in this bracha, may Hashem finally fulfill ומביא גואל לבני בניהם למען שמו באהבה with the complete geulah through Moshiach now!

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