So my Rabbi gave a little shiur tonight on the different ways the Rishonim understood 'ein mikroh yotzei midei peshutoh' (a verse doesn't stray from its simple meaning). Rashi always takes a very literal view, whereas the Ibn Ezra and Rashbam are more willing to say that phrases can be metaphorical. Fairly basic stuff. Then I asked, 'surely even Rashi would interpret phrases such as 'God walked' or 'God smelt (the sacrifice)' as metaphorical?' To my surprise he answered not at all, and that Rashi was most probably a corporealist. Turns out I knew this, Marc Shapiro has a few pages on this topic, with lots of proofs and arguments that not just Rashi but many people and scholars before the Rambam believed this. The famous proof about Rashi is from Shemos 7:5:"5 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth My hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.'"
RASHI: 'My hand': An actual hand (yad mamash) to smite them.
Now I suppose you could kvetch away and say that Rashi just means that God would create a giant hand to hit the Egyptians with but that doesn't seem very likely. Poshut peshat (ayn rashi yotzei midei peshutoh?) in Rashi is that he believed God had a body, albeit a very refined, very large and special body.
OK, so we have moved on since then. But isn't it amazing that one of the greatest Rishonim ever had such a strange view? According to yeridas hadoros, shouldn't a Rishon have a clearer conception of God than we do?
The answer my friends is simple.
Yersidos Hadoros is nonsense, and Rashi knew as much about God as anyone else does (or ever did). Which is precisely nothing at all.
See how simple it all becomes when you accept reality?
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