Rashi's masters, in turn, often applied to their pupil for advice, choosing him as arbiter and consulting him with a deference more fitting toward a colleague than a disciple. Isaac ha-Levi wrote the following words, in which one detects real esteem and admiration underlying epistolary emphasis and the usual exaggeration of a compliment: "Blessed be the Lord who willed that this century should not be orphaned, who has steadied our tottering generation by eminent teachers, such as my dear and respected friend, my kinsman R. Solomon. May Israel boast many another such as he!" Equally sincere seems the salutation of a letter written to Rashi by Isaac ben Judali: "To him who is beloved in heaven and honored on earth, who possesses the treasures of the Law, who knows how to resolve the most subtle and profound questions, whose knowledge moves mountains and shatters rocks, etc." After the death of Rashi's teachers (about 1075) his school 'assumed even more importance. It eclipsed the academies of Lorraine, and from all the neighboring countries it attracted pupils, who later went forth and spread the teachings of their master abroad. Rashi came to be considered almost the regenerator of Talmudic studies, and in the following generation Eliezer ben Xathan said with pious admiration: "His lips were the seat of wisdom, and thanks to him the Law, which he examined and interpreted, has come to life again." In this school, justly renowned as the centre [center sic] of Jewish science, master and pupil were animated by equal love for their work. Entire days were spent there in study, and often, especially in winter, entire nights as well. The studies were regulated by a judicious method. The teacher began to explain a treatise of the Talmud on the first of the month, in order that the students might take their measures accordingly, and not delay coming until after the treatise had been begun. The pupils took notes dictated by the teacher, and thus composed manuscripts which are still of great value. In so doing they fixed all the minutiae of a detailed process of argumentation. On the other hand, books were rare, and students poor. The master himself, in order to facilitate his task, wrote explanations during the lesson, and these served as textbooks, which, like the students' notebooks, became treasure houses for later generations. Rashi not only imparted knowledge to his pupils, but received knowledge from them in turn. He set great store by their observations. His grandson Samuel ben Meir once drew his attention to a certain form of Biblical parallelism, in which the second hemistich completes the first, as in the following verse from Psalm xciii: "The floods have lifted up, O Lord, The floods have lifted up their voice." After this, each time Rashi came across a similarly constructed verse, he would say with mock gravity: "Here's a verse for my Samuel."