The table below presents two contradictory verses. Both verses talk about clothing. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says your clothing did not wither, while the other verse, actually logic, says clothes do not last for 40 years. Which is it? Did the clothes of the desert Jews wither as normal or were they actually preserved 40 years. Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 Aspects method: Prophets are known both for their charitable style and superior personal life. (1) Their charitable style leads to extra caring - hence the hand-me down clothes of older children to younger children are more carefully preserved so that the clothes don't wither. (2) Their personal life style with a lack of excessive indulgence in physical pleasure leads to superior body odors which results in a slower decay rate of clothes.

Summary	Verse / Source	Text of verse / Source
Your clothes did not wither	Dt08-04a	Your garment did not wither from you, nor did your foot swell, these forty years.
Garments typically wither	Logic - reality	Clothes typically wither and wear out
Resolution:	2 Aspects	Prophets are known both for their charitable style and superior personal life. (1) Their charitable style leads to extra caring - hence the hand-me down clothes of older children to younger children are more carefully preserved so that the clothes don't wither. (2) Their personal life style with a lack of excessive indulgence in physical pleasure leads to superior body odors which results in a slower decay rate of clothes.

Advanced Rashi: Well we have some explaining to do. First, the contradiction here is a contradiction, not between two verses, but between a verse and logic. However that is still a contradiction.

Second Rashi does not literally say what we have attributed to him above. He rather literally says about the adults The prophetic spirit cleaned the clothes so that they did not wither. About the children he says The children's clothes grew by stretching similar to certain animal skins.

There is a long history in Judaism of interpreting miracles naturally (They are still miracles). So I interpreted the prophetic spirit cleaned the clothes to refer to the lack of eroding agents on the bodies of the desert Jews. I then used the well known fact that excessive physical indulgence (especially sexual indulgence) results in the productions of different chemicals on the skin which have eroding capacity. I refer to this as superior body odors. I think most people intuitively grasp that a person who is excessively engaged in sex will appear different. There are also journal articles documenting this. In fact some brand name perfumeries will not allow women to work on the perfumes during their periods since the chemicals on their skin would hurt the perfumes.

I similarly interpreted The children's clothes grew by stretching similar to certain animal skins to refer to hand-me-downs. Hand-me-downs usually wither because people don't care for them. Charitable people who knew their clothing is being handed down would take extra care so that the recipients would have good clothes.

Perhaps there are other ways to interpret this Rashi along the rational approach I have taken.