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      2. RASHI METHOD: WORD MEANING
      BRIEF EXPLANATION: The meaning of words can be explained either by
      • (2a) translating an idiom, a group of words whose collective meaning transcends the meaning of its individual component words,
      • (2b) explaining the nuances and commonality of synonyms-homographs,
      • (2c) describing the usages of connective words like also,because,if-then, when,
      • (2d) indicating how grammatical conjugation can change word meaning
      • (2e) changing word meaning using the figures of speech common to all languages such as irony and oxymorons.
      This examples applies to Rashis Gn11-32b
      URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1311.htm
      Brief Summary: CHUR = burned-up / Anger; CHARAN = blow up / intensively angry.

When Rashi uses the synonym method he does not explain the meaning of a word but rather the distinction between two similar words both of whose meanings we already know.

    The following Hebrew words all refer to anger.
  • Caph-Ayin-Samech, anger
  • Cheth-Resh-Hey burned up
  • Cheth-Resh-Nun blow-up.

Rashi's point here is that a terminal nun connotes intensity. For example Resh-Yud-Beth means to dispute while Resh-Yud-Beth-Nun means to fist-fight, (cf. Ex21-18.) So Cheth-resh-hey from the Biblical root Cheth-Resh to burn would connote being burned up, while Cheth-Resh-Nun would connote being intensely burned up for example the English blown up. (Sometimes it is hard to find an exact translation).

In our article Peshat and Derash: A New Intuitive and Logical Approach, which can be found on the world-wide-web at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rashi.pdf we have advocated punchy translations of Biblical verses as a means of presenting Rashi comments. The following translation of verse Gn11-32b embeds the Rashi translation Cheth-Resh-Nun means blowing up. And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Cheth-Resh-Nun ([God] Blew up).

Advanced Rashi: Rashi's literal statement is God blowing up [for example during the flood] was the norm in the world until Abraham (Terach's son) came to the world. After Abraham we find less anger in the world (so to speak, the blowing up by God became an ordinary being burned up. That is before Abraham God blew up at the flood and the Tower of Babel while after Abraham we don't find God blowing up at the world with flood-like destructive events. 


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