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#*#*# (C) RashiYomi Inc. 2007, Dr. Hendel, President #*#*#
    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 example applies to Rashis Lv06-02b Lv07-08a
    URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/lv06-02b.htm
    Brief Summary: The word TORAH means PRINCIPLES;they universally apply

    Verse Lv06-02b states Command Aaron and his sons, saying: This is the Torah of the burnt-offering: it is the up offering which goes up on its firewood upon the altar all night unto the morning; and the fire of the altar shall be kept burning thereby. The word Torah in this verse has 2 specific meanings
  • It can mean the Bible, the book of the Torah
  • It can mean guiding axiomatic principles

We shall explore the consequences of this in a moment. But first we give the etymology of Torah. Torah comes from the Hebrew Biblical root, Hey Resh Hey. which means to become pregnant. The translation of Torah as meaning guiding axiomatic principles is similar to the English idiom, embryonic idea which also uses pregnancy as a metaphor for axiomatic idea. That is, we see the analogy, embryo:pregnant::embryonic idea:principles.

Rashi interprets guiding axiomatic principles to refer to broad sweeping principles that apply universally to all areas of the sacrifices being spoken about. Hence the Rashi comment: As can be seen by the underlined words in the above cited verse, all up offerings may have their organs on the firewood upon the altar all night unto the morning.

To recap: Rashi infers that the specific remarks in Lv06-02 apply to all up offerings from the emphasizing word, Torah which means axiomatic principles which implies that the cited laws apply universally.

We can also understand why the Bible is called the Torah since all its principles are really axiomatic motifs that guide us throughout life.

Advanced Rashi: Rashi makes further comments on this verse: This teaches that an invalid offering whose invalidity was not noticed till the organs were placed on the altar should remain there. It appears that this Rashi comment comes from the word Torah which means axiomatic principles. But this is not the case. We shall present an alternate derivation of this further Rashi comment in rule #7, Formmating below.

For the moment we note an important concept about learning Rashi: Rashi may frequently combine two separate Rashi comments in one Rashi with each Rashi comment having a separate derivation. This can be very confusing for the reader.


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