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      7. RASHI METHOD: FORMATTING
      BRIEF EXPLANATION:Inferences from Biblical formatting: #NAME?
      • Use of repetition to indicate formatting effects: bold,italics,...;
      • use of repeated keywords to indicate a bullet effect;
      • rules governing use and interpretation of climactic sequence;
      • rules governing paragraph development and discourse
      This example applies to Rashis Nu36-04b
      URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/w34n4.htm
      Brief Summary: If the daughters of a person from Tribe A a)inherit their father's land, b)marry into tribe B, c) and die, then d) their son from tribe B inherits

Very often Rashi will make an inference from the paragraph structure. A typical paragraph structures can be parallel or contrastive with or without bullets. The parallel and contrastive structure naturally generate Rashi comments. This type of inference also follows from the Rabbi Ishmael Style rule of inferring from context since the paragraph structure endows the disparate paragraph sentences with a unified context.

    And the chief fathers of the families of the sons of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of the sons of Joseph, came near, and spoke before Moses, and before the princes, the chief fathers of the people of Isr And they said,
  1. The Lord commanded my lord to give the land for an inheritance by lot to the people of Israel; and
  2. my lord was commanded by the Lord to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother to his daughters.
    • And if they are married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the people of Israel,
    • then shall their inheritance be taken from the inheritance of our fathers,
    • and shall be given to the inheritance of the tribe where they are received;
    • so shall it be taken from the lot of our inheritance.
  4. And [even] when the jubilee of the people of Israel shall be, then shall their inheritance be given to the inheritance of the tribe where they are received; so shall their inheritance be taken away from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers.

The main point of the Menasheeans is presented in bullet #3. Bullet #4 does not make sense! - what does it add to the inquiry? Rashi explains bullet #4 by interpolating the word [even]. In other words bullet #4 is simply a follow up to bullet #3 - it explains that bullet #3 is permanant without any remedy - for even the Jubilee, which in many other cases frees lost land, does not help here (The Jubilee does not free land lost through inheritance).

We have classified this Rashi as a Rashi based on format. The point here is that Rashi perceives the paragraph Nu36-01:04 as having a supplemental parallel structure: Bullets #3 and #4 supplement each other; bullet #3 states that tribal land is lost while bullet #4 supplements this statement of loss by pointing out that it can not be remedied. As we have explained above such a Rashi inference based on paragraph formatting echoes the Rabbi Ishmael rule of context. 


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