The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Dt15-03a Both verses/verselets discuss maintaining loans. The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: It is prohibited to maintain a loan on a fellow Jew in the 7th year (The loan amount must be waived). The Bible explicitly states that one must take extra precautions to avoid maintaining a loan against a Jew (Dt15-09). Consequently, it is a positive commandment to maintain loans against non-Jews so that sufficient income will be maintained facilitating waiving the few outstanding loans against Jews.

Verse	Text of Verse	Rashi comment
Dt15-03a	a) The NON JEW: Keep his loan debts in the 7th year b) Your BROTHER (Fellow Jew): Waive his debt in the 7th year.	It is prohibited to maintain a loan on a fellow Jew in the 7th year (The loan amount must be waived). The Bible explicitly states that one must take extra precautions to avoid maintaining a loan against a Jew (Dt15-09). Consequently, it is a positive commandment to maintain loans against non-Jews so that sufficient income will be maintained facilitating waiving the few outstanding loans against Jews.
Dt15-03	a) The non Jew.: Keep his loan debts in the 7th year b) Your Brother (Fellow Jew): Waive his debt in the 7th year.

Advanced Rashi: This Rashi was brought to my attention by one of the Rabbinical members of the Rashi newsletter in Chicago. He made several interesting comments which are worth noting. First, there is a controversy among the Rishonim whether the sentence The Non Jew: Maintain the loan; Your Brother: don't maintain it (waive it) indicates a permission or requirement. Allow me to explain this. The phrase maintain the loan (to a Non Jew) by itself would be interpreted as a command. However when this phrase occurs contrastively For a Non Jew: Maintain... For a brother (Jew) do not maintain the phrase indicates not a requirement/ command but rather a permission. That is throughout the Bible and in ordinary literature the contrastive phrase is heard as meaning For a non Jew: It is permissable to maintain while for a Jew it is prohibited to maintain. So the statement of those Rishonim that the phrase here indicates a requirement appears at first glance, peculiar. If the contrastive style indicates permission why are we calling this a requirement and command.

Secondly, my Rabbinic host pointed out that there are differences in Rashi manuscripts on what Rashi says. In fact some Rashi manuscripts leave out the Rashi comment on this verse alltogether. As an example the Davka CD I use does not have any Rashi comments on this verse.

Based on the above two comments it would appear that the text and analysis of this Rashi would require a critical examination of manuscripts. However a fundamental belief of this Rashi newsletter is that all Rashi problems can be solved by rules and universally applied methods. Suppose a repeated rule justifies a certain reading of the text? Suppose further that no other rule justifies an alternative reading? Wouldn't we be justified in upholding the corresponding version of the Rashi comment even if no supporting manuscript exists?

I explained to my host (This was Fall 2007) that the great Biblical exegetical master, Malbim, explains, that A contrastive style always indicates permission unless there is some extra Biblical emphasis in which case the contrastive style indicates requirement vs. prohibition. The Malbim does not state his principle here. He rather states it on Lv02-11:12. He also discusses it in his compendium of rules, The Morning Star, where he brings several examples.

Applying this principle of the Malbim to the Rashi at hand I would argue as follows:
• Dt15-09 explicitly states Watch out lest you harbor an evil thought as follows: 'The 7th year is near, the year of loan-annulment' and therefore you will have a miserly view on your brother the poor.
• So the Bible explicitly requires us to do whatever is possible to avoid harboring these natural evil thoughts to abstain from loaning in the 7th year.
• But then not waiving loans to non-Jews becomes a positive requirement since the added influx of funds facilitates loaning Jews since more money is available.
• By contrast if I waived loans to non Jews and then a Jew came for a loan I might hesitate not anticipating the added budget needed.

For the above reasons I have cited the Rashi and interpreted it the way I have done. I am cognizant that many people including Rabbis consider themselves enlightened and accept the need to critically examine manuscripts. I therefore offer the above analysis as a complementary approach to dealing with issues of textual veracity.

Praise be Him who chose them and their learning!