Today Hebrew grammar is well understood and
there are many books on it. Rashi, however, lived
before the age of grammar books. A major Rashi method
is therefore the teaching of basic grammar.
Many students belittle this aspect of Rashi. They erroneously
think that because of modern methods we know more. However Rashi
will frequently focus on rare grammatical points not covered
in conventional textbooks.
There are many classical aspects to grammar whether
in Hebrew or other languages. They include
- The rules for conjugating verbs. These rules govern how you
differentiate person, plurality, tense, mode, gender, mood, and
designation of the objects and indirect objects of the verb. For
example how do you conjugate, in any language, I sang, we will
sing, we wish to sing, she sang it.
- Rules of agreement. For example agreement of subject
and verb, of noun and adjective; whether agreement in gender or plurality.
- Rules of Pronoun reference.
- Rules of word sequence. This is a beautiful topic which is
not always covered in classical grammatical textbooks.
Today we present a Rashi which is best understood using
the rules of person agreement. Surprisingly Rashi gives
us a rule we do not know!
Most people know that the subject, verb and object should agree in
plurality and person. This is a rule in all languages. For example we
say He speaks but They speak. Similar rules exist in Hebrew.
Rashi enunciates an exception to this rule: If you are speaking about
something unpleasant you can switch from 1st person to 3rd person. This switch
creates an artificial distance between you (the 1st person) and the unpleasnat topic.
Let us apply this Rahsi rule to Nu16-14 discussing the refusal
of Dathan and Aviram to appear before Moshe. The intended verse is
Moreover thou [Moses]
hast not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey,
nor given us inheritance of fields and vineyards;
will you take out our eyes [so we don't see what you have done to us]? we will not come up.'
Following Rashi's principle we replace the underlined phrase, take out our eyes
with the phrase take out their eyes or even better
take out the eyes of these men. The entire verse would then read as follows:
Moreover thou [Moses]
hast not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey,
nor given us inheritance of fields and vineyards;
will you take out the eyes of these men.
[so we don't see what you have done to us]? we will not come up.
Advanced Rashi: This person-switch principle is universal to all
languages and there are many examples of it in the Bible. Psychologically the use
of this principle by Dathan and Aviram shows a heightened sensitivity to any suggestion
of mishap. Such a heightened sensitivity is characteristic of the parnaoic state in which
many of the slaves who left Egypt were still in. This paranoia prevented them from accepting
God's love and ultimately led to their ruin. Interestingly the psychological evaluation of
the Jews as paranoic is explicitly stated in the Bible Dt01-27, since the Hebrew
root Resh-Gimel-Nun means paranoia.
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