Gn32-17a:21, discussing the gift Jacob sent to his brother Esauv before meeting him has a detail-theme format as shown below:
• Detail: And he delivered them to the hand of his servants, every drove by themselves;
• Detail: and said to his servants, Pass over before me, and
• Detail: put a space between drove and drove..... ....it is a present sent to my lord Esau; ....
• Theme: And say you moreover, Behold, your servant Jacob is behind us. For Jacob said, I, Jacob, will appease Esauv with the present that goes before me, ....

To explain this Rashi we note 3 points:
• We understand the details--every drove of animals was by itself, there were spaces between the droves etc.
• We also understand the theme--that Jacob wanted to appease Esauv
• But we don't yet understand how the details contribute to the theme. It is this connection between details-theme that Rashi explains. Here is the verse again with the Rashi comments attached: Notice how the sole goal of each Rashi is to connect the details to the main theme.

• Detail: And he delivered them to the hand of his servants, every drove by themselves; [Rashi: The distinctness of each drove of animals gave an air of diversity, making the present more appealing, and the consequent likelihood of appeasing Esauv more likely.]
• Detail: and said to his servants, Pass over before me, and [Rashi: Jacob suggested present first, I follow, thus letting the appeasing nature of the present take effect prior to Jacob's appearance.]
• Detail: put a space between drove and drove..... ....it is a present sent to my lord Esau; .... [Rashi: The spaces between droves gives an air of spaciousness, increasing the appeal of the present and the consequent likelihood of appeasing Esauv more likely.]
• Theme: And say you moreover, Behold, your servant Jacob is behind us. For Jacob said, I, Jacob, will appease Esauv with the present that goes before me, .... [Rashi: The spaces between droves, distinctness of each drove and the prior appearance of the present to Jacob's appearance--- all these items created an air of appeal for the present that heightened the probability of the present appeasing.]

We consider this Rashi an excellent example of the style method: We again emphasize that the paragraph details and theme are each understood. Rashi's sole contribution is to show the connection between details and theme, that is, to show the paragraph unity.

Sermonic Points: The sermonic points on this Rashi are clear: When asking people in power for favors one should send them gifts and praise them. Interestingly, the Talmud says that any time Rabbi Judah the prince, the Author of the Mishnah legal code, had to appear before the Roman Emporer, he first studied this Biblical passage, Gn32 as this chapter contains the secrets for political success with foreign diplomats.