*1 Several people have asked me for a website FAQ telling
people where to go for various things.

Accordingly I am going to do one Q&A (Question and Answer)
per issue until the FAQ is ready.

IF DURING THIS PROCESS YOU WOULD LIKE A PARTICULAR
ISSUE ADDRESSED (eg How do I...) FEEL FREE TO EMAIL
ME AT rjhendel@Juno.com. (The question will be published
in your name unless you ask me to preserve anonymity)

Todays Q&A may be found in the green footnote section in
footnote *10

*10 QUESTION: Do you ever make mistakes? How are they corrected?
Does the fact that you make mistakes contradict
your statement that mastery of Rashi rules is
a major prerequisite to becoming Known in Torah.

ANSWER: Yes I make mistakes. Mistakes typically can happen
when generalizations are based on insufficient examples.

For example a few months ago I claimed that the
Hebrew root Aleph-Lamed-Hey (ALH) had two meanings
- GO UP (ALH EL)
- WITHDRAW (NaALH M)
In other words either the root was in ACTIVE MODE
with the preposition TO (EL) or the root was
in PASSIVE MODE with preposition M (FROM). Therefore
- ALH EL means GO UP TO
- NAALH M means WITHDRAW FROM

But then I looked at more examples and found 5 more
Rashis. I in fact found 4 meanings to ALH
- ALH EL means GO UP TO
- ALH EL can also mean GO UP TO A SPIRITUALLY BETTER PLACE
- NaALH M means WITHDRAW from a bad situation
- ALH M means BOTH withdraw from a bad situation and go
to a better one (NaALH M emphasizes WITHDRAWAL without
a suitable alternative)

Notice how originally I claimed that the ACTIVE TENSE
with the preposition FROM could not happen.

This is simply wrong (A mistake). The active tense with
the preposition FROM occurs quite often.

To correct this mistake I simply added more examples
to LIST901e. Both postings are kept on the Rashi website.
If however you are reviewing several postings on the
same Rashi chances are that the LAST POSTING has the
more comprehensive solution.

In this way -- keeping tabs on past lists and updating
them -- I can manage over time to eliminate most mistakes.

Making mistakes does not contradict being Knowledgeable
of Torah. Indeed, because I had correctly classified this
Rashi as an example of MEANING BY ROOT+PREPOSITION I could
immediately locate it and correct it.

This approach to mistakes is fundamental to becoming
well versed in Torah and every student should develop
similar approaches to their mistakes.