(c) Apr 18 2001 RashiYomi Inc. MY COLLECTED & INDEXED MAIL JEWISH POSTINGS-Ver #1
Individual Postings 1st appeared(& were copied in html form) on the Email List Mail Jewish

From: Russell Hendel <rhendel@saber.towson.edu>
Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 13:00:33 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: RE: Full-Defective Spellings

Ben Katz in v33n26 writes on my thesis that a DEFECTIVELY SPELLED WORD
means the object is POSSIBLY DEFECTIVE and MISSING COMPONENTS (for
example TABL (spelled without the "E") could refer to a 2 or 3 legged
table(ie a defective table missing a leg). I then cite about half a
dozen Rashis that explain a priori difficult Talmudic statements dealing
with full and defective spellings. I show that these Talmudic statements
do not contradict our Mesorah but rather are based the above grammatical
rule.  (See http://www.RashiYomi.Com/fd-12.htm which summarizes Rashis
in Dt06-09a, Dt09-10a, Ex31-05e, Lv23-40c, Gn01-21a, Gn09-12a,Gn01-28a).

Ben writes >>The major problem with Dr. Hendel's clever arguments is
that they violate a fundamental law of logic known as Occam's razor or
the law of parsimony.  When confronted with TWO DOZEN examples of a
phenomenon it is logically much more desireable to assume they all have
a single explanation rather than to explain each one away in a different
manner.  This would be analogous to a physician confronting a patient
with a fever and a headache to treat each symptom separately and not
assume that they were part of the same disease process.  The only reason
not to follow this approach is if the unifying hypothesis is shown to be
incorrect, which can happen.  I submit that in instances such as this
the unifying hypothesis is theologically problemmatic to current
thinking and is therefore rejected a priori.>>

My question to Ben is "What is 'theologically problemmatic' about the
above grammatical rule on full/defective spellings which has 1-2 dozen
examples"

Russell Jay Hendel; Phd ASA
Dept of Math; Towson
Moderator Rashi is SImple
http://www.RashiYomi.Com/