The goal of this Weekly Rashi Digest is to use the weekly Torah portion to expose students at all levels to the ten major methods of commentary used by Rashi. It is hoped that continual weekly exposure to these ten major methods will enable students of all levels to acquire a familiarity and facility with the major exegetical methods.

Verse Nu07-13a describing the tribal leader gifts at the consecration of the temple states And his offering was one silver dish, the weight of it was a hundred and thirty shekels, one silver bowl of seventy shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary; both of them were full of fine flour mixed with oil for a meal offering.

The underlined phrase flour mixed with oil for a meal offering is further illuminated by other verses at Lv02 which describe the voluntary Minchah offerings. And when any will offer a Minchah offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense on it; And he shall bring it to the sons of Aaron the priests; and he shall take from it his handful of its flour, and of its oil, with all its frankincense; and the priest shall burn the memorial part of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor to the Lord; And the remnant of the Minchah offering shall be Aaron’s and his sons’; it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire. And if you bring a sacrifice of a Minchah offering baked...

Hence the Rashi comment on Nu07-13a: The princes brought flour mixed with oil for a meal offering for a voluntary Minchah offering.

In explaining word meaning Rashi frequently used a universal principle of all languages---metonomy. Metonomy refers to the capacity to name an item by a related item (such as naming a people, the Americans, by the land they live in, America)

Metonomy is closed related to synechdoche which refers to naming a whole class by an exemplary member of the class or naming an object by a distinguished part of that object.

Another word meaning principle is what I call the triple FFF principle:naming by Form, Function, Feel. For example the pentagon is named by its form while the united nations is named by its function. Hardship is named by its feel. There are other rules---for example glass is named by the substance it is made out of. Let us now look at some examples.

The Hebrew root for coal rakers means frighten.(Rashi) The pulsing glow of the coals looks frightening.
• The Hebrew Mem-Cheth-Tauv-Tauv means coal raker.
• The Hebrew Cheth-Tauv-Tauv means frightening.

The Hebrew word for a dustpan is a verb which means to lay a land barren. This corresponds to the English idiom sweep clean.
• Yud-Ayin-Hey means to barrenize (Sweep clean a land)
• Yud-Ayin-Hey means a dustpan.

We should note that Rashi does not explicitly connect coal raker with the verb meaning to frighten. Neither does he connect dustpan with the verb meaning to lay barren a land. Rashi simply translates the words. However we think it appropriate to supplement Rashi's translations with the methods he probably used to ascertain these meanings. Rashi further mentions how these utensils were used for the daily cleaning of the ash remains of the altar as discussed in Lv06-01:06.

Today we explain a grammar rule governing word arrangement in sentences. All languages have rules governing the position of adjectives. In Hebrew when there are a sequence of adjectives to a noun, then the numerical adjectives go at the end. It follows that if the numerical adjective comes in the middle it should not be treated numerically. Hence
• Rashi translates the adjective one that does not occur last as meaning unique
• Rashi translates the adjective two that does not occur last as meaning similar

Note, in translations to English, adjectives usually come before the noun and numerical adjectives come first. Hence in rendering the Hebrew text we will adhere to comparable violations of English grammar. We could use the list style: e.g. sandwiches, 10; drinks, 20; straws, 20 but for our purposes it is easier expositionally to say 10 sandwiches, 20 drinks, 20 straws. This poetic license in our translation will not altar the basic explanation of Rashi.

The actual text of Nu07-15 states A young one bull, one ram, one lamb of the first year, for a burnt offering. Notice how in English the phrase young one bull sounds peculiar. Because of the position of the numerical adjective Rashi translates this as a young unique bull. Rashi states The bull gift was a bull that was distinguished among its fellow bulls

We believe that the above explanation of Rashi based on adjective position is sound and appealing. The traditional Rashi methods argue that one bull is a redundancy since the singular implies it is one. Such an approach, emphasizing redundancy, ignores the numerous examples of one such and such which are common in Hebrew. There are no comparable exegesii on these numerous biblical occurrences. By contrast every deviation from proper adjective order is properly explained in Rashi. We will give another example next week.

First by way of background, recall that all nouns in Hebrew, unlike English, have gender: A noun can either be masculine or feminine. We frequently indicate Hebrew gender in English translations with the letters (m) and (f). Thus it (m) would denote the Hebrew word who while it (f) would denote the Hebrew word he.

Note the underlined differences in the alignment of the following two verses.
• Nu05-15 he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense on it; for it (m) is a jealousy offering. an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance
• Nu05-18 And the priest shall set the woman before the Lord, and loosen the hair of the woman’s head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands-- it (f) is a jealousy offering.--and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causes the curse;d:\soa\ dxx

Remarkably two identical phrases use different genders for the word it! Rashi explains this paradox by noting that the subject of the two respective verses-- barley, offering--bolded in the above citations, have different genders. Rashi is remarkably simple!

Barley the subject of Nu05-15 is masculine and hence the word it in that verse is masculine. By contrast Offering the subject of Nu05-18 is feminine and hence the word it in that verse is feminine.

Note the contradiction indicated by the underlined phrases in the following twoverses which discusses the consecration of the Temple.
• Nu07-84a This was the dedication of the altar, on the day when it was anointed, by the princes of Israel; twelve dishes of silver, twelve silver bowls, twelve spoons of gold;
• Nu07-88And all the oxen for the sacrifice of the peace offerings were twenty four bulls, the rams sixty, the male goats sixty, the lambs of the first year sixty. This was the dedication of the altar, after it was anointed.

We see the contradiction. Which is it? Did the consecration occur on the same day of the annointing or afterwards?

Rashi resolves this contradiction using the method of two stages
• On the 1st of Nissan the Temple was annointed
• after the annointing on the same day they consecrated the Temple.

The Rabbi Ishmael style rules require generalization of Biblical laws unless those laws are stated in a general-specific format. Nu05-12:13 illustrates this principle nicely. This example is especially nice since it is expository and not Talmudic.

Nu05-12:13 discusses the circumstances under which the suspected wife ceremony is performed: Speak to the people of Israel, and say to them, If any man’s wife goes astray, and
• commits a trespass against him,
• And a man commits adultery with her

Rashi (paraphrased): Not every trespass allows the suspected wife ceremony. For example if the woman burnt the husbands dinner he cannot force her through the ceremony. In other words the concept of trespass is too general. The Bible specifies that only an adultery trespass allows doing the suspected wife ceremony.

Here Rashi interprets the underlined Biblical words trespass-adultery as indicating a general-specific sequence. The general-specific sequence in turn indicates that of all trespasses only adultery allows bringing the suspected wife ceremony.

The Rabbi Ishmael style rules may be found in the Daily morning liturgy in all standard prayer books.

A powerful formatting subrule is the painting of a verse in a climactic developmental manner. We call this the Rashi subrule of Climax. It is important to emphasize the relevance of the Climax rule---Rashi is not deriving meaning from individual words but rather Rashi is deriving meaning from the climactic structure which implies meaning by context. This difference of derivation---meanting from paragraph context vs. meaning from individual word meanings is fundamental to understanding the climax method.

A classical example of meaning inference from climax occurs in Nu09-21:22
And so it was, when the cloud abode from evening to the morning, and the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they journeyed;
• whether it was by day or by night that the cloud was taken up, they journeyed.
• Or whether it was two days,
• or a month,
• or days,[Rashi: days means a year]
  that the cloud stayed upon the tabernacle, remaining on it, the people of Israel abode in their tents, and journeyed not; but when it was taken up, they journeyed.

The Rashi comment days means a year is not because in other verses the word days can mean years; rather the Rashi comment days means a year is derived from the climactic structure
• day or night
• 2 days
• month
• days.
  This example clearly shows that climax is an independent method of inferring meaning.

Nu06-24:26 presents the Priestly blessing. When formatted in a climactic order, specific meaning is suggested to the individual phrases.
• The Lord bless you, and
• watch you;
• The Lord make his face shine upon you, and
• be gracious to you;
• The Lord lift up his face upon you,
• and give you Peace.

The underlined words, bless,watch,shine all have similar meanings. However the climactic structure suggests specific nuances. Rashi comments as follows
• The Lord bless you, Rashi: blessings of assets
• watch you; Rashi:1st) Assets, 2nd) Protection
• The Lord make his face shine upon you, Rashi:Happiness
• and be gracious to you; Rashi: Social grace/acceptability
• The Lord lift up his face upon you, Rashi:Religious acceptability
• and give you Peace. Peace is the ultimate climax

In certain cases we have rephrased Rashi's literal comments to indicate the climax. For example Rashi interprets Graciously to mean God will give you grace and we have reinterpreted this to mean Social grace. This reinterpretation is consistent with the meaning of the word and with the paragraph structure. Especially noteworthy is our comment on the climaxing word peace; this comment is not made by Rashi in Numbers but rather occurs in a similar climax in Lv26-06.

Biblical chapter Nu07-12:88 describes the identical gifts offered by the 12 tribes at the consecration of the Temple. A typical verse in the summary section reads as follows: Nu07-86
• The golden spoons were 12,
• full of incense, weighing 10 shekels apiece, according to the shekel of the sanctuary;
• all the gold of the spoons was 120 shekels.

As is clear from the underlined numbers the Bible is indicating individual and aggregate numbers: 10 x 12 = 120 .

A similar analysis could be applied to the other summary verses: For example Nu07-84:85 states
• This was the dedication of the altar, in the day when it was anointed, by the princes of Israel;
  • 12 dishes of silver,
  • 12 bowls of silver,....
• Each
  • dish of silver weighing a 130 shekels,
  • each bowl 70;
• all the silver utensils weighed 2400 shekels.

The above verses also indicate individual and aggregate numbers: 12 x (130+70) = 2400.

Rashi comments on the emphasis in
• indicating each of the 12 gifts separately
• re-capping at the end the prototype individual gift
• aggregating all amounts.

Rashi: The fact that 12 spoons, each with 10 shekels of incense did (As expected!) add up to 120 indicates that the measurements were precise not approximate showing expert craftsmanship. The fact that 12 times 2 bulls were offered and then in aggregate (As expected!) 24 bulls were offered shows that no blemish invalidated the sacrifices.

Here Rashi interprets the usefullness of aggregate numbers as similar to the usefullness of aggregates in the accounting standards for spreadsheets. The aggregates serve to check against hidden errors and blemishes.