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.

Step 1:What is prohibited. The Bible prohibits strangers from entering the Temple

One component of the grammar method is to explain the method by which sentence and paragraph parts connect to each other. Rashi knew of 3 methods of sentence / paragraph development
• Cause, enablement, purpose
• Contrast
• Unifying theme.

Nu18-04a states And they The Levites shall be joined to you, and keep the guard of the Temple, for all the service of the Temple; so that a stranger shall not come near you. Rashi paraphrased comments We have inserted the bold underlined words so that to indicate that the second part of the verse a stranger shall not come near you indicates the purpose of the first part of the verse The Levites shall ...keep the guard of the Temple.

In other words the focus of this Rashi comment is to connect the two parts of the verse--the first part of the verse---the guard of the temple --- insures, enables and causes the second part of the verse---a stranger shall not come near to you.

Step 2:Consequences of violation: Other verses prohibit strangers from entering theTemple.

Example 1:As just seen Nu18-04 states And they The Levites shall be joined to you, and keep the guard of the Temple, for all the service of the Temple; so that a stranger shall not come near you. This verse is supported by Nu04-15 which states And when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary, and all the utensils of the sanctuary, as the camp is to set forward; after that, the sons of Kohath shall come to carry it; but they shall not touch any holy thing, lest they die. These things are the burden of the sons of Kohath in the Tent of Meeting. Here, the prohibition evenof the Levites,who serve the Temple, from touching the temple vessels, under penalty of death, reinforces the Temple guard obligation in Nu18-04 preventing strangers from entering the Temple.

Example 2,3:The anger of God on strangers entering the Temple mentioned in Nu18-05 And you shall keep the charge of the sanctuary, and the charge of the altar; that there should be no anger any more upon the people of Israel; this anger of God is found in at least two other verses which provide examples of this anger of God. Nu17-05 states To be a memorial to the people of Israel, that no stranger, who is not of the seed of Aaron, come near to offer incense before the Lord; that he be not as Korah, and as his company [who died by violating this]; as the Lord said to him by the hand of Moses. Similarly Lv10-01:02 states And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took each of them his censer, and put fire in it, and put incense on it, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.

Both these other verses confirm by example that strangers who approach the temple are subject to the wrath of God. Rashi in his commentary simply notes that the Korach rebellion is an example of this anger of God.

We pause to show alternate approachs to this Rashi. The Rashi commentator, The sifsay chachamim following the sifre notes the word more in Nu18-05 that there should be no anger any more upon the people of Israel; Hence the comment: The word any more implies that there already were examples of this anger [The Korach rebellion]

Our position however is that other verses is an independent method that does not need further scriptural support. There are many Rashis presenting inferences from other verses without further support from specific words. Thus in this case we regard the Rashi method used as the other verse method with further support from the word phrase any more.

Example 4: Nu18-06a describes how the Levites are given as a gift to the Priests. And I, behold, I have taken your brothers the Levites from among the people of Israel; to you they are given as a gift for the Lord, to do the service of the Tent of Meeting Further details are found in the other verses at Nu08-18:19 which describes in detail how the Levites replaced the first born to serve God And I have taken the Levites to replace the firstborn of the people of Israel. And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and to his sons from among the people of Israel, to do the service of the people of Israel in the Tent of Meeting, and to make an atonement for the people of Israel; that there should be no plague among the children of Israel, when the people of Israel come near to the sanctuary.

Rashi (paraphrased) comments: The Levites were given as a gift to the priests to replace the first born in the service of God. More specifically this implies that the Levites were only professionally given to the Priests for Temple service. The priests may not use the Levites for personal use.

Here again Rashi commentators suggest alternate explanations: The verse says to you they are given as a gift for the Lord Hence we infer Gift for the Lord but not a Gift for personal service

Again: the other verse makes clear that the gift of the Levites was to replace the firstborn who served God. Thus the other verse by itself suggests that the Levites were given to serve God not for personal service. However further linguistic support is found in the phrase gift of the Lord.

In general we believe that Rashi explanations that emanate from broad principles are superior to explanations that focus on individual words. It can however happen that a single Rashi has two equally valid explanations.

Step 3:Who administers the prohibition of strangers entering the Temple. Paragraph formats speak about 3 Levite subtribes serving in the Temple.

The Biblical paragraph Nu04-04:33 naturally divides into 3 paragraphs each devoted to the duties of one Levite tribe.
• Nu04-04:20 This shall be the service of the sons of Kohath in the Tent of Meeting, about the most holy things;... And they shall take all the temple utensils, with which they minister in the Temple, and put them in a cloth of blue, and cover them with a covering of goats’ skins, and shall put them on a bar; ...
• Nu04-21:28 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Take also a census of the sons of Gershon, throughout the houses of their fathers, by their families;... This is the service of the families of the Gershonites, .... And they shall carry the Temple curtains, and the Tent of Meeting, its covering, and the covering of the goats’ skins that is above upon it, and the screen for the door of the Tent of Meeting, ...
• Nu04-29:33 As for the sons of Merari, .... And this is the charge of their burden, according to all their service in the Tent of Meeting; the boards of the tabernacle, and its bars, and its pillars, and its sockets, And the pillars of the court around, and their sockets...

Here we see that each subtribe has specific tasks
• The Kehathites deal with the Temple utensils
• The Gershonites deal with the Temple Curtains
• The Merarites deal with the Temple pillars

This Formatting does not completely explain the Rashis indicated. To completely explain the Rashis indicated we need to use the alignment which we present next.

Step 4:How the prohibition is administered: Alignment of Nu18-01:02---the three tasks

Note the underlined differences in the alignment of the following two verses,Nu18-01:02. And the Lord said to Aaron,
• You and your sons and your father’s house with you shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary; and
• you and your sons with you shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood.
• And your brothers also of the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, bring with you, that they may be joined to you, and minister to you; but you and your sons with you shall minister before the Tent of Testimony.

Rashi's task is to identify the differences in
• You and your sons and your father’s house
• you and your sons
• brothers also of the tribe of Levi

Rashi reasons as follows
• You and your sons clearly refers to the Priests
• you and your sons and your father's household refers to both the the Priests and to that subtribe of the Levites whose tasks border on that of the Priests. Reviewing the formatting of Biblical paragraph Nu04-04:33 presented in rule #7 above we see that the Kehatites deal with the Temple vessels and hence overlap with the work of the priests. Hence Rashi interprets you and your sons and your father's household refers to the priests and Kehathites
• Rashi then explains the phrase Levite brothers as referring to the remaining Levite tribes. According to Biblical paragraph Nu04-04:33 this refers to the Gershonites and Merarites.

As indicated at the beginning of this special digest the complete understanding of this Rashi required use of several Rashi methods: Both the alignment method and the formatting method are needed to identify the three groups administering the Temple guard against strangers entering the Temple.

So far we have identified who is preventing strangers from entering the Temple. We now have to indicate how Temple entry is prevented. This is done by a series of verses showing a contrastive alignment between Priests and Levites:
• Nu18-03
  • And they [The Levites] shall keep your guard, and the guard of all the Tent;
  • only they shall not come near the utensils of the sanctuary and the altar, that neither they, nor you also, die.
• Nu18-07 Therefore you and your sons [The priests] with you shall keep your priest’s office for everything that concerns the altar, and inside the veil; and you shall serve.
• Nu04-15
  • And when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary, and all the utensils of the sanctuary, as the camp is to set forward;
  • after that, the sons of Kohath shall come to carry it; but they shall not touch any holy thing, lest they die.

As the underlined words in these contrastive verses show
• Priests work on the altar, behind the veil and with temple utensils
• Levites are responsible for the Temple Guard

Hence the Rashi comment providing more specificity for what this Temple Guard consists of The Levites
• Performed an honor guard on the Temple gates
• were responsible for all Temple keys
• were responsible for money for Temple repairs.

Summary: This completes the analysis of the Rashis on Nu18-01:07 As shown
• The Grammar method shows us that the purpose of the Temple guards is to prevent strangers from approaching the Temple
• The Other verse method shows us the consequences of violating Temple entry by strangers by citing the examples of Korach and Nadav
• The Format method shows us the 3 Levite subtribes and their respective tasks
• The Alignment method shows us 3 administrators in charge of preventing unwanted Temple entry--Priests, Kehatites and Other Levites
• The Alignment method shows us that the Levite guard cannot deal with the altar, veil or Temple utensils leading Rashi to suggest that they perform an honor guard at temple gates and watch the keys and money.

Despite the complexity of the Rashis on this Biblical paragraph we believe each particular Rashi method compactly applies to those Rashis it is explaining.

One of Rashi's 10 major methods is the word meaning method. One word meaning method is the synonym method. When using the synonym method the meaning of the word is known but Rashi emphasizes the special nuances of the particular word used.

Nu17-03e:05 states As for the censers of these sinners against their own souls, let them make them into hammered plates for a covering of the altar; for they offered them before the Lord, therefore they are consecrated; and they shall be a sign to the people of Israel. ... To be a memorial to the people of Israel, that no stranger, who is not of the seed of Aaron, come near to offer incense before the Lord; that he be not as Korah, and as his company; as the Lord said to him by the hand of Moses.

To properly understand Rashi we first examine verse Lv02-02 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 reminder part of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor to the Lord;

Both Hebrew words used, Zayin-Caph-Resh-Vav-Nun meaning memorial and Aleph-Zayin-Caph-Resh-Hey meaning reminder have root Zayin-Caph-Resh which means to remember. Thus these words are both Synonyms. The difference between memorial vs. reminder is that a reminder refers to a reminder in the near future while memorial refers to a long term commemoration. Rashi explains this long term commemoration on Nu17-03 by pointing out that people [in the future] who see this sign will remember and not repeat the mistake.

Today Rashi examines the following database query: How do neighborhoods influence moral behavior? The full development of this database inquiry was suggested by Rabbi Samsom Raphael Hirsch. Rav Hirsch examined the two censii in Biblical chapters Nu01 and Nu26. The overall population decreased only -0.3%. Yet certain groups had large uniform increases while other groups had large uniform decreases. Based on these statistics Rashi following the Talmud infers that neighbors influence moral behavior.

In analyzing this database inquiry we are also using the spreadsheet method. Nu01,02 shows that the Jewish camp resided in 4 positions, North, South, East and West with various subtribes of the Levites residing with them. Here is the entire spreadsheet. [Acknowledgement is given to my late father, Abraham Hendel, who made numerous improvements and suggestions in the layout of this spreadsheet.

====================================================
Tribe     Nu01    Nu26    % Change  Where   Levites 
========= ======= ======= ========= ======= ========
Total     603550  601730  -0.3%    
------    ----    -----   ------    -       ------
Reuven    46500   43730   -6.0%     S       Kehath
Shimon    59300   22200   -62.6%    S       Kehath
Gad       45650   40500   -11.3%    S       Kehath
------    ----    -----   ------    -       ------
Judah     74600   76500   2.5%      E       Moses 
Yissachar 54400   64300   18.2%     E       Moses 
Zevulun   57400   60500   5.4%      E       Moses 
------    ----    -----   ------    -       ------
Ephraim   40500   32500   -19.8%    W       Gayrshon
Menasheh  32200   52700   63.7%     W       Gayrshon
Benjamin  35400   45600   28.8%     W       Gayrshon
------    ----    -----   ------    -       ------
Dan       62700   64400   2.7%      N       Merari
Asher     41500   53400   28.7%     N       Merari
Naftali   53400   45400   -15.0%    N       Merari
=======================================================

Notice, in the above list, how
• The South side with Reuven, Shimon, Gad and Kehath all had drops in enrollment while
• the east side with Judah, Yissachar, Zevulun and Moses all had increases in enrollment.

Rashi uses the above database-spreadsheet to illuminate verse Nu17-01d Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men; Rashi comments: As the above table shows the Reuvenites and Kehathites lived in close proximity. This facilitated drawing Reuvenites into the Levite rebellion.

On other verses Rashi makes further comments on the above table. For example Rashi points out that all tribes on the East side were known for their scholarship. Verses ascribing excellence to the scholarship of each of these tribes is brought. We can summarize these Rashi comments by observing that neighborhood influences moral behavior.

Rule #8, presenting the database method also includes use of Spreadsheets. Please refer back to it.

This week's parshah contains no examples of the contradiction, style, and symbolism methods. This concludes this weeks edition. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples.