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.

Nu27-15:21b states And Moses spoke to the Lord, saying, Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation, Who may go out before them, and who may go in before them, and who may lead them out, and who may bring them in; ... ...And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him according to the judgment of Urim before the Lord; at his word shall they go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he, and all the people of Israel with him, all the congregation.

Rashi seeks to both
• identify the precise meaning of the underlined phrases go out and go in as well as
• explain the bolded phrase who shall ask counsel for him according to the judgement of Urim.

Rashi accomplishes both these tasks by obtaining further details from other verses. In fact there are several other verses that explicitly show that the advice of God was sought prior to military operations-- going out to war and going in to war-- this advice was sought thru a variety of means including the Priesthood who used the Urim and Tumim to receive communication from God. We present three such verses:
• 1S28-05:06 And when Saul saw the camp of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled. And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.
• Ju20-27:28 states And the people of Israel inquired of the Lord, for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days, And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days, saying, Shall I yet again go out to battle against the sons of Benjamin my brother, or shall I cease? And the Lord said, Go up; for tomorrow I will deliver them into your hand.
• 1S30-07:08 states And David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech’s son, I beg you, bring me here the ephod. And Abiathar brought there the ephod to David. And David inquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue; for you shall surely overtake them, and without fail recover all.

Note the technicality that the last citation from 1S30-07:08, speaks about seeking advice from the Ephod not from the Urim and Tumim. However the Bible explicitly identifies
• the Ephod as holding
• the Breastplate which in turn held the
• the Urim and Tumim.

This connection between the Ephon, Breastplate and Urim is explicitly identified in Ex28-06:30 which states And they shall make the ephod of gold, .... And you shall make the breastplate of judgment with skilful work; after the work of the ephod you shall make it; of gold,... And you shall make upon the breastplate two rings of gold, and shall put the two rings on the two ends of the breastplate.... And they shall bind the breastplate by its rings to the rings of the ephod with a lace of blue, .... And you shall put in the breastplate of judgment, the Urim and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron’s heart, when he goes in before the Lord; ...

This other verse example was slightly more complicated than the typical Rashi using other verses. First, Rashi identified the meaning of several phrases vs. one. Second, the citations needed other citations to back them up. Thirdly the other verses also shed light on several idiomatic phrases such as stand before the priest, or the Urim & Tumim judgement.

Thus this example appears complicated. But at the heart of it all Rashi did was to clarify the meaning of one verse using citations from other verses which provided further details. This is the essence of the other verse method.

One of Rashi's 10 major methods is the word meaning method. One word meaning sub-method is the idiom sub-method. An idiom is a phrase, a collection of words, which together have a meaning which transcends the sum of the meanings of its component words.

Nu26-02a states Take a patrilineal census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, from twenty years old and upward--those eligible for the military. Rashi states The literal Hebrew words used take..census...according to their father's household is an idiom meaning patrilinearly.

Noticed how we have amended the Davka English translation to directly incorporate the underlined idiom patrilineal. Such translation emendations are the best approach by which to learn (or teach) Rashis using the idiom method.

The Rashi grammar rule covers a wide variety of topics. Most people are familiar with the root conjugation subrules. Rashi also had rules governing the sentence. Today we examine the Rashi rule governing paragraph/sentence connections.

Rashi had 3 methods by which to connect consecutive sentences or paragraphs: The two consecutive sentences could indicate cause, effect, or unifying theme.

Nu25-01 - Nu26-02 states
• And Israel stayed in Shittim, and the people began to commit harlotry with the daughters of Moab..... And Israel attached himself to Baal-Peor; and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.... And those who died in the plague were twenty four thousand. ....
• And it came to pass after the plague, that the Lord spoke to Moses ...Take a census of all the congregation

As the underlined words and it came to pass after the plague clearly indicate the Bible connects the two paragraphs dealing with the plague and the census. Rashi applies the cause method of paragraph development to this connection: It is analogous to the reaction of a shepard after wolves have attacked his flock: The shepard would count his flock to see how many remained and how many were lost. While the shepard analogy is not intrinsic to the Biblical text and has a distinct emotional flavor, the point of Rashi has an underlying logical motif: The plague was the cause of the census. The census indicates an act of caring by God.

Rashi could have stopped with the above since it fully explains the connection between the two paragraphs. Rashi however adds further supplemental explanation: A further point: There was a census when Moses left Egypt. Consequently when Moses completed his 40 year stay in the wilderness he had to perform another census.

Most scholars would dismiss this second comment of Rashi as unnecessary. However in reality Rashi was making two comments on two distinct aspects of the verse. By way of background we should indicate that the Bible uses spacing to indicate paragraphs. The Bible knew of two paragraph methods: The tab space and the space to the end of the line. Both these spaces indicate paragraph delineation. Occasionally a Biblical paragraph starts in the middle of a verse. Nu26-01 is an example of a paragraph starting in the middle of a verse.

Nu25-01 - Nu26-02
• should read as follows
  • Sentence version: Harlotry with moabites... God sent plague
  • After the plague God ordered a census
• But instead Nu25-01 - Nu26-02 actually reads as follows with a paragraph break in the middle of a sentence!
  • Paragraph version: Harlotry with moabites...God sent plague---after the plague
  • God ordered a census
  • Moses completes his career, the giving of the law and gives his farewell address

The two Rashi comments address the reason for paragraph consecutiveness in the two versions.
• Sentence version: The plague was the cause of God counting the Jews. God wanted to see how many of his flock remained.
• Paragraph version: The census was part of the completion of the giving of the law and Moses' farewell speech---Moses started his career with a counted people and counted them at the end to show he had remained faithful.

The technique we have introduced above is fundamental to understanding Rashi. Very often when Rashi presents two comments he is in fact addressing two stylistic points in the verse. A student who only notices one point may therefore err and not fully understand the second point.

In Nu27-02 Rashi explains the relationship of the census to the plague that preceded it as well as the relationship of the census to the farewell speech that followed it. The plague caused a census to show God's endearment to his people. Similarly Moses' completion of his career caused Moses to do a census to affirm his faithfullness in leadership. In both cases Rashi explains the reason for paragraph connectedness. However the different paragraph sequences require two separate explanations.

Background: Many Temple offerings required libations to accompany them. The libation consisted of a plant offering of flour,oil and wine in specified measures. The Bible in fact has a libation chapter where it spells the specifications out. However the Bible reviews these specifications when it discusses specific offerings. The original libation chapter and the review provide an opportunity for alignment.

Notice the alignment indicated by the underlined phrases in the following verses, both speaking about the libation requirement.
• Nu15-04:05 states Then shall he who offers his offering to the Lord bring
  • a meal offering of a tenth measure of flour
  • mixed with the fourth part of an hin of oil.
  • And the fourth part of a hin of wine for a drink offering ...
• The review of the identical libation at Nu28-05:07 states
  • And a tenth part of an ephah of flour for a meal offering,
  • mixed with the fourth part of a hin of beaten oil.
  • And the drink offering of it shall be the fourth part of a hin for one lamb; in the holy place shall you pour the intoxicating-wine to the Lord for a drink offering.

Based on the above alignment Rashi makes two comments
• The underlined phrase drink offering in the third bullet of Nu28-05:07 refers to the wine libation mentioned in the corresponding third bullet of Nu15-04:05.
• Notice that the third bullet in Nu15-04:05 speaks about wine while the corresponding third bullet in Nu28-05:07 speaks about intoxicating wine. Hence the Rashi comment For the purposes of the libation either wine or intoxicating wine can be used but not wine off the press which has very little fermentation.

There are many other inferences that can be made from the minor differences in the aligned phrases. Some of these inferences are made by Rashi while others occur in technical parts of Jewish law but are not cited by Rashi. As we have indicated several times, a full understanding of Rashi requires consistent application of the Rashi method to all parts of the verse.

Note the contradiction indicated by the underlined phrases in the following verse discussing seeking advice from God prior to war: Nu27-21b states And he [the king] shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall
• ask counsel for him according to the judgment of Urim before the Lord;
• at his word shall they go out, [to war]

We see the contradiction. Which is it? Does the advice of God come
• from the Urim and Tumim or
• from [the word of] Eliezer the Priest.

Rashi resolves this contradiction using the 2 stages method of resolution. Advice from God prior to military activity is decided by
• First, seeking advice thru the Urim and Tumim
• Second, seeking the Priest's [Eliezer] interpretation of this advice--his word.

Perhaps some elaboration would help: The Urim and Tumim had the names of the 12 tribes written with gems and stones. All letters of the Hebrew alphabet were present. When a priest asked a question of God the letters spelling his answer lit up on the Urim. Consequently he might only receive a 1 or 2 word answer to his inquiry. This is consistent with the Jewish conception of Prophecy that Moses had a verbal relationship with God while other prophets had an image relationship with God. Clearly a one or two word response has the same level of detail as an image and differs from a full verbal response.

This raises the question of how to proceed after the priest delivers the one-two word response from God! Does the King or legislature have the right to interpret the response? Or is the interpretation of the response delegated to the inquiring priest? Rashi answers the latter. That is, the priest both delivers the message as well as interprets it. Hence Nu27-21 states that (a) the inquiry will be made of the Urim and (b) that the Priest will give his word [that is interpretation] on the Urim response.

Note that our interpretation of Rashi has also shed light on the referent of the pronoun his. The verse begins He [the King] shall stand before Eliezer and ask him ....by his word they will go to war... Thus the underlined word his could equally refer to either of the antecedents: the King or Eliezer. Our interpretation shows that it refers to Eliezer and also shows why we interpret it this way.

In my article, Biblical Formatting to be published in the Jewish Bible Quarterly at the end of this year or the beginning of next year I point out that any time a modern author would use bullets the Biblical Author used repeating keywords. In other words, repeating keywords is the method used by the Bible to indicate a bullet like effect. The bullet like effect in turn creates a contrastive emphasis on the bulleted items.

Biblical bulleting is frequently indicated by repeating keywords. Sometimes however the Bible will use parallel grammatical structure. Today we see such an example: The Bible lists three grammatical subjects to a sentence.

Nu27-21c states And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him according to the judgment of Urim before the Lord; at his word shall they go out, and at his word they shall come in,
• both he,
• and all the people of Israel with him,
• and all the congregation.