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.

Dt26-05d states And you shall speak and say before the Lord your God, An Aramean made my father lost, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few people, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous; Rashi illuminates the meaning of the underlined phrase a few people by citing an other verse which sheds light and provides further details to Dt26-05d. Verse Gn46-27 explicitly states And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two souls; all the souls of the house of Jacob, who came to Egypt, were seventy Hence the Rashi comment: The underlined phrase were 70 in Gn46-27 illuminates the underlined phrase a few people in Dt26-05. That is the few people who came with Jacob to Egypt were 70 people.

This example is a classic application of the other verse method. In fact it occurs in the Passover Hagaddah and represents the preferred method of teaching our children on Passver night.

One of Rashi's 10 major methods is the word meaning method. One word meaning sub-method is the synonym sub-method. Rashi will frequently take two words with similar meanings, synonyms, and explain the contrastive nuances between them. Similarly Rashi might take a single word and show how it can have several similar meanings. Out of convenience we refer to both of these -- 2 words with similar meanings or 1 word with similar meanings -- as use of the synonym method.

Today we review several verses which use the Hebrew root Shin-Mem-Ayin. This Hebrew root can mean
• To listen/hear
• to accept/obey
• To be sympathetic
• to understand
• to receive a news story

We now list verses illustrating each of the above
• To hear: Verse Nu30-04:05 states If a woman also vows a vow to the Lord, and binds herself by a bond, being in her father’s house in her youth; And her father hears her vow, and her bond with which she has bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond with which she has bound her soul shall stand.
• To accept: Verse Dt01-45 states And you returned and wept before the Lord; but the Lord would not accept your prayers nor give any weight to you.
• To be sympathetic: Verse Gn21-16:17 states And she went, and sat down opposite him a good way off, as it were a bowshot; for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice, and wept. And God sympathized with the crys of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, What ails you, Hagar? fear not; for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.
• To understand: Verse Dt28-49b states The Lord shall bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, which will swoop down like the vulture; a nation whose language you shall not understand;
• To receive a news story: Verse Gn34-05 states And Jacob received the news that he had defiled Dinah his daughter; and his sons were with his cattle in the field; and Jacob held his peace until they came.

The Rashi grammar rule covers a variety of situations including Root conjugation, gender/plurality agreement, and sentence/paragraph development. Rashi knew of 3 methods of paragraph development: (a) cause / enablement, (b) contrast, (c) unified theme.

Rashi identifies a causal nature between the two sentence components of Dt28-53a. This causal component is indicated by the Hebrew letter Beth which can mean causality in Hebrew.

Verse Dt28-53a states
• And you shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, which the Lord your God has given you,
• because
• of the siege, and the distress, with which your enemies shall distress you;

Note the alignment of the underlined words in the following verses
• Verses Dt27-11:15 discussing the curse-and-blessing ceremony performed upon entry into Israel, states And Moses charged the people the same day, saying,
• These shall stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people, when you are come over the Jordan; Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Joseph, and Benjamin;
• And these shall stand upon Mount Ebal on the curse; Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.
• And the Levites shall responsively speak, and say to all the men of Israel with a loud voice,
  • Cursed be the man who...And all the people shall answer and say, Amen.

Note the difference in the aligned underlined phrases
• to bless the people
• on the curse

Based on this alignment as well as based on the last two bulleted verses showing a statement-amen response paradigm between the Levites and the nation, Rashi makes the following comment The tribes themselves, that is, the nation, did not say the blessings and curses. Rather the tribes stood on their respective mountains during the ceremony while the Levites said the blessings and curses and the tribes, that is the nation, simply said Amen

This is an excellent example of an alignment Rashi. Rashi's conclusion is not explicitly stated in the text. Yet it is clear that this is what the text is telling us. This clarity comes from the statements about the Levites as well as the nuance differences between stand to bless vs. stand on curse.

Dt26-01:11 discusses the ritual of bringing first fruits. Notice the contradiction emanating from the underlined phrases in the following verses, Dt26-01:11 And it shall be, when you come to the land ... That you shall take of the first of all the
• fruit of the land which God gives you
• and go to the place ...God shall choose ... ...
• And you-ll say before...God, As an Aramean my father was lost, ....
• And you shall rejoice ... you, and the Levite, and the convert who is among you.

We see the 2contradictions indicated by the underlined words:
• The
  • Levite does not inherit land; how then can he bring from the
  • first fruits of the land which God gives him
• The
  • convert does not descend from Jews; How then can he say
  • An Aramean mad my father lost..

Rashi resolves these 2 contradictions using the 2 aspects method.
• The Levites do not inherit land but were assigned 48 cities to live in. Therefore they bring first fruit from the 48 cities God gave them.
• The convert does bring fruit but does not utter the recital An Aramean made my father lost.

This Rashi is an excellent example of the contradiction method. For the text does not explicitly say that the convert does not utter this recital. Rashi however makes an obvious conclusion and the obviousness of this conclusion emanates from the contadictory verses.

Rashi, in the tractate of Pesachim,folio 6a, explains that the Bible is assumed to teach thru example. Rashi explicitly states Every Biblical passage is perceived as an example that is meant to be generalized unless something in the verse indicates a limitation in interpretation.

In our other issues of the weekly Rashi digest we have related this guidance of Rashi to the Rabbi Ishmael rule of Generalization which also requires us to generalize Biblical laws, not as exhausting themselves in the examples they give, but rather as indicating general paradigms.The Rabbi Ishmael rules may be found in our daily prayer books.

Verse Dt27-18a states Cursed be he who makes the blind to wander out of the way. And all the people shall say, Amen Rashi, quite simply, generalizes the word blind from its literal usage: The curse and law prohibit both
• misleading a physically blind person on the road
• or, misleading an intellectually blind person by giving them bad advice.

To fully appreciate this Rashi it is important to understand the method he is using: Rashi is perceiving the verse as an example that illustrates a General principle. Rashi then provides commentary that illustrates both the literal and general meaning. This is the essence of the generalization method.

Rashi sometimes makes simple comments on the overall paragraph structure. In presenting the Biblical paragraph Dt26-05:11 which presents the thanksgiving recital at the bringing of first fruits we have bulleted separately each sentence. The Rashi comments emanate from the parallel structure of the paragraph
1. Bad #1: As an Aramean my father was lost,
2. Bad #2: And he came down to Egypt and sojourned there with a few,
3. Good #1: and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous;
4. Bad #3: And the Egyptians dealt ill with us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard slavery;
5. Prayer #1: And when we cried to the Lord God of our fathers,
6. Prayer #2: the Lord heard our voice, and
7. Prayer #3: looked on our affliction, and our labor, and our oppression;
8. Good #2: And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great awesomeness, and with signs, and with wonders;
9. Good #3: And he has brought us to this place,
10. Good #4: and has given us this land, a land that flows with milk and honey.

To facilitate understanding the Rashi comments we have enumerated the above sentences with labels. Rashi makes several comments on the overall structure of the above paragraph.
• More specifically on Bad #1,#2 Rashi comments After the first bad event, the lack of stable employment with Laban, Jacob had other bad events such as the sojourn in Egypt.
• Rashi makes a similar comment on Good #3,#4. Rashi's comment on #3,4 is bolstered by the repeating keyword This. In our explanations of Rashi we have explained that the Bible uses repeating keywords to indicate a bullet-like effect. In this case there is a double emphasis
  • God brought us to this land, Israel
  • God brought us to this place, the Temple
• Rashi does not make further commments but in the spirit of commenting on the paragraph Rashi could have made the following further comments. Contrasting Bad #2 and Good #1 Rashi could have said No matter what sufferings we endured something good came out of them We went down to Egypt and even though we were tortured we multiplied profusely.
• Similarly Rashi could have commented on the unit of Bad #2, the Prayer group and Good #2. No matter what suffering we were in whenever we prayed God redeemed us.

Such additional Rashi comments should be seen as fully consistent with Rashi's actual comments. For Rashi was commenting on the overall paragraph structure and only need have given us 1-2 examples. By continuing this commentary on overall paragraph structure we enrich our understanding of Rashi.

Sometimes Rashi will take a verse whose meaning is perfectly understood and supplement the verse with added explanatory material. We call this the spreadsheet method since a primary function of spreadsheets is to provide what-if supplementary analysis.

Verse Dt26-02d states That you shall take of the first of all the fruit of the earth, which you shall bring of your land that the Lord your God gives you, and shall put it in a basket, and shall go to the place which the Lord your God shall choose to place his name there. This verse is perfectly understood. However Rashi supplements it with explanatory material: A person, who sees the first ripening fruit in his field, would tie it with a special ribbon, thereby designating it as first fruit. Then when the time to bring the first fruit arives, he would be able to identify which fruit came first, so that he could bring them up to Jerusalem.

Military activity is often vigorously described using animal metaphors. Here we use the symbolism principle that items can symbolize their function. Examples are plentiful
• Nu24-09 states He couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a great lion. Who shall stir him up? Blessed is he who blesses you, and cursed is he who curses you.
• Jr05-06 states Therefore a lion from the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the deserts shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch over their cities; every one who goes out there shall be torn in pieces; because their transgressions are many, and their apostasies are great.
• Jr46-12 states Her sound is like that of a serpent on the move; for they shall march with force, and come against her with axes, like wood cutters.
• Dt01-44a states And the Amorites, who lived in that mountain, came out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto Hormah.
• Dt28-49a states The Lord shall bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, which will swoop down like the vulture; a nation whose tongue you shall not understand;

The interpreter's task is to identify the unique military characteristics of each animal. Rashi commenting on the last verse Dt28-49a states The military characteristic of the vulture is the suddeness of the swoop which enables victory.

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