Advanced Rashi: The Rashi rule as written by Rashi himself would justify using a suffix letter Mem to indicate a subject in any context. However every one who knows Hebrew knows that you cannot substitute a suffix letter mem for all typical subjects like we or they. In other words, the above Rashi rule requires clarification and modification.

A cursory look at the above list shows that this Rashi Suffix mem-subject rule only holds in adverbial subordinate clauses introduced by a subordinate conjunction. In the above half dozen examples we have bolded the subordinate conjunctions introducing the adverbial clauses: as, when, but.

If these terms are too technical the reader can recognize these adverbial clauses by their grammatical function: For example the clause when they heard it indicates the time when they came from the field. We call the clause adverbial since it modifies the coming from the field by indicating when it happened.

Such modifications and clarifications of Rashi based on a careful study of examples, are an integral part of Rashi study and enrich our understanding of Rashi.

Note the alignment of the underlined words in the following verses discussing the sins and punishment of the generation of the flood:
• Gn06-11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with theft.
• Gn06-13b And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me; for the earth is filled with theft through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Rashi interprets corruption as sexual corruption and interprets theft as monetary theft. Rashi then comments:
• The world had two sins: sexual corruption, monetary theft
• But the world was primarily punished for monetary theft.

Sermonic points: We all love a good sermonist who rebukes excess in passion. If only we could achieve this ideal---how many world problems would be eliminated! But when it comes to punishment God scrutinizes monetary crimes. There is emphasis here. A person who is not so kosher sexually but is very careful about his monetary obligations should not be classified as a sinner. Conversely a person who is excessively religious sexually but lax in monetary obligations should be criticized.

Background: Certain Biblical verses are written with one text but read with an alternate text. We call such verses read-written verses. The Masters of the Masoretic Text carefully preserved these written-read verses. I have conjectured that Rashi's primary function was not commentary but masoretic preservation. The following Rashi shows this.

Verse Gn08-17a has a written-read form:
• Written text: Bring out with you every living thing that is with you, of all flesh, both of bird, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.
• Read test: Let out with you every living thing that is with you, of all flesh, both of bird, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

We see the elegantly tersely formulated contradiction: Which is it? Was Noah ordered to let the animals go; or was he ordered to forcibly bring them out?.

Rashi resolves this contradiction using the two-aspects method of resolution:
• The primary order was to let the animals out
• However if they didn't willfully go out Noah was to forcibly bring them out.

Sermonic points: The above Rashi contains important points about parental upbringing. It is preferable to let children, growing up, do the right thing themselves. That should always be a parents first choice. But if the child doesn't want to, only then, should the parent step in and be forceful.

The Rabbi Ishmael style rules require generalization of Biblical laws unless those laws are stated in a general-specific format. When a verse is in Theme-detail format we interpret the meaning of the theme section as being indicated by the detail section.

We have explained this abstract Rabbi Ishmael rule by using the model of a paragraph: A paragraph has a theme sentence as well as detail sentences. It is common to interpret the paragraph as indicating the meaning of the theme by examining the details. In other words the theme-detail rule of Rabbi Ishmael is identical to the rules of paragraph interpretation.

Verse Gn09-11a:15 illustrates this nicely as shown here:
• Theme: And I will establish my covenant with you; nor shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; nor shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for everlasting generations;
• Detail: I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

Hence the Rashi: What is the establishment of the convenant? The rainbow. In other words Rashi interprets the general idea of convenant as being identified with the details of the rainbow: The convenant is the rainbow which reminds God at every rainfall of His agreement not to destroy the world.

Sermonic ideas: Rashi teaches the etiquette of treaties. An ideal treaty is not something locked up in a safe which one sees a few times a year. Rather a good treaty symbol is something that reminds the parties of the treaty at all critical times when the treaty conditions emerge. Hence the rainbow is the ideal sign of the convenant; it is there at the right time whenever there is a rainfall to remind God of His agreement not to destroy the world. This principle applies to marital gifts as well as to business treaties and teaches us how to achieve maximal values from our symbols.

In my article, Biblical Formatting, to appear in the Jewish Bible Quarterly at the end of this year, I suggest that the modern formatting technique of bulleting is indicated by the Biblical Author by using repeating keywords. The repeated underlined keywords in the following verse,Gn10-20a, illustrates this technique These are the sons of Ham,
• after their families,
• after their tongues,
• in their countries, and
• in their nations.

The text of the Bible itself does not have bullets. However the repeating underlined words create a bullet effect. The reader sees and hears the Gn10-20a as if it was bulleted as indicated above.

Rashi comments on the above bullets: [The bullets indicate that] All these people possessed the impulsiveness of Cham even though there were many distinct
• families
• languages
• countries
• and nations

Sermonic points: Rashi emphasizes that despite their diversity, indicated by the 4 bullets, nevertheless, they all behaved in the same 3rd-nation impulsive way. Rashi teaches us that diversity is not necessarily a remedy to bad character traits. A super-power could have diversity in all its constituent countries and still have a common bad character trait.

Today Rashi asks the simple database query: In what contexts is the term family used. The database query shows that family, with one exception, is always used in connection with humans. The one exception occurs in Gn08-19a Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, and whatever creeps upon the earth, went out of the ark, by family

Rashi comments: The strange use of the word family in connection with animals hints at the extent of corruptive behavior: It implies that animals were sinning with people. God in effect made the animals that entered the ark promise to resume their ordinary family life and only relate among themselves!

The list below presents a partial list of uses of the word family

=================================================================
Query of verses which use the word FAMILY(only once by animals)
=================================================================
VERSE    NAMED/DESIGNATED FOR FUTURE EVENT           FUTURE EVENT
======== =========================================== ============
Gn08-19  All animals by FAMILY left the ark          ANIMAL 
------   ----------------------------                --------
Gn10-20  This the FAMILY TREE of Cham                PEOPLE
Gn24-38  Go to my FAMILY to obtain a wife for my son PEOPLE
Gn28-14  All human FAMILIES will be blessed by Abrhm PEOPLE
Nu01-32  Census count by tribal FAMILY is....        PEOPLE
=================================================================

Sermonic points: The Bible tells how sin happens. Sin may start on a people level but over time it may spread to types of sin we would not ordinarily think of such as sins with animals.

Rashi collects 3 verses discussing Abraham's age and the age of his father, Terach. The resulting Spreadsheet is presented below.

==================================================================
List of verses           presenting Terach's age when Abe left
==================================================================
Verse    Event                      Age  Of Whom  Sequence
======== ========================== === ========= ================
Gn11-26  Abraham born to Terach      70 Terach   (A)
Gn12-04  Abraham left Charan         75 Abraham  (C)
-------  Terach's age when Abe left 145 Terach
Gn11-32a Terach dies                205 Terach   (B)            
-------  After Abe left:Years left   60 
==================================================================

As the above SPREADSHEET shows, Terach lives 60 years after Abraham left, since Abraham left when Terach was 145 and Terach lived to 205. Consequently, it appears that Abraham left his old father to establish his own life. This would be perojative to Abraham!

Hence the Bible reverses the sequence order of the verses and indicates Terachs death before Abrahams leaving. The basic point is that Abraham founded monotheism (or its spread) and could not do this in the house of an idolater--hence he had to leave.

Advanced Rashi: Rashi dresses up this point with several sermonic points that we need not go into. The main focus is that Abraham had to leave to start his own life but the Bible did not want to insinuate that Abraham was disrespectful to his father. Rashi's actual language is as follows: ...but Abraham was not disrespectful to his father since the wicked are called dead even in their lifetime. Hence Abraham left a dead person and was not being disrespectful.

A careful perusal of the above Rashi shows that in essence Rashi is sermonically saying the same thing we said above: namely, that Abraham left his father's household because his father was an idolater and he could not develop there. I think this comparison of actual Rashi language vs. the basic idea behind Rashi,as we outlined above, is instructive in understanding how to properly read Rashi.

Verse Gn11-05a:07 discussing God's intent to destroy the Tower Coalition, states And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men built. And the Lord said, Behold, the people are one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have schemed to do. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

Rashi comments: God's actions Symbolize moral norms. To say that God did something is equivalent to saying that man should do it. Hence the underlined words God came down to see/investigate the city and the tower teaches us that prior to pronouncing Judgement, even in an obviously criminal case, a person should always carefully look at both sides and review the case.

This week's parshah contains examples of all rules. This concludes this weeks edition. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples.