Today we present a peachy example of exegetical analysis involving the alignment, contradiction, and formatting rules (rules #4,5,7). The particular method of Rashi exegesis used resembles modern reading between the lines as occurs everyday in our newspapers.

Note the alignment of the underlined words in the following verses discussing the dialog between God and Avimelech who was accused by God of committing adultery with Sarah.
• Avimelech's statement: Verse Gn20-05 states said he not to me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother;
  • in the integrity of my heart and
  • in the innocence of my hands have I done this.
• God's response: And God said to him in a dream, Yes, I know that you did this
  • in the integrity of your heart;...

Rashi is terse, punchy and comical: Notice that
• King Avimelech protested both
  • integrity of heart and
  • innocence of hands.
• By contrast, God only agrees to Avimelech's
  • integrity of heart

The implication is obvious: God did not consider Avimelech to be innocent with his hands. He had no business engaging a married women.

Advanced Rashi: Such reading of nuances is often mocked at as not the simple intended meaning of the text. This is rediculous! Simply pick up any daily newspaper and one will see many editorials in which such Rashi-like alignments, analyzing the statements of world politicians, occur daily and are taken very seriously!

On a more serious note the Bible teaches us etiquette. You never rebuke a King in power directly. God only rebukes Avimelech discretely; God mentions the positive, integrity of heart, rather than explicitly criticizing Avimelech for the negative, innocence of hands. We can only infer the nuance innocence of hands by omission. This is the proper etiquette and method for criticism of people in power!

Today we present a peachy example of exegetical analysis involving the alignment, contradiction, and formatting rules (rules #4,5,7). The particular method of Rashi exegesis used resembles modern reading between the lines as occurs everyday in our newspapers.

Gn20-04:06 discusses the attempted marriage by Avimelech to Sarah, a married woman. Notice the contradiction indicated by the underlined phrases in the following verses
• Verse Gn20-04 states But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, Lord, will you slay also a righteous nation?
• But verse Gn20-06 states And God said to him in a dream, .... for I ...kept you from sinning against me; therefore I did not let you touch her.

We see the contradiction indicated by the underlined words: Which is it? Did Avimelech abstain from sinning with her or did God prevent him from sinning?

Rashi's resolution of this contradiction using the 2 stages method of resolving contradictions is rather straightforward. Avimelech did not sin because God sent down an angel to prevent him from sinning. In other words
• In stage 1, God prevented Avimelech from sinning, say, by sending down an angel
• In stage 2, Avimelech consciously abstained because he was afraid of God.

Sermonic points: A pithy dictum states that the stories of the Patriarch's lives are role models for the entire Jewish people. The Torah teaches us here how to protect oneself from sexual abuse. Many people think that as you grow up you protect yourself from sexual abuse by joining groups and benefitting from the new friends that you have made. The Torah teaches us that such joinings are not necessary. Sarah was totally alone in a foreign land. Sexual advances were made on her by the King of the land. Yet she was protected by God. Sarah teaches us how we should behave today. We too can rely on God's protection to save us from improper advances. Most of us know of survivors who escaped similar advances in Nazi Germany.

An important historical point should be emphasized here. We take marital dignity for granted today. All the major religions--some differently than others--acknowledge the importance of respecting a couple's privacy and rights to each others. But this concept was not widespread in Abraham's time. Rather it was common for Kings to take whatever women they wanted, whether they were married or not. Abraham and the other two patriarchs introduced, each in their own way, respect for marital fidelity. The Genesis stories reveal an important transitional epoch in human legal history by delineating the evolution of the concept of marital fidelity, privacy and dignity.

Too often we credit the patriarchs with the positive vs. the removal of the negative. The 3 Patriarchs are praised for personifying charity, sacrifice, and simplicity. But they also introduced the idea of Divine protection of marriage through, if necessary, Divine violence supporting marital privacy.

Today we present a peachy example of exegetical analysis involving the alignment, contradiction, and formatting rules (rules #4,5,7). The particular method of Rashi exegesis used resembles modern reading between the lines as occurs everyday in our newspapers.

Modern authors frequently use bullets to indicate contrastive emphasis on a list. The idea of bullets is that each bullet should receive an emphasis that distinguishes it from the other items in the list.

The Biblical Author did not use the traditional modern format of bullets which consist of a list of items preceded by black dots. Instead, the Biblical authors used repeating keywords to indicate a bullet effect. The following verse illustrates this.

Verse Gn20-05b, presenting Avimelech's protest that he didn't know that the woman he made overtures towards was married states Said he not to me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother;
• in the integrity of my heart and
• in the innocence of my hands have I done this.

Rashi explains the emphasis indicated in the two bulleted items:
• in the integrity of my heart, [Rashi:I did not intend to sin]
• in the innocence of my hands, [Rashi: I did not actually sin yet]

Sermonic points: Recall that Sarah claimed she was Abraham's sister. Consequently Avimelech did not intend to sin when he made overtures to her. Nevertheless we saw above in rule #4, alignment that God did blaim him for getting engaged to her. But why? If he thought she was Abraham's sister what would be wrong with marrying her?

Rashi's point echoes modern concepts in workplace sexual abuse laws. Consent in certain situations is not believed. For example in some supervisor-subordinate situations the subordinate has a harassment-lawsuit even if there was verbal consent to the relationship. Similar laws apply in many states to relations between professors and consenting college students. The law is also echoed in Jewish law: The consent of a married woman for her husband to sell real-estate assets brought into the marriage is not believed and the sale is not valid. As the Talmud states: She is simply trying to be pleasing to her husband. The underlying concept in the sexual abuse laws in many states is that a supervisor-subordinate relationship involving power intrinsically nullifies the possibility of consent. Thus the Rashi on this verse echoes important ethical perspectives on highly personal relations.

In todays example Rashi asks the following database query: What type of personality attributes did Lot have. The table below compactly summarizes verses and attributes.

======================== LIST606f ======================================
Query of  Moral vs Immoral traits of Lot
========================================================================
VERSE      (IM)MORAL? VERSE SHOWS FOLLOWING ATTRIBUTES OF LOT
========   ========== ================================================== 
Gn19-33    IMMORAL    Lot committed INCEST with his daughters
Gn13-07    IMMORAL    Lot FOUGHT/BICKERED with Abraham over property
Gn13-10    IMMORAL    Lot sought MATERIALISM (even in bad neighborhoods)
--------   ---------  -------------------------------------------------- 
Gn19-09    MORAL      Lot was a respected JUDGE in his city 
Gn19-05:07 MORAL      Lot FOUGHT homosexual RAPE
Gn19-01:02 MORAL      Lot was HOSPITABLE
========================================================================

Prior to analyzing this list let us review the verses supporting Lot's good attributes.
• Gn19-09And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he became a judge...
• Gn19-05:07 And they called to Lot, and said to him, Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may know them. And Lot went out the door to them, and closed the door after him, And said, I beg you, my brothers, do not act wickedly.
• Gn19-01:02And there came two angels to Sodom at evening; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom; and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face to the ground; And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I beseech you, to your servant’s house, and remain all night, and wash your feet, and you shall rise up early, and go on your way. And they said, No; we will stay in the street all night.

A glance at the above list raises an obvious question: How could a moral hospitable person, a judge who protested rape, also be involved in incest, property fights and bad neighborhoods. Rashi answers this question by making the reasonable conjecture that Lot learned hospitality from Abraham.

Advanced Rashi: It is important to emphasize that Rashi is not making a word play association here: Abraham is hospitable, Lot is hospitable; so it is reasonable to assume that they learned from each other.

Some Rashi commentators see parallel language and acts in Gn18-01:06 and Gn19-01:02. Almost the same words, phrases and concepts indicating hospitality are used: my lords, stay over, take water, wash yourselves, festive meals. Such an approach has supportive merit but does not fully answer the question of how Rashi infers that Abraham taught Lot hospitality.

A deeper mature approach to Rashi is to fully analyze Lot's personality. The above table allows the the blatant contrast of moral vs. immoral traits to emerge. We can vividly see the struggle between the inner Lot struggling for materialism and the spiritual influence of uncle Abraham who brought out the good in Lot. Such a contrast makes reasonable the conjecture that Lot learned hospitality from Abraham. It was not his natural way but rather something learned.

The above analysis exposes what we have called the flavor of Rashi rules. Some Rashi rules are punchy and deterministic while other Rashi rules have a speculative and subjective nature. Both rules yield objective true results--but the results feel different. For example the list above clearly shows a stark contrast in personality traits. The stark contrast demands a resolution. A simple obvious resolution is the reasonable conjecture that Abraham taught Lot hospitality and moral values. True, it could have been someone else, or maybe Lot just had a split personality. But this approach--that Abraham taught him--- is most reasonable.

Finally we learn an important moral point: Every person no matter how materialistic can change by apprenticing him/her-self to a moral role model who will instruct them on a new right path.

We repeat the analysis presented in rule #3, grammar above.

Verse Gn21-29:31 states And Abimelech said to Abraham, What do these seven ewe lambs mean which you have set by themselves? And he said, These seven ewe lambs shall you take from my hand, in order that it will be a witness to me, that I have dug this well. Therefore he called that place Beersheba; because there they swore both of them.

Rashi explains that the underlined word it refers back to the act of taking. In other words the taking of the 7 lambs acknowledges that the wells belonged to Abraham.

A natural question is how? How does the taking of the seven sheep constitute witness that the wells belonged to Abraham. Rashi conjectures: Abraham not only dug the well but knew its ins and outs; he knew the best times to draw water from it. Consequently, Abraham's sheep were healthier then other sheep. By taking the seven sheep Avimelech acknowledges that they are worth taking; in other words, Abraham's sheep were better than Avimelech's own sheep because Abraham not only created the well but knew when it gave its best waters.

This offers more mature insight into the dialog between Abraham and Avimelech. Abraham did not simply say: This is mine. Such an apodictic statement would not earn any respect. Rather Abraham said: This is mine;in fact I can prove it by showing that I am more familiar with the well then other people. Such an analysis serves as a role model for future generation dialogs between Jews and non-Jews. Jews are encouraged in their assertions of ownership to both assert and defend their claims. Such presentations earn respect and yield results.

Advanced Rashi: We have left to clarify the inference method used by Rashi. Note that the
• words of the verses
• grammar of the verses
• comparison with other verses are all clear and require no resolution. The verses clearly state that by Avimelech taking the 7 sheep acknowledgement is given that Abraham dug these wells. What Rashi adds to this clear verse is a conjecture on the causal relationship between the taking and the acknowledgement of ownership. Rashi conjectures that the taking was a symbol of acknowledgement since his sheep were healthier because they were fed by the waters of the well whose ins and outs Abraham knew.

Such a conjecture of causal relationship on an otherwise clearly understood verse is classified by us as a Spreadsheet Rashi since spreadsheets are used to conjecture possible causes. The flavor of spreadsheet Rashis is very often a flavor of conjecture and subjectivity. Analysis of sources frequently shows alternate approaches.

Finally we make some comments on Rashi's literal language: Rashi: The waters of the well rose for these 7 sheep; hence taking them would acknowledge Abraham's ownership of them. We have interpreted well waters rose not literally but figuratively to indicate that Abraham knew the best time to water sheep--that is, he knew how to get the maximum water from the well. Such reinterpretations of Rashi are common. It is for this reason that one must focus on the underlying Rashi method before approaching Rashi.