Gn38-08a, presenting Judah's request to Onan to marry his sister-in-law after his brother, Er, died, states And Judah said to Onan, Go in to your brother?s wife, and yabem her, and raise up seed to your brother. Rashi clarifies the meaning of the underlined Hebrew word yabem by citing an other verse where this word is defined: Dt25-05:06 discussing the childless widow states If brothers live together, and one of them dies, and has no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry outside to a stranger; her husband?s brother shall yabem her, and take her to him for a wife, and perform the duty of a husband?s brother to her. And it shall be, that the firstborn which she bears shall succeed to the name of his brother who is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel. Using this other verse Rashi explains that the Hebrew term yabem refers to a marriage of a childless widow by a surviving brother-in-law in order to perpetuate the name of the deceased. Rashi concludes that a similar usage exists in Gn38-08a.

Advanced Rashi: Here the Bible uses a term, yibum that predates the actual creation of this procedure. Such foreshadowing is common in the Bible. For example Gn02-01:04 mentions that God sanctified the Sabbath, referring to the future Jewish custom of abstaining from work on the Sabbath and making the day a holy day. Such foreshadowing linguistically encourages respect for Biblical rituals.

Rashi had 10 methods to explain word meaning. The synonym method does not explain unknown meanings of words but rather takes words whose meaning is known and explains their nuances.

The Hebrew roots Daleth-Beth-Resh and Daleth-Beth-Hey both refer to speaking. The best English translation of Daleth-Beth-Hey is chatter or daily table talk. Here are a few examples
• Gn37-02 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, seventeen years old sheparded the flock with his brothers; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father?s wives; and Joseph chattered about them slanderously.
• Nu13-32 And the table chatter about the land [after the spy report] .... The land, through which we have gone to spy, is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature.
• P031-10:14 Pity me, Lord, for I am in distress; ... my eye is consumed with grief, my soul and my body.... For I hear the chatter of the masses; fear was on every side; while they took counsel together against me, they schemed to take away my life.

Today we explain a routine rule of Grammar, the construct rule. The underlined words in the following verse illustrates this: Gn37-31b states And they took
• Joseph?s coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped
• the coat in the blood;

Rashi comments
• The first reference to coat is a possessive reference and hence
  • in English the apostrophe s form is used, Joseph's coat,
  • while in Hebrew, the possessive form, KeToNetH.
• The second reference to coat is non-possesive and hence
  • in English the word coat is used
  • while in Hebrew the non-possesive form, KuToNeth is used.

Today all school children know how to conjugate the non-possesive vs. the possesive. However in Rashi's time no Grammar textbooks existed---all grammar books were scholarly and esoteric, not for the masses. Rashi through simple examples taught the masses basic concepts of Grammar.

Note the alignment of the underlined words in the following verses
• Verse Gn31-10a discussing Joseph's dreams states And he dreamed yet another dream,
• and told it his brothers, and said, Behold, I have again dreamed a dream; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.
• And he told it to his father, and to his brothers; and his father rebuked him, and said to him, What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow down ourselves to you to the earth?

Rashi comments on the aligned underlined passages:
• First he told it to his brothers
• Then he told it to both his brothers and also to his father

Sermonic points: Rashi paints the evolution of the family riff. First the charged emotions were only between Joseph and his brothers. Joseph sensed something was wrong. So he brought the matter up to the parental level. His father, sensing something wrong, also yelled at Joseph. However Joseph continued in his ways. He believed in himself even at the expense of his family which he subsequently loss for 13 years which he spent in slavery and a prison.

Such staging of riffs is common. People get many chances to change, repent and adjust. Joseph ignored all warnings, both at the parental and sibling level and payed for it.

Note the contradiction in the following verses.
• Verse Gn37-10 discussing Jacob's reaction to Joseph's dream of leadership and rule states And he told it to his father, and to his brothers; and his father yelled at him, and said to him, What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow down ourselves to you to the earth?
• Verse Gn37-11 also discussing Jacob's reaction to Joseph's dream of leadership and rule states And his brothers envied him; but his father watched / hoped for the matter.

We see the contradiction: Which is it? Was Jacob angry or hopeful. Was he yelling or watching the matter?

Rashi resolves this contradiction using the two-aspects method of resolution:
• Publicly Jacob yelled at Joseph so that Joseph should not arouse jealosy. But
• Privately Jacob watched the matter since he hoped Joseph would become a prophet.

Sermonic points: Here, Jacob, the patriarchal role model, shows us proper parental upbringing. The successful parent must strike a balance between caution and encouragement. Here Jacob rebukes Joseph for needlessly causing a charged atmosphere while at the same time showing silent watchfullness and encouragement to a young child's aspirations.

Gn39-02:03a forms a Biblical paragraph with a theme-detail-theme structure:
• Theme: And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.
• Detail: And his master saw that the Lord was with him,
• Theme: and that the Lord made all that he did successful

Rashi interprets the details of this paragraph, the Lord was wish him as illustrative of the theme of this paragraph, Joseph was successful. Hence Rashi interprets the paragraph to mean that Joseph was a successful God-fearing person.

Rashi takes this concept of a successful God fearing person and gives typical characteristics of the successful God fearing person: Such a person will for example attribute successes to God, such a person will frequently say Thank God etc. Hence the Rashi comment: God's name was frequently mentioned by Joseph.

It is important to understand what Rashi is, and is not, saying:
• Rashi is not identifying the verse God was with him to only mean that God's name was frequently mentioned.
• Rather Rashi should be perceived as painting a picture of the prototype successful God fearing man. For example, suppose a movie or TV maker wanted to introduce a successful God fearing man: What would that person look like when he first appears? One approach would be to introduce a character that mentions God alot (...this success is due to God....)
• Rashi would not deny other characteristics of the successful God-fearing man: For example, prayer for success, giving to charity etc.

Advanced Rashi: Many Rashi-ists approach Rashi solely thru grammatical and word-meaning methods. They totally ignore stylistic methods. They also ignore Rashi styles of indicating examples of interpretation vs. wholistic interpretation. We could have interpreted the above Rashi, God's name was frequently on his tongue as implied by the Biblical text God was with him meaning God's name was with him. However instead we chose to interpret this Rashi stylistically: Joe's success was the success of a God-fearing person. Rashi then gave examples of characteristics of the God fearing successful individual. If we interpret Rashi this way we are then justified in broadly extending Rashi to interpret the passage as indicating other characterics of the God-fearing successful person (Such as prayer and strategy). This seems to me, to be the proper approach to these passages and Rashis.

A modern author who wishes to indicate special emphasis to each item in a list uses bullets to indicate this emphasis. By bulleting the reader is asked to dwell for a moment on each list item and listen to its nuances. In my article Biblical Formatting to appear in the Jewish Bible Quarterly I have explained that when the Biblical Author wishes to indicate special emphasis on each member of a list, repeated keywords are used. The repeated keywords should be interpreted as the equivalent of a bulleted format. The following example illustrates this.

Verse Gn37-23a discussing the hatred of Joseph's brothers towards him states And it came to pass, when Joseph came to his brothers, that they stripped Joseph
• of his coat,
• of his multi-colored striped coat that was on him;

Rashi commenting on the bulleted structure indicated by the repeated underlined connective keyword, of states
• They stripped Joseph of his special multi-colored striped coat
• They also stripped Joseph of his ordinary clothes.

Sermonic points: Here Rashi interprets the bulleted list, indicated by the repeated underlined keyword, of, as emphasizing that both his special coat and his ordindary clothes were removed. Rashi does not go further as to what happened or why.

I would conjecture that Joseph's first dream, the farm bundle standing was interpreted spiritually by Joseph but physically by some of his brothers such as Shimon. These brothers did not see any prophetic spiritual content in Joseph's dreams. Hence they stripped him to get him to admit to the physical interpretation of the dream.

Because of the degradation Joseph suffered he was sold as a slave. And because he was sold as a slave the entire Jewish people were enslaved. Slavery is simply an emphasis on the physical and de-emphasis on the spiritual. The Jews were redeemed when they admitted and recognized spiritual prophecy. Hence we can see the Egyptian exile as a punishment for denying the prophetic nature of Joseph's dreams. There are in fact later authorities (Acharonim) who interpret the Egyptian slavery experience as a punishment for the treatment of Joseph.

We could also further this point by interpreting God's requirement to Abraham, that the Jews live in a strange land for 400 years as a logical statement that if Abraham wanted to be father of a prophetic people then eventually some people would interpret these prophecies physically and as a consequence these people would be punished with the Egyptian exile until such time that they would beg God for the redemption of prophecy.

We have only sketched the ideas above. Although the ideas are speculative they are consistent with the emphasis of Rashi that Joseph was totally stripped. It would seem there was serious argument between Joseph and some of his brothers whether dreams are prophetic or physical and as a punishment for the degradation that Joseph received, the Jews were enslaved for 400 years.

Finally, this verse nicely illustrates the potential in even small and superficially minor Rashis to evoke serious philosophical discussion.

Rashi will frequentlly make a comment by making broad database inquiries. A database inquiry is simply a question addressed to a large databank---typically a large collection of verses. Thus database methods typically span many diverse verses.

In todays query we ask When one person excels in a group how does the Bible record the history of the group/person?

The answer we find is that
• The Bible at least mentions everyone in the group--typically for only a verse or two
• By contrast, the Bible devotes alot of text to the person who excels

Rashi brings the following examples
• Gn05, Gn06 record the 10 generations from Adam to Noach. Each generation has 3 verses. But the story of Noach has many verses. Here Noach is indicated as excelling in the group since he is declared as rigtheous in his generation (Gn06-09).
• Gn11, Gn12 record the 10 generations from Noach to Abraham. These generations typically have 3 verses each. But the story of Abraham has many verses. Here Abraham excels as walking in God's ways.
• Gn36, Gn37 record the genealogies and history of Esauv and Jacob. The genealogies and history of Esauv are terse; whole stories are often only hinted at in a few verses; but the genealogies and stories of Jacob are dealt with in many verses. Here Jacob excels as one of the Patriarchs.

Advanced Rashi:The above examples were brought by Rashi. To these examples I supplement the following further examples.
• Nu07 and Nu08 describe the gifts at the consecration of the Wilderness Temple. The gifts of each of the tribes occupies 6 verses. The contribution of Aaron occupies a whole chapter. Here Aaron excels as the High Priest.
• 1C01 thru 1C12 deal quickly with all of human history to King David's time. By contrast 1C13 thru 1C17 are slow paced, describing the beginning of the centralization of temple worship under King David's reign. Here King David excelled.

This approach, of taking Rashi's basic method, database queries, and supplementing Rashi's examples with one's own examples, is exemplary of superior study of Rashi. We encourage all students of Rashi to attempt commentary extension since it is an enriching interpretive experience.

Verse Gn37-31a discussing the cover-up of the sale of Joseph states And they took Joseph?s coat, and killed a goat's kid, and dipped the coat in the blood; Rashi comments: They chose a goat's kid because goat's blood resembles human blood. Consequently by dipping Joseph's coat in blood they made it reasonably appear that Joseph had been murdered.

Rashi here, does not comment on
• the meaning of words
• grammatical niceties
• comparisons with other verses
Rather Rashi simply gives background material to enrich the text. The background material does not however come from other verses, grammar or word meanings. When Rashi's comment give background material we say Rashi uses the spreadsheet method since spreadsheets are a good example of meaningful commentary that emanates from non-verse methods.

Advanced Rashi: The above Rashi comment can be enriched by noting that Jacob was a master shepard. Jacob was undoubtedly familiar with wolf and sheep blood. Indeed, he frequently lost sheep to hunting animals. He would detect a subterfuge! Therefore the cover up had to be perfect. The brothers therefore chose goat's blood since it highly resembles human blood.

Today we show how Rashi interprets a dream symbolically. In interpreting this Rashi we follow the skillful symbolic methods of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. Rabbi Hirsch explains that a good symbolic interpretation typically has a single theme which when developed interprets the whole dream.

Gn40-09:12 describes the dream of the chief butler And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold,
• a vine was before me;
• And in the vine were three branches;
• and it was as though it budded,
• and its blossoms shot forth;
• and its clusters brought forth ripe grapes;
• And Pharaoh?s cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh?s cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh?s hand.

Rashi introduces the central theme
• three branches = three days

Using this central theme the remainder of the symbolic interpretation naturally flows:
• a vine was before me; [ I was entangled in a mess]
• And in the vine were three branches; [The mess will be resolved in three days]
• and it was as though it budded, [The salvation begings to bud now]
• and its blossoms shot forth; [At the end of the 3 days I will fully blossom into freedom]
• and its clusters brought forth ripe grapes; [I will get my butler job back]
• And Pharaoh?s cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh?s cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh?s hand. [I will even be working for my old boss, Pharoh, again]

Sermonic points: We see how even in prison Joseph remained loyal to the spiritual prophetic interpretation of prophecy. Here in prison where people very often degenerate into physical beings, we see the divergence between Joseph and Shimon intensify: Joseph as a bratty teenager believed in the spiritual nature of dreams; and now in as a prisoned adult he tenaciously held to this belief. And indeed, it was this belief, the belief in the spiritual prophetic nature of dreams, that ultimately redeemed him.