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.

Verse Gn48-16a, presenting Jacob's blessings to his grandchildren, states The angel who redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth Rashi clarifies the meaning of the underlined phrase, the angel who redeemed me... by cross-referencing another verse Gn31-07:12 presenting the angelic salvation of Jacob from Laban. Verse Gn31-07:12 states And your father has deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God did not allow him to hurt me. If he said thus, The speckled shall be your wages; then all the cattle bore speckled; ... And the angel of God spoke to me in a dream, saying, ... Lift up now your eyes, and see, all the rams which leap upon the sheep are ...speckled... for I have seen all that Laban does to you. Consequently, Gn31-07:12 clarifies with further details that the phrase the angel who redeemed me... in Gn48-16 references the angel who saved Jacob from Laban.

Sermonic Points: Jacob here introduces a well known idea: Blessings (and exhortations) are more meaningful and more likely to be accepted when accompanied by precedent. Jacob did not just bless his children that they should be saved by an angel. Rather he said "Just as an angel saved me when I was in trouble so too will angels save you when you are in trouble." By using precedents Jacob transformed an abstract idea of redemption into something concrete that his grandchildren could relate to.

Today we explore how conjugations can transform the word meanings of common nouns into the typical activities associated with the objects named by these nouns. Some common examples are
• to flower, refers to the activity of producing new flowers;
• to hammer, refers to the typical activity done with a hammer;
• to dust, refers to the activity of removing dust;
• to insectify, swarming and producing many children [Rashi: Ex01-07a]
• to fish-ify, producing a school of many children. [Rashi: Gn48-16c]

Advanced Rashi: Rashi goes further and deeper into these nuances. For example Rashi points out that Fish live in water where they are protected from the natural disasters of the elements such as excessive heat and storms. My goal in this digest is to explain the basic idea of Rashi. Advanced Rashi-ists can (and should) always find further and deeper nuances to the Rashi text.

A rather interesting advanced Rashi point is the classical explanation of the Rashi on Ex01-07a which states: the Jews insectified. Rashi comments: Insectify: This means they produced 6 children at a time. The advanced Rashi-ists claim that Rashi derived the number 6 from the 6 verbs and adverbs occurring in Ex01-07a: the Jews were very, very, fruitful, insectified, multiplied, became-hugh. I think this association of 6 verb-adverbs with 6 children per woman is fanciful and not rule-based. I prefer a conceptual approach to Rashi: The word insectify means swarming with children like insects. Since the maximum number of births is 6 Rashi illustrated this idea using 6. The advantage of using my proposed explanation of Rashi is that it is rule-based and reproducable--it allows the serious student of Rashi to apply similar techniques in other contexts.

Today we explain a routine miscellaneous rule of Grammar, the elliptical (unknown) pronoun referent.

Verses Gn48-01:02 states And it came to pass after these things, that someone told Joseph, Behold, your father is sick; and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. And someone told Jacob, and said, Behold, your son Joseph comes to you; and Israel strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed. Similarly verse ex10-11c states Not so, go now you who are men, and serve the Lord; for that is what you desire. and someone drove them out from Pharaoh’s presence.

The Rashi comments are underlined in the above translation. The Hebrew verbs used traditionally mean he told or he drove.. Rashi interprets the pronoun he as referring to an unknown referrent. In English this would be indicated by the word someone which we have used in translating the above texts. Rashi's point is that the pronoun does refer to someone but we don't know to whom it refers.

Note the alignment of the underlined words in the following verses
• Verse Gn48-05a discussing how Ephraim and Menasheh were given tribal status states
  • And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt until I came to you to Egypt,
  • are mine;
  • as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine.
• while verse Gn48-06a discussing how Joseph's other children would not achieve tribal status states
  • And your issue, born to you after them,
  • shall be yours,
  • and shall be called after the name of their brothers in their inheritance.

Rashi comments on the aligned underlined passages:
• The 2 children, Ephramim and Menasheh, born from the time Joseph left his father's house (at age 17) until Jacob reunited with Joseph in Egypt (at age 32) would have tribal status, that is, they would each be a tribe, like Jacob's other children, and have a separate plot of land in Israel; by contrast
• the children born to Joseph after them would not be separate tribes but would join the Ephraim and Menasheh tribes and inherit Israel with them (But not separately).

Sermonic points: There are always conservatives who will tell us that society is fixed, the way of the world is fixed and even the kingdom of God is fixed with no room for change. "Not so," says the Bible. After the 12 tribes were fixed Jacob allowed the creation of new tribes. Here we see that God himself allows change as He chariots down the path of history. Perhaps we too should be more flexible!

Note the contradiction in the following verses.
• Verse Gn40-05:07 discussing Jacob's curse of Shimon and Levi for attempting to murder Joseph, states Simeon and Levi are brothers; instruments of cruelty are their swords. O my soul, do not come into their council; to their assembly, let my honor not be united; for in their anger they slew a man, and in their wanton will they lamed an ox. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel; I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.
• Verse Gn50-16:17 discussing Jacob's request for Joseph to forgive Shimon, states And they sent a messenger to Joseph, saying, Your father did command before he died, saying, So shall you say to Joseph, Forgive, I beg you now, the trespass of your brothers, and their sin; for they did to you evil; and now, we beg you, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father. And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.

We see the contradiction: Which is it? Were Shimon and Levi's attempted murder of Joseph sufficiently evil to warrant them being cursed or should Joseph overlook it and forgive them.

Rashi resolves this using the broad-literal method of resolution.
• The curse was true and deserved
• The request for forgiveness was a lie fabricated by the brothers to achieve peace.

Note that in a paradoxical manner Rashi resolves the contradiction by saying it was there but intended in order to preserve peacae.

Sermonic points: This Rashi motivates the well known Talmudic statement It is permissable, or even obligatory, to lie for the sake of peace. We infer this from the lie of Joseph's brothers ordering Joseph to forgive Shimon for his attempted murder.

BIblical verses Gn50-12:13 forms a Biblical paragraph with a theme-detail structure:
• And his sons did to him according as he commanded them;
• [For] his sons carried him to the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a burying place of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.

Rashi comments: The two sentences form one paragraph. That is the statement in the theme sentence and his sons did to him according as he commanded them refers to the details mentioned in the second sentence his sons carried himm to Canaan and buried him.

The Davka English translation facilitates this Rashi interpretation by inserting the underlined, subordinating conjunction, for which explicitly connects the two sentences. The use of such punchy textual interpolations hi-lighting Rashi translations was first advocated in my article Peshat and Derash.

Sermonic points: We again see the sermonic point that Judaism does not believe in fixed structure. Just as Jacob abrogated the 12 tribes to add Menasheh and Ephron so too, here, Jacob abrogates the superiority of the eldest in favor of a more deserving younger son.

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 appearing 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 Gn49-06a presenting Jacob's curse of Shimon and Levi states
• To their council / advice let my soul not come
• To their [mob-like] gatherings, let my honor not be united; ....
for in their anger they slew a man, and in their wanton they attempted to castrate an ox.

Rashi identifies the bulleted structure indicated by the repeated underlined connective keyword, to their...let as referring to disassociation with Shimon in two types of attacks:
• Jacob cursed their non-violent attacks--for example the Simonian public sex act with a Midyanite (Nu25-06) is a non-violent intellectual attack on Moses' marriage to a Midyanite
• Jacob cursed their mob-like attacks--for example their attempt to murder and castrate Joseph (Gn37-20,28) who is compared to an ox (Dt33-17)

Advanced Rashi: Several clarifying comments should be made on our approach to Rashi.
• The verse speaks about slaying a man...castrating an ox. Rashi himself presents two possible interpretations: a) This refers to the destruction of the city of Schem or b) This refers to the murder of Joseph. We have followed the latter interpretation. However the Rashis on Gn49-06 could be equally interpreted using the 1st interpretation.
• Rashi uses the Nu25-06 public sex act as an example of advice/council -- intellectual, non-violent attacks. Similarly Rashi uses either the destruction of Schem or the attempted murder of Joseph as examples of mob like attacks. At first glance it seems arbitrary to interpret Gn49-06 as referring to these 2-3 specific incidents. But we have explained several times in this NewsLetter that Rashi should be interpreted as giving typical examples of the meaning of a verse rather than exhausting the verse's meaning. With this perspective the Rashi becomes more palatable -- the bulleted list describes curses of Shimon's intellectual and physical attacks of which the attempted murder of Joseph and the public sex act are two good picturesque examples.

In todays query we ask: How are oaths taken?

Upon gathering verses with oaths we find that oaths are frequently accompanied with a symbolic affirmation of the oath. The following table exhibits several examples.

======================================================================
VERSES     OATH FOR               SYMBOLICALLY AFFIRMED BY
========== ====================== ====================================
Gn26-30:31 Peace treaty           Party between Jacob/Avimelech
Gn31-52:53 Separation of Jcb/Lbn  Erection of stone wall
Gn21-30:31 Recognize ownership    Accept gift fed by owned well    
Gn24-02    Power of attorney      Surrender of hand to someone's power
Gn47-29c   Power of attorney      Surrender of hand to someone's power
======================================================================

In the last two examples the verse speaks about placing the hand under the thigh. Here the hand symbolizes ones actions while the thigh which comes from the Hebrew root Shin-Kuph symbolizes power (shin kuph also means galloping horses.) Hence an oath to do an action for someone (power of attorney) can be symbolically affirmed by placing ones hand under someone's thigh.

Advanced Rashi: Rashi on Gn47-29c, please place your hands under my thigh, comments, An oath. We have supplemented this Rashi by explaining that the database query is the driving force of the Rashi interpretation. That is, the Rashi comment does not come from word meaning, grammar or even symbolic methods. In fact, alternative symbolic interpretations are provided elsewhere by Rashi. Rather the Rashi comment comes from the database query.

Verse Gn49-22 is one of those delightful verses where each word has two meanings and furthermore the disparate meanings in a wonderous almost Divine manner, consistently combine. Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall;

Rashi notes that
• The Hebrew word Pay-Resh-Hey,fruitful, can, in both Hebrew and English, mean
  • bearing alot of fruit / offspring
  • a fruitful idea
• The Hebrew word Beth-Nun can equally mean
  • a son
  • a vine, the son of a branch of a tree
• The English word well with its shimmering water can equally mean
  • the shimmering reality of the dream world.
  • the shimmering emotions of love-making. Note especially how
    • The circular well is a female symbol
    • The upright bough is a male symbol
    • The shimmering water resembles the emotions of love-making

Hence the exquisitely balanced dual interpretation of Gn49-22.
• Joseph is a son with fruitful interpretations of shimmering dreams
• Joseph reproduces; he is as fruitful as a plant bough; his fruitfullness is based on on excellence in the shimmering emotions of love.

This week's parshah does not contain examples of the spreadsheet method. This concludes this weeks edition. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples.