Verse
Ex03-18c,
discussing Moses request for the Jews
to go and celebrate a holiday
states
And the Jews shall listen to your voice;
and you,Moses, and the Jewish elders shall come, to the king of Egypt,
and you shall say to him, The Lord God of the Hebrews has accidented us;
and now let us plesae go away for a three days? journey into the wilderness,
that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.
.
This verse uses the strange underlined term, accidented,
which does not make sense here. Rashi clarifies this unusual
term
by cross-referencing another verse
Nu23-03
presenting Bilam's attempt to achieve prophetic communication
to help Moab:
And Balaam said to Balak, Stand by your burnt offering, and I will go;
perhaps the Lord will accident me; and whatever he shows me I will tell you. And he went to a high place.
Hence the Rashi comment: To accident can mean (in
the appropriate context) to receive a prophecy.
Sermonic and Advanced Points:
Rashi describes but does not explain why: Why is
prophecy called accident. Insight is provided by the
revelation at the decalogue in Ex19,Ex20. There we see prophecy
compared to confrontation with fire. Prophecy very often opens
up dimensions of reality we were not aware of--it is sudden, abrupt
and confrontational. Hence the use of fire symbolizing a burning
revelation. The term accident also connotes something sudden,
abrupt and unexpected.
Rashi goes a step further. Comparing the language used for prophecy
in Lv01-01 vs. Nu23-03 Rashi comments: Jewish
prophecy is termed God calls while non-Jewish prophecy is
termed God accidents. The non-Jew sees the prophetic
content as shocking and abrupt while the Jew is prepared for the
prophecy by a calling by God which orients the prophet mentally
to prepare for the unexpected.
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.
Verse Ex02-05c states
And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river;
and her maidens walked along by the river?s side;
and when she saw the ark among the reeds,
she sent her maid to fetch it.
Rashi notes the sudden shift in the underlined words
from singular to plural. Hence
the Rashi comment (with added explanation):
Pharoh, her father had issued a death decree on the Jewish babies.
So his daughter couldn't take the risk of allowing any maid to take
the baby since word would leak back to her father. Instead she sent
her personal maid, the one who was always in attendance on her.
The verse indicates this by the shift in plurality: The maidens
walked along the river but she sent her maid to fetch it.
Advanced Rashi and sermonic points:
Rav Hirsch points out that despite Pharoh's decree the Egypitan
people were not blood thirsty and didn't really care to participate
in the mass murder. Here we see Pharoh's own daughter violating his
decree and conspiring with the child's Jewish mother.
This has relevance for us today. Bad decrees very often emanate
from rulers; the masses however may be sympathetic to Jewish causes.
This allows formation of an underground that can help Jewish causes.
The Jews have frequently exploited this in their various struggles.
Rashi's literal language is as follows:
The verse refers to Pharoh's daughter's maiden. However the
Talmudic Rabbis referred it to her personal hand which stretched
forward several feet to save the baby.
I would interpret personal hand to mean her personal handmaid.
I would interpret stretched several feet to mean that Pharoh's daughter
carried a royal sceptre by which decrees can be made. We find such a sceptre
referred to by Achashveirosh who stretched forth his sceptre to prevent
his protective service from killing queen Vashti Es05-02. I would
apply this concept here also. Pharoh's daughter strecthed forth her sceptre
several feet and prohibited termination of the baby. The stretching forth
of her sceptre is picturesquely referred to by Rashi as stretching forth
her hand.
Thus, although the literal interpretation of this Rashi appears difficult,
I believe that Rashi expresses the simple meaning of the text. We have arrived
at this simple meaning using the single-plural distinction and by
using well known idioms. Thus we interpreted her hand the same as
the English her right hand indicating her personal handmaid.
Similarly we have interpreted stretched forth her hand as stretched
forth her sceptre. Finally a review of the 6 times that the Hebrew word
Stretched occurs in the Talmud justifies interpreting this word not
as a physical stretching but as an extension of authority.
Consequently I consider this Rashi interpretation an ideal way to approach
all Rashis.
In todays query we ask:
Does the Bible name events by future incidents connected with that event?
We find many verses where items and events are named by future
events. Some of them are presented in the table below. The interpretations
of each list item are indicated in the accompanying footnotes.
=================================================================
VERSE NAMED/DESIGNATED FOR FUTURE EVENT FUTURE EVENT
======== =========================================== ============
Gn01-14e Moon designated for holidays Ex12-02*1
Gn07-02a Take 7 Kosher animals Lv11*2
Gn02-14c Rivers surrounded KUSH & ASSHUR Gn10-07:11*3
Gn14-07b ...the AMALAYK field Gn36-12*4*
Ex03-01b Mountain of God Ex19-18*6
NOTES
-----
*1 In other words, Gn01-14 refers to the moon as being
used for the holidays. Yet we don't find the moon being the
basis for holidays until much later in history (See Ex12-01. )
*2 God tells Noach (Gn07-02) to take 7 Kosher animals.
But the classification of animals as Kosher or non Kosher does
not occur till much later in history after the exodus (Lv11)
*3 During the paradise story the rivers are described as surrounding
Kush and Asshur,countries which did not exist for several hundred
ears since the founders of these countries were descendants of Noach.
*4 Gn14-07 written in Abraham's time describes the Amalayk
field. Yet Amalyak was not born till much later (See Gn36-12).
*5 Ex03-01 describes Moses sheparding at the mountain of God.
But Mount Sinai was not called the mountain of God till God
revealed himself on it which happened at a later date (Ex19-18)
=================================================================
Sermonic points:
The obvious sermonic point is that the Bible is a book about prophecy
and hence future events are frequently forshadowed.