Verses Lv09-01:02 describing the Priestly inauguration offering states And he said to Aaron, Take a one year old calf for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering, without blemish, and offer them before the Lord. Rashi Lv09-07d explains that As the underlined words indicate the word calf generally means an ox of age 1 (strictly under 2).

Advanced Rashi: The astute reader will recognize this Rashi as one of the famous hermeunetical rules of Rabbi Ishmael: If some class [e.g. the class of calfs] has an anomaly [e.g. one verse speaks about one-year calfs] then that anomaly [e.g. the fact that calfs must be one year old] applies to the whole class [e.g. all calfs must be one year] and not only to that case [e.g. in other words it is not just the priest-inaugral calf that must be one year but all calfs generally must be one year].

I have in my Rashi classes explained this Rabbi Ishmael principle more thoroughly as follows:
1. We all know the heuristic that calfs are young oxen
2. However we don't know how young
3. So if the above two criteria are met
   • We have a general idea
   • but we don't have details
   then we may generalize a specific verse to all cases assuming there are no verses contradicting our generalization.

Note the Davka translation renders the above verse young calf thereby avoiding the literal Biblical text which states one year old calf. We see here the superiority of the Hebrew text as understood by Rashi over even a good English translations.

Verse Lv06-02b states Usually a fountain or a pit-a gathering of water, shall be ritually pure; but that which touches their carcass shall be ritually impure. Rashi, commenting on the word usually expounds: Fountains and pits usually confer ritual purity - when they are part of the ground. [But a movable water tank even if it had the prerequisite size would not confer ritual purity.]

Advanced Rashi: The official Talmudic rule used by Rashi is that The Hebrew Aleph Caph connotes limitation and hence Rashi limits the verse's applicability to ground pits and fountains.

One of Rashi's grammar methods deals with the rules of paragraph development. Rashi new of 3 methods by means of which consecutive paragraphs can be juxtaposed The consecutive paragraphs can indicate
• cause-effect or enablement
• contrasting themes
• examples of a unifying theme.

We apply this juxtaposition principle to the two Biblical paragraphs Lv10-01:07, Lv10-08:11
• Death of Aaron's sons (Lv10-01:07): And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took each of them his censer, and put fire in it, and put incense on it, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. ...
• Prohibition of Priest's drinking wine (Lv10-08:11): And the Lord spoke to Aaron, saying, Do not drink wine nor strong drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the Tent of Meeting, lest you die; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations; ...
Hence the simple Rashi explaning the juxtaposition of the priestly deaths and wine prohibition: Aaron's sons offered improper incense because they were drunk. Hence God forbade drinking by priests to prevent a repetition of such errors.

Advanced Rashi: Notice that this Rashi is the simple intended meaning of the text - it is not a fanciful homily. The Rashi does not emanate from a punchy translation or the nuance of a grammatical form. Nevertheless, a Rashi based on paragraph juxtaposition is as intrinsic to the Biblical text as Rashis based on translations. However the juxtaposition Rashis have a different flavor then translation and conjugation Rashis.

The following three verses all discuss the same waiving procedure by the Priest. Note the alternation in the underlined phrases:
• Verse Lv07-30a states His own hands shall bring the offerings of the Lord made by fire, the fat on the breast, he shall bring it, that the breast may be waved for a wave offering before the Lord.
• Verse Lv10-15b states The offered shoulder and the waved breast shall they bring on the offerings made by fire of the fat, to wave it for a wave offering before the Lord; and it shall be yours, and your sons? with you, by a statute forever; as the Lord has commanded.
• Verse Lv09-20a states And they put the fat on the breasts, and he burned the fat upon the altar;

Rashi comments on the alternation fat on breast vs. breast on fat: As can be clearly seen from the underlined alternations three different people are involved in the offering and each one holds the offering differently
• the owner brings the fat of the animal on the breast (So the fat is above and the breast is below)
• the receiving priest who receives the offered items from the offerer performs the waiving ceremony mentioned in the Bible with the breast on top on the fat on bottom. The waiving priest delivers the offered items to the offering priest - that is, the priest who offers these items on the altar.
• The offering priest has the fat on top on the breast on bottom.

Advanced Rashi: The above Rashi based on a very delicate, but real, alignment introduces many novel ideas about simple vs homiletic meaning. On the one hand the primary intention of the text is not to tell us about 3 players in the offering procedure - rather the primary intention of the text is to tell us about the offering itself. But the aligned language of the text clearly exposes and forces us to infer that there are 3 players - owner, receiving priest who waives, offering priest - who offers the offering.

Note the contradiction in the following two verses, each discussing the death of Aaron's children:
• Verse Lv10-02 states And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.
• But verse Lv10-05 states So they went near, and carried them in their coats out of the camp; as Moses had said.

We see the contradiction, indicated by the underlined words. Which is it? Did they die by fire as the verse says? Or did they die by some other means clearly implied by the non-burning of their coats?

Rashi resolves this contradiction using the broad-literal meaning method. They died by a fire which
• burns souls
• but does not burn physical objects like clothes
I would simply suggest that God appeared to them prophetically in a fire vision and the vision killed them (Since it overwhelmed them with the guilt of what they had done).

Biblical verse Lv10-06 discussing the mourning required for the death of Nadav and Avihu, Aaron's sons, states And Moses said to Aaron, and to Eleazar and to Ithamar, his sons, ... but let your brothers, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord has kindled. Rashi generalizes this verse: Just as all Jews had to mourn the deaths of Nadav and Avihu so too must all Jews mourn the deaths of any scholar.

Advanced Rashi: Note the temptation to understand Rashi in terms of word nuances: The verse does not say mourn Nadav and Avihu but rather says mourn the burning implying that we should mourn for any scholar. However I don't see the word burned as implying all scholars. Furthermore according to Rashi in Pesachim 6b we are obligated to generalize all verses anyway. Hence I see the generalization approach that we have adopted in this list to be adequate to explain Rashi. Consequently, I would read the verse using an elliptical insert as follows: mourn the burning [of Nadav and Avihu]. We then infer by generalization that this obligation of mourning applies to all scholars.

This explanation is repeated from last week. Some readers complained that the explanation wasn't punchy enough nor to the point. So we retranslate the verse in a punchier manner.