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Their presence in Rashis on Parshat VaYiGaSh Vol 8, # 10 - Adapted from Rashi-is-Simple Visit the RashiYomi website: http://www.Rashiyomi.com/ (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, Dec - 13, - 2007 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 Gn44-19a discussing Judah's account of Joseph's interrogation states My lord asked his servants, saying: Have ye a father, or a brother? Rashi notes The underlined words, My lord asked his servants references verse Gn42-07 which explicitly states that Joseph's interrogation was not routine, but intended to harass.
Students of Rashi must bear in mind that Rashi could sometimes use universal principles applicable in all languages. This particularly applies to the meaning methods.
Verses Gn46-29b discussing Jacob's journey to meet Joseph after 22 years states And he sent Judah before him unto Joseph, to instruct before him towards Goshen; and they came into the land of Goshen. Rashi explains: Instruct always occurs either as a non-transitive verb, to instruct, (e.g. Mi03-10) or as a verb with direct object: to instruct so and so (e.g. Dt33-10, Ex44-33, Dt24-08). The construction instruct before him towards Goshen is new. We interpret this as coining a verb from a verb: The phrase instruct before him towards Goshen means to create guidance material for Jacob about Goshen. Here we have taken the verb to instruct and converted it to another verb create guidance materials. Rashi also suggests the possibility of create a guidance institution, a Yeshiva. Advanced Rashi: First we ask: Why can't Rashi simply interpret Judah was asked to guide Jacob on the path towards Egypt - sketch a path and protect him from robbers? The answer to this is simple: As shown by the verses cited above, the Hebrew root in question always refers to teaching, intellectual guidance, it never refers to plotting a path. A second issue is that Rashi states literally both Judah was asked to instruct Jacob on how to live in Goshen --- Judah created a Yeshiva (Institution of learning) for Jacob. My approach to this Rashi is to see it as part of spectrum of preparations of guidance when coming to a new place. When you come to a new place most people want to know a) the social norms of the place, b) how you can satisfy your own norms in this new setting, c) what contributions you can make in interacting with the place. Hence I have expanded Rashi's two interpretations Judah gave guidance on how to live in Goshen - Judah made an institution of higher learning to include an entire spectrum of guidances. Perhaps Judah simply made papers and brochures about the new place. Perhaps he went further and enabled Jacob to spread his unique style of ethics. To defend Rashi's statement about the creation of a Yeshiva, recall that Abraham and Jacob were shepards. The Bible relates how Abraham's shepards fought with Lot's shepards. The Bible also relates how Jacob created the idea of protective huts for animals (who before him were left out in the cold). Jacob also created honest ways of dealing with manipulative people like his father-in-law. In simple terms Abraham and Jacob developed laws governing commercial interpersonal interactions. These laws were ethical in nature and created a socially pleasant work environment. Jacob undoubtedly won fame from his methods and sent Judah, who himself was an accomplished businessman, to create the possibility of continuing his methods of ethical dissemination. By interpreting the Rashi comments broadly we don't negate the Rashi but supplement and enrich it with added insight.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses in Gn44-20a, Gn42-12 Both verses discuss Joseph's status. The alignment justifies the Rashi assertion that It was unknown what happened to Joseph. But Judah lied and said he was dead because he was afraid if he said he was not to be found that they would demand Joseph be found.
Advanced Rashi: We could perhaps also classify this Rashi as using the contradiction rule. Both approaches yield the same result.
The table below presents presents two contradictory verselets. Both verselets speak about the relationship of Pharoh to his Egyptian subjects The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verselet says And they said: 'Thou hast saved our lives. Let us find favour in the sight of my lord, while the other verselet states we will be Pharaoh's slaves.' ' Which is it? Were they saved and happy about their new plight or were they becoming slaves (Slaves to not have a high mortality rate--you don't save somebody by making them your slave). Rashi simply resolves this using the broad-literal method: Recall that the Egyptians were totally helpless and pawned all their goods and themselves for food. Pharoh literally owned them. He could have done whatever he wanted with them. But instead he gave them back their land, on a rental basis, and only charged them 20% of yield (as tax). Hence the people were grateful that despite their official slave status Pharoh only wanted money and only 20%.
Certain Biblical paragraphs are stated in a Theme-Development form. In other words a broad general idea is stated first followed by the development of this broad general theme in specific details. The Theme-Detail form creates a unified paragraph. The style rule requires that we interpret the general theme with special focus on the attributes of the illustrative detail selected. Today's example illustrates this as shown below.
Advanced Rashi: From time to time I am challenged whether the Rabbi Ishmael Style rules can be applied to non-legal passages. I think the present example shows the great simplicity of interpretation that results from such an application.
We have explained in our article Biblical Formatting located on the world wide web at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/biblicalformatting.pdf, that the Biblical Author indicated bullets by using repeating keywords. That is, if a modern author wanted to get a point across using bullets - a list of similar but contrastive items - then the Biblical Author would use repeating keywords. Today's verse illustrates this principle.
The bulleted structure indicated by the repeating keyword heard creates a parallel structure. Rashi explains: Egypt menotomycally refers to the Egyptian people. Similarly Pharoh's household refers, not only to his family, but to his staff. In presenting this Rashi we have used the universal metonomy principle which states that an item can refer to things closely related to it. A classical example of metonomy is using a national land, like Egypt to refer to its people, the Egyptians. Sermonic Points: Rashi has a subtle emotional point. It wasn't just Pharoh and his family that took a liking to Joseph. Even Pharoh's staff, the maids, butlers and other personel, who do their work, pick up their paycheck and go home, they also were genuinely happy that the slave boy who made it good was finally reunited with his family whom he hadn't seen in ages. We tend to think of Egypt as a structured society, people without emotions, where everyone fit into a slot. Here we see the emotional aspect of the Egyptians. They were ordinary people who had empathy for family-type events in other nationals. (The actual degradation and slavery that developed happened several 100 years later and then too, as related in the Bible, the individual Egyptians empathically felt for the Jews).
Rashi observes that Geographically, Israel is perceived on top of the world; Consequently verses always speak about going up to Israel vs. going down from Israel. The verses listed below exemplify this usage. We have classified this as the geometric method since Rashi clarifies the meaning of a word using diagrams.
Note that in the last example we supplement our basic thesis that the word up is used when going to Israel while down is used when going from Israel by extending the up-down metaphor for journey to or from Jerusalem relative to the rest of Israel. Sermonic Points: Traditionally up symbolizes heavenly maters while down symbolizes hellish earthly matters. This symbolism is valid in all languages. By associating Israel and Jerusalem with up the Bible symbolically affirms Israel's spiritual values.
Acknowledgement: The following is a repeat from last week. While in Phoenix last week a sharp question was asked to me: But Pharoh's magicians also interpreted the dream using the seven motif. What was the superiority of Joseph's interpretation. The answer is that besides using the seven motif Joseph also paid complete attention to all the other details of the dream. Verse Gn41-02a describing Pharoh's dream states And, behold, there came up out of the river seven cows, well-favoured and fat-fleshed; and they fed in the reed-grass.
Advanced Rashi: The Midrash Rabbah points out that Pharoh's magicians interpreted the dreams to mean e.g. You will marry off 7 daughters [cows=women] and then bury 7 daughters or you will conquer 7 lands [land = wheat] and you will lose 7 lands. Such interpretations only interpret the number 7. They also interpret individual symbols such as cows = women and wheat = land. However they failed to interpret the indicated dream relationship between the lean and fat cows/wheat: the lean cows/wheat devoured the fat cows/wheat. Joseph, in addition to using the motific method also fully interpreted all aspects and details of the dream. The devouring of the thin cows/wheat by the fat cows/wheat symbolizes emotional devouring of the good emotions of the saiety years by the bad emotions of the famine years. Sermonic points: There is a subtlety here we may overlook. Egypt is associated with slavery and carefully defined social strata. But here we see the very democratic idea of judging a person / worker by knowledge skills and abilities. Joseph had expertise in number symbolism and got a typical 'American-type' job promotion, from prisoner to Vice President, because of his expertise.
Conclusion
This week's parshah contains examples of all Rashi methods. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||