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Their presence in Rashis on Parshat VaYeChi Vol 8, # 11 - Adapted from Rashi-is-Simple Visit the RashiYomi website: http://www.Rashiyomi.com/ (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, Dec - 20, - 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 Ho10-15 - Ho11-01:03 discussing the rebellion of the Israelite kingdom against God states So shall Beth-El do to you because of your great wickedness; at dawn shall the king of Israel be cut off completely. When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. As they called them, so they went from them; they sacrificed to the Baalim, and burned incense to carved idols. I gentled Ephraim, taking him on his arms; but they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; and I was to them like those who take off the yoke from their jaws, and I laid food to them. In this passage the bolded words, Beth-El and Ephraim refer to Israelite Kingdom [its capital is Beth-El and its monarch comes from the tribe of Ephraim.] Rashi notes The underlined words, gentled Ephraim, taking him on his arms references and puns verse Gn48-09b which creates an analogy God:Jacob:Ephraim::God:Moses:Ephraim-Israelite-Kingdom. In fact Gn48-09,13,20 states And Joseph said to his father, They are my sons, whom God has given me in this place. And he said, Bring them, I beg you, to me, and I will bless them...Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel?s left hand... And he blessed them that day, saying, By you [as a model] shall Israel bless, saying, God make you as Ephraim
Advanced Rashi: There is an interesting twist: Typically Rashi explains the current verse in light of another verse while today Rashi explains another verse using the current verse. Note: Rashi has not deviated from the simple meaning of the Hosean verse. Rather Rashi correctly points out that the language chosen conjurs overlaying images of grandpa Jacob taking Ephraim and blessing him as an analogy to the gentle treatment that God had given Ephraim (and for which they are being punished for double crossing God). In other words Rashi sees pun nuances in the Hosean verses and defends this perspective using references.
When Rashi uses, what we may losely call, the hononym method, Rashi does not explain new meaning but rather shows an underlying unity in disparate meanings. Rashi will frequentlyl do this by showing an underlying unity in the varied meanings of a Biblical root. In my article Peshat and Derash I advocate enhancing this Rashi method using a technique of parallel nifty translations in modern English. Today's examples show this. The Hebrew root Nun-Sin-Aleph can mean a) lift b) King c) stature, d) fire, e) donate f) pray g) cloud and several more meanings. Rashi explains the underlying meaning as lift-height. Hence the meanings of a) lift, c) stature, d) fire (which lifts upward), f) prayer towards the God above, g) clouds on high and the b) King who stands above the nation. In providing these translations we have used the English stature to capture the nuances in verses such as Jb13-11, Shall not his stature make you afraid? or Jb31-23, ...and because of his stature I could do nothing. The punchy English translation captures the Rashi intuition of Nun-Sin-Aleph=height and relates it to modern English nuances. Rashi further explains stature / strength as referring to the priesthood / monarchy. To understand this we must use rule 7, format. Please read below for further insights into this Rashi.
Verse Gn48-16c discussing the blessing Jacob gave Joseph's children 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 fishify in the heart of their country Rashi explains: Fishify is a verb form of the noun fish and means to produce schools of swarming fish, that is to prolifically reproduce. Sermonic Points: The basic etymology is given above. However very often etymologies have overtones. In this case Rashi adds The ocean is dark relative to the land. Hence despite the prolificness of children fish still have modesty and privacy. Thus while giving a blessing of prolificness Jacob also gave a blessing of privacy not usually associated with prolificness.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses in Gn49-01:02 Both verses discuss Jacob's farewell address. The alignment justifies the Rashi assertion that Jacob's blessings contains elements of both a) the future Messianic era b) present advice on how they should treat each other. Rashi is based on the alignment in the table below. However we can supplement Rashi by providing references. Notice how the blessing to Judah contains Messianic references (the future!) while the blessings to Joseph contain mostly a present description of events. This supplementation of Rashi with references in the blessings strengthens the Rashi comment: It is not simply based on an alignment but rather is solidly based on an alignment supported by references.
Advanced Rashi: The technique we have introduced above - supplementing an alignment with references is fundamental to enriching Rashi.
The table below presents presents two contradictory verses. Both verselets speak about Jacob's attitude on the sale of Joseph into slavery and the attempt to murder him. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says 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. while the other verselet 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. ' Which is it? Did Jacob wanted the brother's who initiated the attempted murder and sale of Joseph to be cursed? Or did he want them to be forgiven? Rashi simply resolves this using the broad-literal method: The curse of Shimon and Levi for what they did to Joseph is true. The request for forgiveness is a lie. Joseph's brothers lied in order to bring peace among them.
Sermonic points: Perhaps this is the most famous of all Rashi sermonic points: This sermonic point is actually brought down in Jewish law books: It is obligatory to lie in order to bring about peace.
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.
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.
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.
Advanced Rashi: Why did Rashi equate stature = priesthood and might = monarchy. A review of the logic involved would be illuminating. First the bulleted structure indicated by repeating keywords requires us to see an unspecified emphasis of distinctness in the bulleted items. Next it seems reasonable to associate might = monarchy. There is no obvious association with stature. But it is reasonable if we have already used up monarchy to associate stature with some other Jewish hierarchical social structure. Two obvious candidates are prophecy and the priesthood. Prophecy does not belong to any tribe but rather to any person who aspires to it. So Rashi associates stature=Priesthood.
Verse Gn48-17a discussing Joseph's removal of his father's hand from his son's head states And when Joseph saw that his father was laying his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him, and he supported his father's hand, to remove it from Ephraim's head unto Manasseh's head.
Verse Gn49-22 is one of those delightful verses where each word has two meanings and these disparate double meanings wonderously combine to form two distinct interpretations of the same set of words. The verse states: Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall;
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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||