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Their presence in Rashis on Parshat Shemoth Vol 8, # 12 - Adapted from Rashi-is-Simple Visit the RashiYomi website: http://www.Rashiyomi.com/ (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, Dec - 27, - 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 Ex18-04 discussing that Moses named his son God-Help states And the name of the other was Eliezer [God-Helped]; because the God of my father, said he, was my help, and saved me from the sword of Pharaoh; Rashi clarifies the underlined words saved me from the sword of Pharaoh by referencing verse Ex02-15b which states And when Pharaoh heard this matter [that Moses had killed an Egyptian], he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian; and he sat down by a well. Hence the Rashi comment: The underlined phrase he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled clarifies why Moses states that God saved me from the sword of Pharaoh.
Advanced Rashi: Note the unusual feature that Rashi's comment is on the referenced verse rather than on the target verse itself.
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.
Verse Ex02-11b discussing Moses exposure to the Jews states And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, and empathized with their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. The Hebrew Biblical root used, Resh-Aleph-Hey normally refers to physically sight. However seeing can equally mean empathizing. In a similar manner the Biblical root Shin-Mem-Ayin which normally refers to physical listening can equally mean understand. Words for other sensory perceptions have similar dual meanings. Thus in English we use the word scent to indicate a hunch; we similarly use the word feel to indicate intuition.
In all these examples Rashi is using the synechdoche / good example figure of speech method. Thus understanding is a good usage of listening; similarly empathy is a good example of seeing. Especially since empathy is often communicated by eye contact.
Verse Ex05-16b discussing the greater taxing work that the Jews were given by Pharoh states There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us: Make brick; and, behold, thy servants are beaten, and your nation has become [a paradigm of] fault.
Advanced Rashi: But it is the construct interpretation - this lack of production is the fault of ourselves - that makes sense. What sense does the non-construct mean - we are fault. I have interpreted this to mean we have become the paradigm of fault. Thus a person who wanted to criticize a fellow person would rank him out you are a Jew by which he means you are full of faults. Such identifications of people with their attributes is a powerful poetic technique: Perhaps the most famous example is P109-04, in which King David says I am prayer. That is, instead of saying I am a person who prays King David says I am prayer. In a similar manner the Jews say we are fault which has a similar construction to I am prayer. Here the Jews indicate that they have become a paradigm of ridicule and fault.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verselets in Ex06-01c Both verselets discuss God forcing the Egyptians to let the Jews go. The alignment justifies the Rashi assertion that Pharoh will be forced to a)Let the Jews go; and also forced to b) Drive them out quickly (Because of fear of Gods punishment). Here the driving out refers to the Jewish expulsion in such a haste that they didn't even have time to bake bread and instead ate Matzohs.
The table below presents presents two contradictory verses. Both verses speak about who Moses will meet after his prophetic dialogue with God. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verselet says that after his prophetic dialogue with God ...Aaron will go out to greet Moses while the other verselet states Moses went to his father-in-law. Which is it? Did Moses meet Aaron or his father-in-law after his prophetic dialogue? Rashi simply resolves this using the broad-literal method: Immediately after the dialogue Moses went to ask permission from his father-in-law to go to Egypt. But upon going to Egypt, Aaron was the first person that Moses met.
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 paraphrased comments: The two sentences form one paragraph. That is the statement in the first theme sentence God dealt well with the midwives refers to the details mentioned in the second detail sentence God made them socially distinguished.
Sermonic points: The sermonic inferences from these verses and Rashi are obvious: God rewards good deeds and furthermore the reward God gives to those who do good need not be monetary but may be social. In this case God did not give them money or items of monetary value: Rather God gave them social distinction. It is worthwhile when we seek God's grace to remember that His grace may strongly manifest itself with social graces.
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 indicates bold, italics, underline by using repetition. In other words if a modern author wanted to emphasize a word they would either underline, bold or italicize it. However when the Biblical author wishes to emphasize a word He repeats it. The effect - whether thru repetition or using underline - is the same. It is only the means of conveying this emphasis that is different. With this in mind let us examine verse Ex05-12a discussing the work burden that the Egyptians imposed on the Jews: So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to stubble stubble for straw. Rashi comments on the repeatition to stubble stubble. To properly understand Rashi we proceed in two stages. First: We recall the grammatical principle that nouns can become verbs. Examples are plentiful: to flower, to hammer, to dust.... Hence to stubble would be a verb form indicating the act of acquiring stubble. Next: Rashi explains the repetition: The act of gathering stubble is not an ordinary act of gathering. Rather, it is a gathering of dispersed material since stubble tends to be dispersed.
We ask the following database query: Are Biblical items named by future events which have not happened yet? The reader is encouraged to perform the query using a standard Biblical Konnkordance or search engine. This database query yields the list below. The list justifies the following Rashi inference: Items are frequently named in the Bible by how they will be called rather then what they are called now--e.g. the Kosher animals in Noah's ark. The list below presents the results of the database query and shows examples.
We should clarify the nature of the above list. The Bible, in Abraham's time, calls Amalyk's field after Amalyk who was not yet born. Similarly God's mountain (Mount Sinai) is named by the future reception of the Torah there.
Today's Rashi is a peach of an example showing the true flavor of the Fill-in method. I would urge all serious students of Rashi to carefully study this. Verse Ex02-11:15a discussing Moses attempt to stop Jews from fighting with each other states And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. And ... he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. And he went out the second day, and, behold, two men of the Hebrews were striving together; and he said to him that did the wrong: 'Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?' And he said: 'Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? thinkest thou to kill me, as thou didst kill the Egyptian?' And Moses feared, and said: 'Surely the thing is known.' Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, ... Rashi Fills In: Pharoh heard about the murder from the two Hebrews who were fighting. They slandered Moses to Pharoh.
For this reason I have called this Rashi method,Non-Verse. The submethod used here is the Fill-in method. Although these names are not glamorous they are part of serious Rashi study and do significantly enrich our understanding of the Bible.
Verse Ex03-02b describing the Revelation of God to Moses in the thornbush states And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a thornbush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. Rashi, using the symbolism of the fire and thornbush states God appeared with burns from the midst of the suffering and pain. Here Rashi interprets fire and thornbush as indicating pain and suffering. The verse, according to this interpretation indicates that God was empathic with the suffering of the Jews. The idea of God using symbolic objects in prophecies is quite common and occurs frequently in the Bible. To take another example we cite Nu17-16:20 where a tree-branch symbolically indicates a tribal branch. Hence the blossomed branch indicates a productive tribe who is worthy of service in God's temple: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, and take from every one of them a branch according to the house of their fathers, from all their princes according to the house of their fathers twelve rods; write every man?s name upon his rod. ... And you shall lay them up in the Tent of Meeting before the Testimony, where I will meet with you. And it shall come to pass, that the man?s branch, whose [tribe] I shall choose [to serve in the temple], shall blossom; ... Advanced Rashi: We can not fully defend the symbolic Rashi's in a newsletter of this size. We refer the more interested reader to my article on symbolism, available on the world-wide-web at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/gen-1.htm. Finally I point out that we in no way intend to exhaust the explanation of the Rashi with the above. There is a rich literature on the symbolism of the burning thornbush. We have given the basic ideas by which it should be examined.
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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||