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Their presence in Rashis on Parshat SheLaCh Volume 10, Number 6 Used in the monthly Rashi-is-Simple and the Daily Rashi. Visit the RashiYomi website: http://www.Rashiyomi.com/ (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, June 19th, 2008 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 Nu15-25a discussing the communal sin offering for negligent idolatrous worship states And the priest shall make an atonement for all the congregation of the people of Israel, and it shall be forgiven them; for it is ignorance; and they have brought their offering, a sacrifice made by fire to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord, for their ignorance; Rashi clarifies the underlined words offering...sin offering by referencing verse(s) Nu15-24, also discussing the communal sin offering for negligent idolatrous worship which states Then it shall be, if anything is committed by ignorance without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one young bull for an up offering, for a sweet savor to the Lord, with its meal offering, and its drink offering, according to the prescribed ordinance, and one kid of the goats for a sin offering. Hence the Rashi comment: The offering and sin offering mentioned in Nu15-25 refer to the ox up offering and goat sin offering mentioned in Nu15-24.
Advanced Rashi: Note especially that Nu15-24 refers to the up offering while Nu15-25 simply refers to the offering. Frequently when using the reference method subtle nuances like the above emerge.
When Rashi uses the synonym method he does not explain the meaning of a word but rather the distinction between two similar words both of whose meanings we already know. There are a variety of words in Hebrew which mean mighty. The Hebrew Biblical root Ayin-Nun-Kuph means to bear a heavy weight. Hence the Ayin-Nun-Kuph-Yud-Mem, the Anakim, refer to husky muscular truck-driver like people. You can usually recognize these people by their big bulging muscles. These people can effortlessly carry big loads. Hence Rashi would translate Nu13-33 as And we saw there the pushers the sons of the big-muscles who came from the pushers and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so were we in their sight. In this translation we have translated Nun-Pay-Lamed-Yud-Mem, from the Hebrew Nun-Pay-Lamed, to fall, as pushers, that is people who push other people down (so they fall). Advanced Rashi: But Rashi does not literally say what we have said above. Instead Rashi says that Anakim means people who bear great heat/anger thru their height. The approach of this email list is to see Rashis as supplementing common-sense explanations with further details. The common-sense explanation to the word Anakim is muscular people who bear heavy weights. To this common-sense explanation Rashi adds Such people also cause freight/anger simply by their stature and appearance. In other words whereas we looked at the physical meaning of the word - to bear heavy weights - Rashi supplemented this and reviewed the emotional impact of the word - They bear anger/freight/hostility simply by their height and appearance. Such a reading of Rashi - as a comment that supplements the natural comment we would make by ourselves - adds richness to Rashi. Rashi of course embellishes his comment by punning on the word to bear. Rashi could equally have said these people cause freight by their very appearance. Instead Rashi says They bear freight/anger/hostility by their very appearance. This approach - regarding Rashi as supplementing obvious comments and explanations - is a fundamental approach in this email newsletter. This approach provides deeper, richer and more natural insights into Rashi.
These Rashi comments involve 5 Rashi rules. The reader can read each rule separately, or, read in the following sequence: Rule #3, Rule #4, Rule #5, Rule #7, Rule #8. By viewing the Rashi's from many perspectives we obtain a more wholistic view. Two familiar functions of grammar in all languages are pronoun reference and plurality.
We see contradictory indications - the sin is simultaneously plural and singular. We have laid the grammatical foundation for this contradiction here in the grammar rule. We will resolve the contradiction below in rule #5. In rule #4 we will further support the contradiction by comparing to other sin offerings. Rashi's basic approach is that we are talking about a sin offering for one commandment that is akin to all commandments: that is, the sin of idolatry.
These Rashi comments involve 5 Rashi rules. The reader can read each rule separately, or, read in the following sequence: Rule #3, Rule #4, Rule #5, Rule #7, Rule #8. By viewing the Rashi's from many perspectives we obtain a more wholistic view. In the grammatical rule we have shown that the Bible refers to the sin-offering described in Nu14-23:26< as both a violation of one sin and all sins. Here we pursue this contradiction. Instead of examining the text of this one sin offering we align this text with the texts of other sin offerings. The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Nu14-23, Lv04-02 Both verses/verselets discuss sin offerings - offerings brought for inadvertent sins. The alignment justifies the Rashi assertion that The sin offering discussed in Nu14-23 is brought for one sin that is simultaneously all sins. We interpret this as the sin of idolatry, since the idolatry sin violates the fundamental tenet of faith and is akin to denial of the whole Torah. Here we use the two aspects method of resolving contradictions since the numerical aspect of idolatry is a singular sin while its impact is the totality of sins.
Advanced Rashi: In the above table we aligned the sin offering mentioned in Numbers with one sin offering mentioned in Leviticus. Actually there are many sin offerings mentioned in Leviticus and they all use almost identical language and speak about one sin that is being done (Cf. Lv04-02, Lv04-13, Lv04-22, Lv04-27 which show that sin offerings are always formulated in terms of one sin.)
These Rashi comments involve 5 Rashi rules. The reader can read each rule separately, or, read in the following sequence: Rule #3, Rule #4, Rule #5, Rule #7, Rule #8. By viewing the Rashi's from many perspectives we obtain a more wholistic view. The table below presents two contradictory verses. Both verses talk about the number of sins required for the sin offering discussed in Nu14-22:27 The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says all commandments have been violated while the other verse says this sin, if it was done inadvertently. Which is it? Is the Nu sin offering brought because of violation of one sin or many sins. Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 Aspects method. method: The sin offering described in Nu14-22:27 is idolatry. Numerically idolatry is a single sin. But impact-wise idolatry is a denial of all commandments, of the entire religion.
The format rule requires inferences from formatting items such as bold, italics, underline, and bullets. The format rule also requires inferences from paragraph structure and sequence. Today's example illustrates this. Verses Nu14-22:26, Nu14-27:31 form a sequence of two consecutive paragraphs discussing offerings. The main discussion of offerings occurs in Lv. The specific purpose of these sin offerings mentiohed in Numbers is not explicitly indicated there. However we have derived above in rules,#3, #4,#5, that the Bible, in Nu14-22:26, is speaking about an idolatry sin offering which is not discussed elsewhere in the Bible. Hence the elegant but punchy Rashi: Just as the first paragraph discussing communal offerings is discussing the idolatry offering, so too the 2nd paragraph discussing individual offerings, is discussing idolatry offerings. Advanced Rashi: The technical rule used here is inference from consecutive paragraphs. This rule is used throughout the Talmud. Certain Talmudic Rabbis believed that the consecutive paragraph rule only applied in Genesis - Numbers but did not apply to Deuteronomy. We have further classified the consecutive paragraph rule under the formatting rule.
Today we ask the database query: What communal sin offerings are connected with an Ox The query uncovers 5 examples. An examination of these examples justifies the Rashi assertion that Only the Idolatry sin offering uses an ox for an up offering. The table below presents results of the query along with illustrations of Rashi's comment.
Advanced Rashi: The offerings brought on occasions of sin sometimes involve both sin and up offerings. As can be seen, and as Rashi / Sifra /Sifray state: Among communal sin offerings the idolatry sin offering is the only occasion when the ox is used for an up offering. In the other sin offerings the ox is used for the sin offering. We however have expanded the database inquiry to include all communal offerings involving a sin offering. The slight expansion includes a) the Omer offering and b) the Temple consecration offerings. These offerings while not primarily sin offerings do involve sin offerings. The broader class allows a more thorough analysis. In fact three offerings - idolatry sin offering, Temple consecration offerings, omer offering - involve an ox for an up offering and a goat for a sin offering. These three offerings deal with Jewish leadership in the world: a) Judaism introduced the idea of lack of idolatry, b) the Prince offerings were brought at the dedication of the Temple which was a beacon of light for the whole world, c) the Omer offering, connected with the celebration of the Exodus and the receipt of the Torah also indicates Jewish leadership. But then the symbolism of the offerings is clear: By way of background the animal brought for a sin offering symbolizes how sin is to be avoided. The animal brought for an up offering indicates how are strivings to go up to God should be focused. We can therefore make the following distinctions. For ordinary communal sin offerings, the way the community rectifies its sin is to behave like an ox - that is, it must focus its energies on ploughing God's nation of people and caring for the community. A different analysis applies to sin offerings connected with Jewish leadership among world nations. When leading the world, the Jews must help God (up offering) to plough the human fields producing new national produce; The Jews must resist againt the sin of defection with goat-like tenacity to all tempatations to defect to other religions. Here is still another perspective. The sin offerings - communal negligence and Yom Kippur - deal with passion sins. Hence the sin offering is an ox symbolizing that greater attention to the community must be given. By contrast the world-leadership offerings - the Omer-exodus offering, the Temple consecration offering and the idolatry offering - deal with social imitation sins. They require, to avoid sin, resisting the temptation to follow and imitate non-Jewish values. Notice how Rashi, Sifra, Sifray, dealt with one problem while we have broadened it and obtained a slightly broader perspective. This is typical to the approach that should be used when dealing with the database methods.
9. RASHI METHOD:
SPREADSHEETS
BRIEF EXPLANATION: The common denominator of the 3 submethods of the Spreadsheet method is that inferences are made from non textual material. The 3 submethods are as follows: URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/w33n22.htm Brief Summary: The 10 spies carried: 1) 1 person a pomegranate, 2) 1 person a fig; 8 people carried a grape cluster on a board with 4 corners(2/corner).
It is also reasonable that only 4 people carried the fruit and possibly wanted to praise Israel with 6 spies adamant against going there. In other words I am suggeting an explanation that a) 2 spies supported conquest, b) 6 spies opposed and c) 4 spies were undecided but were swayed at the end to join those opposed. Such an explanation is very reasonable also and consistent with political disagreement. In this case Rashi is commenting on the logical inference in the verse. Hence we classify this as a logical non-verse method similar to the numerical spreadsheet methods and the diagramatic geometric methods.
The commandment of tzitzith is discussed in both Nu15-38-41 and Dt22-12 The Bible clearly states that the reason for wearing Tziztzith is that you may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord... I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt We are however told that this requirement of remembering God's commandments only applies to four corner garments which you wear.
Conclusion
This week's parshah does not contain examples of the Rashi style methods. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||