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Their presence in Rashis on Parshat ChuKaTh Volume 10, Number 8 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, July 3rd, 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 Nu19-15a, discussing which objects receive ritual impurity from a dead corpse, states ...And every open utensil, which is not sealed, is unclean. Rashi clarifies the underlined words open utensil which is not sealed by referencing verse(s) Nu11-32:33, discussing how dead animals cause ritual impurity to utensils which states And upon whatever any of them, when they are dead, falls, it shall be unclean; whether it is any utensil of wood, or garment, or skin, or sack, whatever utensil it is, where any work is done, it must be put in water, and it shall be unclean until the evening; so it shall be cleansed. And every earthen utensil, in which any of them falls in it, whatever is inside shall be unclean; and you shall break it. Hence the Rashi comment: Other utensils receive ritual impurity by touch (falling). Earthenware vessels receive ritual impurity by corpse contact with their inside air-space. Hence when the verse speaks about an open utensil which is not sealed as receiving ritual impurity it must be referring to an eartherware vessel, since this is the only vessel where sealing would protect it.
Advanced Rashi: A careful examination of the verses Lv11-32:33 requires the alignment method: Lv11-32 speaks about a dead animal corpse falling on a utensil; here touch results in ritual impurity. By contrast verse Lv11-33 speaking about an eartheware vessel describes the transmission of ritual impurity as achieved through contact with its inside that is, its air space. Rashi then concludes that vessel seals would only be relevant to an earthenware vessel.
When Rashi uses what we might loosely call the hononym method he shows the underlying unity in disparate meanings of the same root. Very often this unity clarifies further known meanings. The Hebrew root Yud-Ayin-Hey means to sweep or swept. It can also refer to sweeping a land (destroying it), as in Is28-17, Judgment also will I lay by a line, and righteousness by a plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. Note that similar idioms exist in English. Hence I would simply translate the Hebrew phrase Ayin-Yud-Yud Hey-Ayin-Beth-Resh-Yud-Mem to mean the swept pass. This is a simple translation and would indicate a very barren land. Advanced Rashi: Rashi states I don't know why it is called Ayin-Yud-Yud. But we have given a very simple natural example which is in fact based on Rashi. It appears to me that Rashi was perhaps ignorant on the significance of the place being called the Swept pass; in other words Rashi was aware of the translation but did not know why we were being informed of it nor what incident led up to it. This seems the proper explanation.
Two familiar functions of grammar in all languages are pronoun reference and plurality.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi adds: The Jews learned their lesson from the first spies who insulted God. These spies had faith in God to help them conquer. They in fact conquered the villages. We can use this to show a fundamental fallacy in reading Rashi. Many people erroneously assume that Rashi wanted to illustrate a moral point - the contrast of the previous spies with the current spies and this moral point drove Rashi to make the comment that the spies conquered the villages. But we have done the reverse. We have correctly shown that the Rashi comment naturally emanates from a grammatical point and the moral point emanates from the grammatical point. This - basing Rashi on sound methodology such as grammar and inferring moral points after the Rashi comment is made - is the proper approach to Rashi. It also makes the moral points more believable.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Nu19-09a Both verses/verselets discuss where the ashes of the red-heiffer are deposited. The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: Biblically the ashes were placed in two places: a) Outside the Temple camp for purposes of purification by lay Israelites, b) inside the Temple for purposes of commemoration. Furthermore, Rabbinically, for practical purposes, for the priests, there was a third deposit of the ashes in the Temple for purposes of purification of the High priests in their procedures.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi literally says There are three deposits of the Temple ashes. However, upon review of the Rashi methodology and the cited Biblical text, we have rephrased Rashi to indicate There are three deposits of the Temple ashes. Two of these three methods are Biblically indicated while the third is a Rabbinical provision for convenience purposes. As frequently indicated in this email list, supplementation of Rashi with comments based on the cited Biblical text and Rashi's methods enriches the Rashi experience.
The table below presents two contradictory verses. Both verses talk about the positioning of the priest during the Red-Heiffer ceremony. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says he shall be outside the temple camp while the other verse says he shall face the Temple gate. Which is it? Does the priest perform the red-heiffer ceremony by the Temple gate or outside the camp? Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 Aspects Method method: The Priest is bodily outside the Temple camp and from that outside position faces the Temple gate.
Advanced Rashi: The reader may object to referring to the above two verses as a contradiction. We have pointed out many times that many examples of the contradiction rule would be better named as the method of complementary verses. We use the name contradiction since that is the name given by the Rabbi Ishmael rules. Furthermore, the reader should bear in mind that before the reader is aware of the resolution the verses typically do appear contradictory.
Certain Biblical paragraphs are stated in an example form. In other words an example of a law is stated rather than the full general rule. The reader's task is to generalize the example. The idea that all Biblical laws should be perceived as examples (unless otherwise indicated) is explicitly stated by Rashi (Pesachim 6.). This is a rule of style since the rule requires that a text be perceived as an example rather than interpreted literally. The Rabbi Ishmael style rules govern the interpretation of style. Verse Nu21-05:07a discussing Moses reaction to the Jewish people after they had insulted him, and apologized, states And the people spoke against God, and against Moses, Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, nor is there any water; and our soul loathes this light bread. And the Lord sent venomous serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against you; pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people Rashi commenting on the underlined phrases states: We see that Moses prayed for the Jewish people after they had insulted him and asked his forgiveness. This generalizes as follows: It is proper ethical behavior to pray for someone who has insulted you and apologized. Advanced Rashi: Rashi simply says From here we learn that if someone who has insulted you apologizes you should not be cruel in forgiveness. But a proper generalization of the cited Biblical passage says more, as indicated above: If a person who insulted you asks forgiveness, besides not being cruel, you should also pray for his welfare. Although the further underlined generalization is not in the Rashi text we are justified in inserting it since it is consistent with the Biblical text and the underlying Rashi method of generalization. Such adding of detail - based on the actual Biblical text and the underlying Rashi rule - shows the proper approach to understanding Rashi.
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.
Today we ask the database query: What was Moses' attitude towards prophecies? The query uncovers 5 examples. An examination of these examples justifies the Rashi assertion that Moses had a complaining attitude towards prophecies. This attitude prevented him from leading the Jews into Israel. The table below presents results of the query along with illustrations of Rashi's comment.
Advanced Rashi: We all know the noble work Moses did for the Jewish people. We also know that God punished him and preventing him from reaching his life goal of leading the Jews into Israel. The natural question is Why? A variety of answers have been posed. For example one famous answer points to the particular incident which immediately preceeded the pronouncement of the punishment - the incident at the rebellious-waters. God had told Moses to speak to the rock but Moses hit the rock. This answer points to the difference between hit and speak and posits that Moses was punished for this deviation from God's order. But there is no indication that Moses did not both speak and hit the rock. The reason for the question on Moses punishment was a feeling of ethical inequity. This answer does not remove this feeling. It portrays God as having a different ethical standard in which some petty violation of law results in the contradiction of an entire life of service. If anything, such a perspective intensifies the ethical inequity question: Why should Moses who devoted his entire life to serving God and the Jewish people be deprived of completing this life simply because of a petty violation of a technical requirement. True God has different standards but it still appears unfair. And that - the appearance of unfairness - is in fact the question. The answer we have provided above addresses the ethical unequity. Moses wasn't punished for one incident, rather he was punished for a trend of incidents of which the last one was one more example. Moses was given numerous times to change his behavior and did not do so. In my article the Akaydah I further support this argument: Moses on several occasions complained that he couldn't take it, he would be killed, he would prefer death to continutation etc. By contrast Abraham, when asked to sacrifice his only son for whom he prayed many years could easily have said God if you do this to me take my life not his. But Abraham did not complain. He accepted God's will. Moses did complain. By contrasting Moses and Abraham's behavior we support the idea that Moses was not on Abraham's level of prophecy and was incapable of further leadership.
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/w33n25.htm Brief Summary: Think of EMOR and MOAB as SQUARE lands separated by space. A FINGER like landpiece juts out from EMOR stopping short of MOAB borders.
_________________
' | |
' | Emori |
' | |
' |___ ________|
' | | E
' | |
' | |
' | | D F
' |Arnon|<--------
Zered C
-------------------- ^
| N | |
|W Moab E | |
| S | ^
|------------------| |
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| B
OVOTH------>--------->Eyay Avarim
A
To remove the impurity of slander one must expose oneself to the full spectrum of personality types - the low/worm life to high society; those that use lower social structures and those that don't. This allows one to become aware how each personality type has a set of skills and a place in life. Each is needed for the achievmnt of communal goals. Without these people society would not function. Similarly for the removal of the ritual impurity due to death one must be aware of the equality of death on all personality types; such an awareness facilitates seeing death as independent of personality type - indeed since all people die we cannot perceive death as due to any particular life style or actions. That is, no particular social status facilitates avoidance, or a propensity to, death. Advanced Rashi: There is more that can be said on the above but as usual we suffice with the bear minimum. Note especially that Rashi advanced two explanations. It is our custom in this email group to assume that Rashi's second interpretation is the correct one and that the first explanation was rejected. In fact the first explanation was only a numerical association of the three of the three objects - cedar, hyssop, worm-blood-dyed wool - and the three thousand that died because of the sin of the golden calf. Such an association while sometimes justified in symbolic interpretations must be rejected in favor of an intrinsic interpretation such as we have given above.
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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||