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Their presence in Rashis on Parshat BreiShiTh Volume 11, Number 15 Rashi is Simple - Volume 34 Number 15 Used in the weekly Rashi-is-Simple and the Daily Rashi. Visit the RashiYomi website: http://www.Rashiyomi.com/ (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, Oct 24th, 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(s) Gn06-04f discussing the warriors against God states There were gangs in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, these are the warriors [against God] of the world, men of name. Rashi clarifies the underlined words men of name. by referencing verse(s) Gn05 which states This is the book of the generations of Adam ... And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth And the days of Adam after he had fathered Seth were eight hundred years; and he fathered sons and daughters; And Seth lived a hundred and five years, and fathered Enosh; And Seth lived after he fathered Enosh ...and fathered sons and daughters; And Enosh lived ninety years, and fathered Cainan; And Enosh lived after he fathered Cainan ....and fathered sons and daughters; And Cainan lived seventy years, and fathered Mahalaleel; And Cainan lived after.... Hence the Rashi comment: The men of name mentioned in verse Gn06-04 refers to the 10 generational national leaders enumerated in Gn05.
Advanced Rashi: There is a second supplemental Rashi comment on this verse: ...Another interpretation: These gangs are the people who brought destruction to the world. Rashi appears to be making a pun on the Hebrew word Shin-Mem which, although it means name, comes from the root Shin-Mem-Mem which means to destroy. Rashis like these turn people off - they see some Rashis as grammatical and meaningful while other Rashis are fanciful and without basis. However in reality all Rashis are grammatical. In this particular Rashi, Rashi was commenting on two aspects of the verse. First, Rashi explained the verse phrase men of name. Rashi explains that men of name refer to the generational leaders mentioned in Gn05. But the verse also speaks about these are the warriors from the world the men of name. Rashi explains the phrase warriors from the world idiomatically as meaning warriors against God who remove people from the world. A similar use of the word warrior occurs in Gn10-09 which describes Nimrod as being a warrior of hunt before God, which also refers to rebellion against God.
Rashi had 10 methods to explain word meaning. One method was to use the literary techniques of meaning that exist in all languages. Two very prominent literary techniques are metonomy and synechdoche which name items and events by related items and events or by good examples or parts of the items and events. Some familiar everyday examples of metonomy and synechdoche common to many languages are: honey can mean anything sweet because it is a good example of sweet things; hot can refer to anger or sexual passion because heat is related to these emotions. When dealing with metonomy and synechdoche in this email list, we frequently use the triple FFF rule, of form, feel, and function, which states that items or events can be named by their form, feel or function. For example, the pentagon is named by its form; the united nations is named by its function; a hardship is named by the way it feels. Verse Gn06-04a discussing the preflood world states There were gangs in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men of old, men of renown. The underlined word, gangs comes from the Hebrew root, Nun-Pay-Lamed which means to fall. Rashi explains Gangs were called by the root fall because they fell other people. Here, as usual in this list, we have embedded the Rashi translation in the translation of the verse. Here Rashi names gangs by their function and purpose, to fell other people. Advanced Rashi: Interestingly the conquest of other people is called felling. This is another use of the triple FFF principle since a good example of the form of conquest is that people fall down conquered. Other words in Hebrew meaning fall, for example, the root Yud Resh Dalet, also can refer to conquest.
Rashi lived before the era of Grammatical textbooks. Hence one of his functions was to teach the rules of grammatical conjugation similar to modern textbooks. In the Hebrew language connective words - for example, in, to, from, that, like, .... - are not, as in English, indicated by separate words, but rather are indicated by one-letter prefixes. Today we study the relative pronoun, that. This is normally indicated in Hebrew by a prefix Shin punctuated with a segol. However in a few rare verses the relative pronoun that is indicated by a prefix shin punctuated with a patach. Rashi actually brings a list of examples to prove his point. (Normally Rashi will simply cite a rule with 1-2 examples - however, on rare occasions such as this one, Rashi will supply a list of examples). Rashi's list is presented below. In each verse the underlined word that is indicated in the Hebrew by a prefix Shin with a patach.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Gn02-10:14 Both verses/verselets discuss the four paradisial rivers The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: Notice how 3 of the rivers have names and are known by some famous attribute - that is the one... However the 4th river is simply known as Prath. Apparently the Prath river was generally known and the most famous of the rivers while the others were only known because of a reputation (name) for a certain attribute (that is the river...).
Advanced Rashi: Rashi goes on to point out that Prath was the most famous because it was geo-strategically located in Israel while the other rivers were outside Israel.
The table below presents two contradictory verses / verse phrases. Both verses / verse phrases talk about the wife, Eve, God created for Adam. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse / verse phrase says Eve is a helper while the other verse / verse phrase says Eve is made side-by-side to man Which is it? Is Eve a helper or just a tag-along follower on his side? Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 aspects method: The wife helps man by being by his side and both following and complementing his activities.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi's literal language is If the man merits, his wife is a helper while if the man is non-deserving, his wife opposes him. Here Rashi is using the Biblical root, Nun-Gimel-Daled, of the Biblical word used in the text. This root can mean opposite and hence the Rashi pun opposes him. But the Biblical phrase a wife opposite him is most naturally translated idiomatically as a helper side by side to him. Why then did I deviate from the explicit Midrashic language If he merits, she is helper; if not she opposes? I regard this Midrashic language as a catchy phrase which aids memory retention. In practice, in the real world, no wife is monolithically a helper or an opposer. Therefore I translated this as consistent both with the Biblical language and marital reality: The wife helps her husband by being at his side - sometimes following and sometimes complementing. A further point is that even when a wife opposes her husband she in reality is still helping him in a complementary way. In short I believe the Midrash (and Rashi) simply latched on to a cute punchy pun which facilitates memory retention. However when examining the verse meaning there is no reason to deviate from Biblical language and marital reality especially since these are close to the intent of the Midrashic pun.
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 and consequently the law or narrative statement only applies to the enumerated details but not to other cases. Today's example illustrates this as shown below.
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.
By repeating the keyword to an unspecified emphasis is created: Chava not only gave birth to Abel, she also gave birth to his brotherhood. Hence the Rashi comment: With each brother, Kayin and Abel, a twin sister was born that they married. Since each brother had their own twin sister the two brothers could exist in brotherhood since they didn't have to fight over a wife. Again, the Rashi comment is derived from the bulleted structure, indicated by the repeating keywords, which creates an emphasis that both Abel and the state of brotherhood were created by Chava. Advanced Rashi: Rashi does speak about the twin sisters as I just indicated. But Rashi also states The word to is repeated 3 times - twice in Gn04-02 and once in the previous verse, Gn04-01 - she gave birth to Kayin. The threefold repetition of to indicates that 3 girls were born. Each brother had a twin sister. Additionally a 3rd girl was born with Abel. This caused the fight which led to Abel's murder: Abel claimed that since the extra girl was born with him he had a right to two wives; Kayin claimed that since he was the firstborn he had the right to two wives. This Rashi appears unfounded. However Rashi was dealing with two problems. First Rashi dealt with the bulleted structure of Gn04-02: gave birth to his brother, to Abel. Rashi explains, as we indicated above, that Chava gave birth to both brotherhood and Abel. Secondly Rashi speculates on what Kayin and Abel fought upon. In fact Rabbi Soloveitchick, the Rav, from whom I learned Rashi, cited a midrash presenting three posssibilities for the fatal fight between Abel and Kayin: (1) They fought over an extra sister (2) They fought over place of the Temple (3) They fought over vocational ownership of farming and sheparding. The Rav explained that these three approaches represent three reasons why nations, in general, go to war: (1) women (2) religion (3) economics. But if there were 3 possible reasons for the fight Rashi can't be certain that they fought over an extra sister. Rather Rashi was pointing out the irony, according to the opinion that they fought over a sister, that despite God giving Kayin and Abel enough women for marriage, they nevertheless fought over what was extra. This is an important principle - very often people have enough but fight over what is extra and superfluous.
Today we ask the database query: Which created items did God bless and which did he not bless? The query uncovers half a dozen examples. An examination of these examples justifies the Rashi assertion that God blessed those items which were vulnerable to extinction for example, animals and humans. However items which were not vulnerable were not blessed: Stars, which are indestructible, received no blessing, plants received no blessing (since they reproduce anyway) and beasts which are not hunted were also not blessed. The table below presents results of the query along with illustrations of Rashi's comment.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi, commenting on the 100-120 contradiction states There is no early and late in the Torah by which Rashi meant Biblical order is not chronological. Some students of Rashi capriciously interpret this to mean that Biblical order is random. Actually however the correct statement is There are several driving forces to Biblical order such as chronology, context, causality, etc. In other words Rashi was not seeking to indicate that the Biblical order arbitrary - rather he was trying to show that chronology is not the only determinant of Biblical order.
So we see that indeed the order is chronological! However it is chronological on paragraphs not on verses. First the genealogies (starting from Adam) are mentioned (Paragraph #1); then (paragraph #2) the corruption of the world and the impending doom; finally (paragraph #3) we read about Noah being saved by the ark. We mention one more subtlety in the order. The last verse of paragraph #1, discussing Noah's birth at 500, is, in the Biblical notation, the first verse of paragraph #2, discussing how Noach would be saved from the corrupt world despite its corruption. This phenomenon of a terminal verse of one paragraph also functioning as the initial verse of a subsequent paragraph is called, in music, syncopation and is yet another principle of order. Syncopation is a powerful musical technique that tightly bounds a piece of music and provides cohesiveness.
Using symbolic methods I have argued that Genesis, Chapter 1, does not speak, as is commonly thought, about the creation of the physical world, but rather, about the creation of the spiritual world. That is, what happened 6000 years ago is not that the physical world was created but rather that prophecy was created. Here is another way at looking at this: There had to be a first point in time when man had a prophetic dream. Before this point in time there were no prophecies. After this point there were prophecies. This first point in time happened 6000 years ago. The person named Adam received a prophetic vision and this was the first time in human history that a prophetic vision was received. The student interested in studying all details of this idea should visit url, http://www.Rashiyomi.com/gen-1.htm which contains my paper Genesis 1 speaks about the creation of prophecy not the creation of the world. We suffice in this newsletter to indicate a very rough sketch. Genesis 1 could not be speaking about the creation of man: Indeed Genesis 3 describes slimy man, the snake. Similarly, Genesis 4 describes the city that Kayin built, presumably for other people. Gn01-02 when interpreted with proper grammar uses the past perfect: The world had been void.... The past perfect--had been--- shows that prior to the creation of prophetic-man the world had existed! Because of these and other considerations Rashi states on Gn01-04, which states God said let there be light and there was light, Here also we require agaddic/symbolic methods: The verse speaks about the spiritual light hidden for the righteous in the future world. We have interpreted this Rashi as speaking about the light of prophecy which is destined for the righteous in the future world. Thus the proper translation of Gn01-01:04 is as follows: For the sake of the choicest in man, God created both the physical and spiritual worlds. For the world had been void, with darkness over human emotions, and only a vestige of prophecy hovered over mans inner turmoil. And then God said let there be the light of prophecy and people had visions... If one reads the article references above one can find a more detailed account of the methodology, other sources (besides this Rashi) that confirm this approach, as well as many scriptural references (such as references showing that light means prophecy.) We urge all readers to read it. Each year when reviewing BreiShith we try and add one new symbolic Rashi illustrating the above approach. Today we concentrate on the phrase (Gn01-27) that man was created in the image of God. Rashi, following the above symbolic methodology, interprets this symbolically: The symbolic interpretation of the form of man correctly gives insight into God's nature. Here is a simple example: Man's form has his head above his body. Symbolically this means that the spiritual (head) is more important (above) than the physical (body).
Conclusion
This week's parshah contains examples of all Rashi methods. This concludes this weeks edition. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||