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Their presence in Rashis on Parshat Ki TiSaH Volume 14, Number 5 Rashi is Simple - Volume 37 Number 5 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, Mar 4, 2010 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 Ex34-30a discussing the reaction of the Jews to Moses' appearance after Revelation states And when Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come closer to him. Rashi notes that the underlined words, they were afraid to come closer to him. references verses Gn03-08 discussing Adam and Eve's fear of God after they had sinned. Hence the Rashi comment Fear of Divine people and communications happens after sin. That is, prior to sin the meeting of Divine people or the communication with God does not arouse fear while after sin it does. We see this with Adam and Eve who spoke to God without fear but feared God after they had sinned. We also see this with the Jews who did not fear God at the Revelation but, after they had sinned with the Golden calf, did fear meeting Moses after his prophecy with God.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi does not actually cite the Genesis passage about Adam. Rashi simply cites the contrast that before sin they were not afraid of speaking to God while after the sin of the golden calf they were afraid to even speak to Moses. Accordingly we have explained this Rashi in rule #5, contradiction below. However it is proper to find further support for Rashi in other verses. The most superior treatment of this Rashi would be by the database method - however, the database method would require several examples of the inference that prior to sin man is not afraid of speaking to God while after sin man is so afraid. Since we have not found several examples, but only a few, we have sufficed with the contradiction and reference method.
The FFF principle is a special case of the literary techniques of synechdoche-metonomy. These literary principles, universal to all languages, state that items can be named by related items, by parts of those items, or by good examples of those items. For example honey refers to anything sweet since honey is a good example of something sweet. Similarly hot refers to matters of love since the two are related. Todays Rashi can best be understood by applying these principles. We are fortunate to have a parallel example in English for today's Rashi. In English the word beam can refer to a long object and can also refer to a long ray of light. Hence, for example, we say his face is beaming. The facial muscular stance of a happy person is such that light is better reflected off his face giving the impression that a beam of light is coming from him. Hebrew uses a similar etymology by form. However instead of using a beam Hebrew uses another long object, the horn. Instead of saying his face is beaming we say his face is horning. The idea and approach to meaning are the same - something is named by a similar term with a similar form. Following Rashi's idea and the parallel in English we would translate Ex34-29b as follows: And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of Testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses knew not that his facial skin beamed. Advanced Rashi: This Rashi is continued in rule #3, Grammar immediately following.
Today Hebrew grammar is well understood and there are many books on it. Rashi, however, lived before the age of grammar books. A major Rashi method is therefore the teaching of basic grammar. Many students belittle this aspect of Rashi. They erroneously think that because of modern methods we know more. However Rashi will frequently focus on rare grammatical points not covered in conventional textbooks.
Hence from the noun phrase, beaming face we obtain the verb phrase, indicating a creation of the noun-phrase: that is, his face beams, means he has a beaming face. English already has a word for this verb-noun transofrmation. Using the English words we translate Ex34-29 as follows: And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of Testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses knew not that his facial skin beamed. We have already explained in rule #2, meaning above that in Hebrew we use the word horn instead of beam: So the verse literally says his face horned.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Ex30-19, Ex30-21. Both verses/verselets discuss the required washing of hands and legs by the Priests prior to their Temple service. The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: 1) It is preferred that the Priests wash their hand-legs together as a unit (They accomplished this by placing their hands on their legs and letting water come over them (Rambam, Laws of Coming to the Temple, 5:14) 2) However if the Priests properly washed their hands and their legs separately (even though this is not preferred) the Temple service that follows is not invalid. 3) The two methods of washing are inferred from the alignment: One verse bullets hands and legs while the other verse combines them as a unit. Finally a third verse speaks about the water-washing indicating that it is the act of washing and not the objects of washing that are important.
Advanced Rashi: This Rashi is continued in rule #7, formatting, below. There we show that the repeated Hebrew word eth indicates a bullet effect. The bullet effect indicates a distinctness to each bulleted item - that is, the hands and legs must be washed separately. By contrast the alignment shows a lack of a bulleting eth in verse 21, thereby indicating that the hands-legs are washed as a unit. Rambam, Laws of Coming to the Temple, 5:14, explains the procedure: The priests places his hands on his legs and then lets water flow on them thereby fulfilling washing his hands and legs together. Verse 20 states that the priests water-wash emphasizing that the act of washing is what is important not the objects of washing (legs and hands). I have also explained the symbolism below. Finally, I have also explained that my assertion that washing hands and legs separately does not invalidate the consequent temple service is a novelty of mine not found (nor contradicted) in any of the classical Jewish sources.
The above may appear very picky and technical. I therefore, in rule #7, formatting, have presented the symbolic interpretation. Activities are typically done by the team, not the individual. Hence the legs (social circle of movement) and hands (activities) must be sanctified at the same time.
The table below presents two contradictory verses/verselets. Both verses/verselets speak about the emotional reaction to meeting Divine people or communication with God. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse/verselet says the Jews beheld God without fear while the other verse/verselet says the Jews were afraid to come near to Moses after his prophetic experiences. We see the contradiction: Which is it? Is meeting Divine people or communication with God something fearful or not? Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 aspects method: a) Before the sin of the Golden calf the Jews beheld God and were not afraid; b) After the sin of the Golden calf the Jews were afraid to even speak to Moses after his prophecies.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi simply cites the contrast that before sin they were not afraid of speaking to God while after the sin of the golden calf they were afraid to even speak to Moses. Accordingly we have explained this Rashi in rule #5, contradiction. However, it is proper to find further support for Rashi in other verses. The most superior treatment of this Rashi would be by the database method - however, the database method would require several examples of the inference that prior to sin man is not afraid of speaking to God while after sin man is so afraid. Accordingly we have sufficed with the contradiction and reference method. In rule #1, reference above we have shown that Rashi's comment finds support in the Adam/Eve story: Before the sin of eating from the tree Adam and Eve spoke to God without fear; after the sin of eating from the tree of life Adam and Eve were afraid to speak to God as evidenced by their hiding when they heard God's voice, as mentioned in Gn03-08.
Certain Biblical paragraphs are stated in a 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 Ex34-25c discussing the time limits for consumption of the Pascal lamb states ...neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning. The Rabbi Ishmael example rule requires generalization of this passage. In this case we simply generalize from of the feast of Passover to any sacrifice: ...neither shall [any] sacrifice [such as] the feast of the passover be left unto the morning. Advanced Rashi: The Rashi Generalization rule is frequently applied to typical situations. For example the punishment of rape victims is presented as a punishment of field-rapes since rapes frequently happen in un-manned areas (Rashi, Dt22-25.) Siimilarly responsibility for animal torts is presented in terms of ox torts since oxen were a frequently owned animal (Rashi, Ex21-35). So too here: Most sacrifices are consumed by morning. However the Passover sacrifice is a typical example of a sacrifice that might not be finished till morning since the Passover sacrifice is consumed by people, not the altar, during a meal with prolonged discussion and much wine which encourages early sleep. So the correct way to look at this Rashi is that Even the Passover sacrifice which might typically be left over till morning should not be left over till morning and certainly other sacrifices where there is no reason to delay altar consumption should not be left over till morning.
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. Bullets whether indicated through modern notation or through the Biblical method of repeating keywords always indicate contrastive emphasis - that is, each bullet is presumed to be a distinct item contrasted to the other items on the list. Very often the bullets are also used to indicate that the entire list is exhaustive of some spectrum.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi does not actually say this interpretation. Furthermore, Rambam, in his great legal code, in the laws of Coming to the Temple, Chapter 5, throughout, especially law 14, does not explicitly (or implicitly) mention the above law. My thinking however is as follows. We have always seen that bullets create distinct emphasis. The distinct emphasis here would be that hands are washed separately and legs are washed separately. However as shown above in rule #4, alignment this is not the preferred method. We would then conclude that if they did wash hands and legs separately it did not invalidate the Temple service that followed. At any rate this is a novelty not discussed, nor contradicted, elsewhere in Jewish sources. It might be worthwhile to approach this matter symbolically. The legs symbolize ones social circle the people one walks with. The hands symbolize ones actions. It is preferable to sanctify ones action and social circle together; after all ones actions are not typically done solo, rather, they are done with a team. It follows that the sanctification of the team should occur at the same time as the sanctification of ones actions. However, if inadvertently one sanctified ones actions separately and sanctified ones social group separately the temple services that follow are valid.
It is a well known Rashi that there wer 3 ascents of Moses on the mount, for 40 days each, resulting in forgiveness on the Day of Atonement. This is literally a spreadsheet listing a chronology. It is presented below with the source verses and the events that happened.
Rashi translates Ex34-29a as follows: And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of Testimony in Moses’ hand,[ that is, the day after Yom Kippur, after the 2nd receipt of the ten commandments, which happened after the first tablets were broken and Moses obtained forgiveness for the sin of the Golden Calf] when he came down from the mount,Moses knew not that his facial skin beamed after God prophesied to Moses.
The symbolism method seeks to extract meaningful inferences from the symbolism of the biblical text. The concept of symbolic interpretation is very involved. A good, compact, clear reference explaining when symbolism can be used and how to apply it may be found in my article Genesis 1 speaks about the creation of prophecy not the world which you can find at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/gen-1.htm. Today we explore the symbolism in Ex30-34 which reads as follows:
Rashi makes symbolic inferences from the use of a bad smelling fatty spice in the sweet incense: This inclusion--of a bad smelling fatty spice in the sweet incense--teaches you that there is a requirement to include the bad smelling spices in the incense. Symbolically this means that every community who wishes to approach God in prayer which is compared to incense, is required to include bad and foul-smelling people.
Conclusion
This week's issue does not contain examples of the Rashi database method. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||