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.

There are many classical aspects to grammar whether in Hebrew or other languages. They include
• The rules for conjugating verbs. These rules govern how you differentiate person, plurality, tense, mode, gender, mood, and designation of the objects and indirect objects of the verb. For example how do you conjugate, in any language, I sang, we will sing, we wish to sing, she sang it.
• Rules of agreement. For example agreement of subject and verb, of noun and adjective; whether agreement in gender or plurality.
• Rules of Pronoun reference.
• Rules of word sequence. This is a beautiful topic which is not always covered in classical grammatical textbooks.

Today we deal with the transformation of nouns into verbs. Although most conjugation rules refer to the conjugation of verbs, there are also conjugation rules for transfroming nouns into verbs. We list several common methods for transforming nouns into verbs:
• create the noun: e.g. to flower
• remove the noun: e.g. to dust
• use the noun: e.g. to hammer
• the verb(activity) done to this noun: e.g. Dt21-04b: neck the calf in other words kill it with a blow to the neck

Applying this rule to verse Nu04-13b we obtain the translation ...and they shall ash the altar.... meaning they shall remove ashes from the altar. Here, the Hebrew coined verb to ash is similar in meaning to the English to dust, that is to remove dust, the verb to dust being derived from the word dust.

The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Nu03-09b,Nu08-19 Both verses/verselets discuss the gift of the Levites to the priests Israel. The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: The statement Nu03-09b that the Levites are given as a gift to the priests from the Jewish people means what is stated in verse Nu08-19 that the Levites are given as a gift to the priests from the midst of the Jewish people. In other words the Levites are 1)a gift from God, 2) taken from the midst of the Jewish people.

Alignment	Rashi comment
Nu08-19 and I give the Levites -------- Given to Aaron and his sons from the midst of the Jews Nu03-09 and you give the Levites to Aaron and his sons Given Given to him from the Jews	The statement Nu03-09b that the Levites are given as a gift to the priests from the Jewish people means what is stated in verse Nu08-19 that the Levites are given as a gift to the priests from the midst of the Jewish people. In other words the Levites are 1)a gift from God, 2) but taken from the midst of the Jewish people.

Advanced Rashi: At first blush Rashi appears to simply equating the meaning of the aligned words, from and from the midst of. However a careful reading shows that Rashi is removing an ambiguity in the word from which can equally indicate the source,giver or the place from which something is given. Rashi is clarifying that
• the Levites are given as a gift from God who is the source of the gift and that
• the Levites are taken from the midst of the Jewish people Nu08-19

The above alignment shows many more problems which however were not answered by Rashi. For example why does one verse say given while the other verse says given given. Why is to Aaron and his sons repeated in one verse but not the other? My opinion is that Rashi pointed out the basic idea of the alignment and solved one alignment problem - the difference of from vs. from the midst of. Rashi left it to the teacher and student to try and tackle the other alignment problems that exist in the verse. Even if the teacher can't solve them the proper teaching method is to complete the entire alignment and to show the student all problems.

The table below presents two contradictory sets of verses. Both verse sets talk about the transportation of the Holy of Holies. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says this is the work of the Kehatites while the other verse says the Priests come and package items. Which is it? Is the Holy of Holies the responsibility of the Kehatites or the Priests. Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 stages method: (1) The priests package and wrap the Holy of Holies (2) The Kehatites carry the packages Holy of Holies.

Summary	Verse / Source	Text of verse / Source
The Priests package and wrap the Holy of Holies	Nu04-05:14	When the nation camps Aaron and his sons and they ...take a sky blue garment and wrap the Candellabrah... ...and on the golden altar they spread a sky-blue garment and cover it with Tachash skin....
The Kehatites carry the packaged items	Nu04-04,15	This is the responsibility of the Kehatites in the Temple, the Holy of Holies....and Aaron and his sons complete covering the holies and then the Kehatites come to carry and they will not touch the holies and die
Resolution:	2 Stages:	(1) The priests package and wrap the Holy of Holies (2) The Kehatites carry the packages Holy of Holies.

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 only applies to the enumerated details but not to other cases. Today's example illustrates this as shown below.

Verse Nu03-06a is written in a General-Detail form:
• General: Bring the tribe of Levi near, and set them before Aaron the priest, that
• Detail: They may minister unto him.
Notice the word that which indicates the transition in the general-detail form. The Rabbi Ishmael style rules require that such a sentence be interpreted restrictively. Levites help the priests only by serving and ministering to them (e.g. by singing songs of praise during the Temple service); but not e.g. by offering sacrifices. Rashi derives this restrictive interpretation from the Detail clause - that they may minister unto him - which restricts the general clause Bring the tribe of Levi near and set them before Aaron the priest. Here is still another way of looking at it. The general clause by itself means that the Levites help Priests in all matters, including offering sacrifices, singing songs of praise etc. However because the general clause is followed by a detailed clause I therefore interpret the verse to mean that only by ministering - that is singing songs of praise - do the Levites serve the Priests.

Advanced Rashi: Actually the word minister is a bit more general. Besides singing Psalms during the Temple service the Levites assist in a variety of other ways. For example, the Levites assisted with ritual slaughter of the sacrifices. In this posting we have only touched on the basic idea that the assistance the Levites give the Priests is restricted. We have not fully explored how it is restricted. A more thorough analysis would require reviewing many Biblical texts where the Levite methods of assisting the Priests are listed.

Today, we ask the following database query: How often are censii taken? 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: God continually counted the Jews with either a complete census or a census of those fallen during a plague. Such obsessive counting typically indicates great attachment and fondness. We conlude God had great love for the Jewish people. The list below presents the results of the database query and shows examples

9. RASHI METHOD: NonVerse BRIEF EXPLANATION: The common denominator of the 3 submethods of the NonVerse method is that inferences are made from non textual material. The 3 submethods are as follows: Spreadsheet: Rashi makes inferences of a numerical nature that can be summarized in a traditional spreadsheet Geometric: Rashi clarifies a Biblical text using descriptions of geometric diagrams Fill-ins: Rashi supplies either real-world background material or indicates real-world inferences from a verse. The emphasis here is on the real-world, non-textual nature of the material. This examples applies to Rashis Nu03-39b Nu03-46a Nu03-49a Nu03-50a URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1414.htm Brief Summary: 300 Firstborn Levites remained. 22000 Firstborn redeemed by Levites. 273 firstborn redeemed @ 5 per head=$1365. Redeemers identified by lottery

Background: Originally the firstborn served at the sacrifices. When the Jews sinned by the Golden calf God took this privilege away from them and gave it to the Levites. The process of transfer of responsibility from the firstborn to the Levites was called a redemption process. The redemption process is described in the table below. Because this aspect of the Bible involves computations and spreadsheets we classify this Rashi as non-verse/spreadsheets.

Very roughly there are 3 types of redemption:
• The 300 Levites that were firstborn remained in service
• There was an exchange of 22000 Levites for 22000 Firstborn
• The remaining 273 non Levite firstborn were redeeemed at $5 shekel per person or $1,365 aggregate.

There was the further problem of who to collect the $1,365 from. After all each particular firstborn could claim he corresponded to an actual Levite and didn't have to pay. Therefore the redemption was done by lottery which picked 273 firstborn each of whom paid $5 shekel.