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Their presence in Rashis on Parshat VaEthChaNaN Volume 14, Number 24 This weeks Weekly Rashi with Hebrew/English source tables Is accessible at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1424.htm (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, July 22 nd, 2010 Visit the Rashi website http://www.Rashiyomi.com 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. Although I frequently use my own English translations of biblical verses and Rashi comments, the Hebrew and English translations in the source tables are derived from online parshah files at chabad.org who in turn acknowledges the Judaica Press Complete Tanach, copyright by Judaica Press.
Verse(s) Dt05-12,Dt05-16b discussing the obligation to observe Sabbath and honor parents states Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord your God has commanded you. ... Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you; that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you, in the land which the Lord your God gives you. Rashi clarifies the underlined words as the Lord your God has commanded you by referencing verse(s) Ex15-25,Ex16-28:30 discussing the laws given in Marah and the Seen Desert, which states And he cried to the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he threw into the waters, and made the waters sweet; there he set for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he tested them, ... And the Lord said to Moses, How long refuse you to keep my commandments and my laws? See, because the Lord has given you the sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide you every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day. Hence the Rashi comment: As can be seen from Nu33-08:15, Marah and Seen Desert were pre-Sinai stops on the Jewish journeys. It says explicitly that the Jews were given the (a) Sabbath and (b) a Statute and (c) Ordinance. We are not told further details about this Statute and Ordinance. However in the 10 commandments in Deuteronomy the phrase as your God the Lord commanded you is added by the commandments to honor the Sabbath and to honor ones parents. Hence we infer that the statute and ordinance mentioned by Marah probably refers to the obligation to honor ones parents.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi also mentions that the commandment of the Red Heiffer was given in Marah. Unlike the Seen Desert where it is explicitly mentioned that the Sabbath was given, we are only told that a statute and ordinance were given in Marah. We are not told which statute and ordinance. Rashi therefore notes that the phrases as God commanded you or that God commanded Moses are mentioned by the commandments to honor one's parents Dt05-16 and to observe the Red Heiffer ceremony Dt19-02. Rashi therefore identifies the Statute and ordinance as referring to honoring ones parents and the red heiffer. True, there are other commandments where it says as God commanded. For example the entire building of the Tabernacle Ex35 - Ex40 mentions the phrase as God commanded Moses 18 times. But in this case we have the original verses where God commanded Moses (Ex25 - Ex28). So the proper statement is that there are only three commandments were the phrase observe... as God commanded you is mentioned without a corresponding reference text where God actually commanded. Hence Rashi assumes that these three commandments are the reference of the Statute and ordinance mentioned in Ex15-25 which God taught in Marah and Seen desert. There are various manuscripts of Rashi; which commandments are taught has driven alot of speculation. The above analysis is not based on a particular Rashi manuscript but rather based on universal principles that Rashi always used. Hence, based on this analysis, I would assume that those manuscripts which mention Red Heiffer, Honoring Parents, and Sabbath are the correct ones. Notice, here, how we use logic to justify the manuscript rather than using the manuscript to justify identification of the correct text. We will revisit this example below in rule #7, format below.
An idiom is a collection of words which means more than the sum of the meanings of each of the phrases' individual words. Verse Dt04-38b discussing the sin and punishment of the Jews states To drive out from your presence nations greater and mightier than you are, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, in broad daylight [literally: as this day] Rashi explains: The phrase(s) as this day is an idiom meaning in broad daylight, or, as clear as day. As can be seen from the underlined words the Rashi comment is compactly and explicitly combined in the Biblical text. Advanced Rashi: Rashi literally says that the idiom means clear as day. However, in light of the English idiom in broad daylight connoting something well known and without opposition, I thought it better to use this English idiom in the Rashi translation.
Most people know that the Biblical meaning of a word is determined by its underlying three-letter root. The Biblical root can be conjugated in different a) persons, b) tenses, c) pluralities, d) genders, e) constructions and f) modalities. For example I watched has a different conjugation then I will be watched even though both phrases use the same 3 letter Hebrew root. Rashi explains that the Hebrew root Resh-Aleph-Hey can mean both see and prophetically see. However the causative-passive (Hafal) always means that we received (passive) from God (causative) a prophecy. The following verses illustrate this: Dt04-35a You have received prophecy, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other beside him ; Ex25-40 And see that you make them after their pattern, which was prophetically shown to you in the mount.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Dt04-06b Both verses/verselets discuss the requirement to observe the commandments. The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: The primary effect of the Sinaitic revelation is the commandment to observe. But observance itself requires safeguarding the commandments you observe. One safeguards the commandments by professionally standardizing them; these standards are called fences in Rabbinic law. For example the Bible commanded to recite the Shma in the evening. Rabbinic law standardizes this practice so that it must be recited before midnight (otherwise people would fall asleep and miss the recital of the Shma.).
Advanced Rashi: Another approach to this Rashi is the understanding of the meaning of the Hebrew root, Shin Mem Resh. We can show that in the Bible Shin Mem Resh refers to professional obligations and/or to professional standards. If you think about it a little bit, professional standards simply means fences preventing violation.
The table below presents two contradictory verses. Both verses talk about the making of idols. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says idols which God commanded you while the other verse says don't make idols. Which is it? Are idols permitted or prohibited? Rashi simply resolves this using the broad-literal method: Idols are prohibited. we translate the phrase less you make idols..which God commanded you as meaning less you make idols which God commanded you about. We further interpret this phrase - As God commanded you - to indicate all the details in the prohibition of making idols such as the prohibition of making idols whether of physical objects (sun, moon) or prophetic objects (like the golden fire calf resembling the ox of Ezekiel's chariot vision). Hence we translate lest you make idols according to all the details which God commanded you.
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. Today's example illustrates this.
Rashi's sole purpose of comment is to indicate that the underlined phrase Has there ever been such a great thing refers to a) the Divine revelation to an entire nation and b) the deliverance of an entire enslaved nation.
This example continues rule #1, reference. Both the Biblical and modern author use the paragraph as a vehicle for indicating commonality of theme. Hence if two ideas are in a paragraph they may be assumed to have a similar context, (unless explicitly stated otherwise, for example, if the two ideas are indicated as contrastive.) The reader will no doubt recognize this formatting rule as none other than the most intuitive of the Rabbi Ishmael style rules which orthodox Jews recite every day as part of their daily prayer: the rule of inference from context. Today's example illustrates this.
It is natural to inquire what the underlined phrase as God your Lord commanded you refers to. We have seen above in rule #1, reference that the Sabbath laws were given in the Seen Desert prior to the revelation at Mount Sinai (Ex16-28:30) However we find no place where God commanded people to honor one's parents. But we do find a place, pre-Sinai Marah, where God commanded a statute and ordinance (Ex15-25). Rashi therefore assumes that this statue and ordinance refers to the commandment to honor one's parents which is qualified with the phrase as God your Lord commanded you. The driving force behind Rashi's logic is that Just as the phrase as God commanded by the Sabbath commandment refers back to the pre-Sinai Seen desert, so too, the phrase as God commanded by the Parent commandment, refers back to the pre-Sinai Marah. The reason we treat these two phrases the same is because they occur in the same context / paragraph. We can also understand this type of paragraph derivation as an example related to the Talmudic methods of hekesh or semuchin.
We ask the following database query: Which commandments mention that they should be observed becauase 'you are to remember that God took you out of Egypt'? 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: Commemoration of the salvation from Egypt is emphasized as a reason for commandment observance in laws requiring a) equality b) ritual purity and c) no anxiety-business practices. The list below presents the results of the database query. We first present in detail a typical verse. Verse Dt05-14a:15 discussing the obligation to treat slaves and orphans nicely states but the seventh day is a sabbath unto HaShem thy G-d, in it thou shalt not do any manner of work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. And thou shalt remember that thou was a slave in the land of Egypt, and HaShem thy G-d brought thee out thence by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore HaShem thy G-d commanded thee to keep the sabbath day. As can be seen in this example, the Biblical obligation to let slaves/servants rest on the Sabbath is linked to remembering the Exodus. This linkage between the commandment and the exodus, which does not occur at all commandments, is made explicit here because the essence of Egypt consisted of a class society in which certain people were free and certain people were slaves. Consequently any commandment attacking class distinctions - such as the requirement to equally let owners and slaves rest on the Sabbath - will explicitly mention the Exodus. A full set of further examples if presented in the Table below.
Verse Dt04-47a states And they possessed his land, and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, who were on the side of the Jordan eastward; Rashi interprets the underlined phrase, eastward diagramatically, The Jordan river goes from the North East to the south west. Hence it naturally divides Israel into east and west. The Bashan and Emorite territories were on the east. Rashi's diagramtic statement is illustrated in the diagram below.
' Mount Chermon ' Syria, North ' / ' / Bashan, Emori ' / ' West Jordan River / East ' / ' / TransJordan ' / ' Dead Sea ' South
This example is re-brought from last week. Rashi emphasizes more than the swiftness of a bee-kill. Rashi emphasizes that the bee dies as result of such a kill. This has obvious relevance to modern-day terrorists. So I thought it proper to redo the entire Rashi.
Rashi of course does not mention all three characteristics, only the fact that the aggressors martyr themselves during the attack. But as we have shown numerous times in this email group a proper reading of Rashi requires bringing in similar arguments. More facts about bee attacks could be brought in, for example, Syrian bees (unlike American bees) produce little honey and a rather vicious sting.
Conclusion
This week's parshah ac contains examples of a all Rashi methods. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||