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Their presence in Rashis on Parshath MiKeTz Volume 15, Number 14 This weeks Weekly Rashi with Hebrew/English source tables Is accessible at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1514.htm (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, December 3 rd, 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 Gn39-03a discussing Joseph's success as an Egyptian slave states And his master saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand. Rashi notes The underlined words, the LORD was with him references verses Gn40-08,Gn41-16 which explicitly show that Joseph frequently mentioned God's name (e.g. God will help). Hence we interpret The lord was with him as meaning God's name was frequent in his mouth.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi literally says God is with him: refers to the fact that God's name was frequently in his conversation. This appears strange. Isn't the natural interpretation of God is with him that he is successful. Why interpret the phrase in terms of his lingual patterns? We have approached this Rashi using the fundamental technique of seeing Rashi as supplementing the meaning of the text vs. exhausting the meaning of the text. In other words Rashi was not saying God is with him only means that God's name was frequent on his mouth but rather Rashi is saying besides the obvious meaning of the phrase God is with him indicating that he was successful, the phrase also means that God's name was frequent with him. Such an interpretative approach - an emphasis that Rashi is supplementing the simple meaning of the text - is deep, mature, and consistent with the simple meaning of the Biblical text.
When Rashi uses, what we may losely call, the hononym method, Rashi does not explain new meaning but rather shows an underlying unity in disparate meanings. Rashi will frequently do this by showing an underlying unity in the varied meanings of a Biblical root. In my article Peshat and Derash found on the world wide web at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rashi.pdf. I advocate enriching the Rashi explanation using a technique of parallel nifty translations in modern English. Today's examples show this.
Applying the above translation to Gn43-15c discussing the children's reaction to Jacob's advice to bring Joseph a gift and a second payment when bringing Benjamin we obtain And the men grabbed that present, and they accompanied double money in their hand, and Benjamin; and rose up, and went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph. In providing this English translation notice that we have used the English idioms grabbed, accompany which mirrors the Hebrew take objects, take people since grab, accompany and take are semantically close. Advanced Rashi: The careful reader will note that technically the brothers did not grab the present, which connotes a snatching, rather they took it. Similarly the verse uses one verb, Lamed-Kuph-Cheth to refer to both the money and benjamin. Hence there is no single translation that captures all nuances. In fact Rashi was motivated by the aramaic translation: The aramaic translation translates the two occurrences of Lamed Kupth Cheth differently since in aramaic the word for taking a person differs from the word for taking an object. The proper perspective is the following: We are not claiming that grab and accompany are superior translations to take. Rather we are using the translation as a vehicle to highlight the different nuances in the two occurrences of take. Finally we point out that there are several other usages of take: Nu16-01 Korach took hold of himself.....and stood up to Moses.... Pr04-02 For a good deal have I given you, do not forsake my Torah. Here we see the utility of using punchy English translations.
Most people are aware that Hebrew verbs come from three-letter roots. Each root is conjugated in the 8 dimensions of person, gender,plurality, tense, activity, modality, direct-object, and prepositional connective. For example the root Shin Mem Resh means to watch. The conjugations Shin-Mem-Resh-Tauv-Yud and Nun-Shin-Mem-Resh-Nun-Vav mean I watched and we were watched respectively. The rules for Hebrew grammar are carefully described in many modern books and are well known. Rashi will sometimes comment when a verse is using a rare conjugation of an odd grammatical form. When presenting grammatical Rashis my favorite reference is the appendix in volume 5 of the Ibn Shoshan dictionary. This very short appendix lists most conjugations. One of the challenges of learning Hebrew grammar is understanding the meaning or meanings associated with the various conjugational modes. There are four approaches to interpreting the Hebrew hitpael grammatical mode. Rashi's approach to the hitpael is that it means interactive. Hence the hitpael form of the root Gimel-Lamed-Lamed, to roll, would mean to interactively roll [accusations] on us. Using this grammatical translation Rashi translates Gn43-18d as follows: And the men were afraid, because they were brought into Joseph’s house; and they said, We are brought in because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time; that he may seek to interactively roll accusations on us and fall upon us, and take us for slaves, and our asses. Here the connotation is to pick on someone, to find fault with them, and to interactively use everything they say against them.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verselets in Gn42-27c Both verselets discuss the money found in the knapsacks of the brothers of Joseph. The alignment justifies the Rashi assertion that The words for bag, knapsack,sack mean the same and can be used interchangably.
Perhaps the words differ in their etymology. Aleph-Mem-Tauv-Cheth emphasizes the tightening of supporting strings (from Mem-Tauv-Cheth the securing of a place, such as a tent, with tightening strings) while Sin-Kaph emphasizes the fact that the bag is used for intense carrying (From Shin-Kaph-Kaph the market place.). However since all intense carrying bags involve tightening of strings to secure contents the words would then be interchangeable.
The table below presents two contradictory verses. Both verses speak about Joseph's beliefs The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says Joseph swore by Pharoh while the other verse states God was with Joseph. We see the contradiction--- was Joseph God-fearing or Pharoh-fearing. Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 Aspects method: Joseph believed in God. When he swore truthfully he would swear by God. When he anticipated he might have to break his word he swore by Pharoh.
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 Gn43-30a discussing Joseph's reaction after seeing his brother Benjamin after 17 years states And Joseph hurried - because his feelings churned towards his brother and he wanted to cry - and he went towards a room and cried there. The Rabbi Ishmael example rule requires generalization of this passage. In this case we simply generalize from feelings churned towards his brother to examples of these feelings such as reciprocal feelings and conversations from Benjamin to Joseph, for example, Benjamin could have explained how each of his 10 children were named after his missing brother. Advanced Rashi: Rashi literally says that Benjamin explained the names of each of his 10 children and how they related to Joseph's absence. For example one child was named head since Joseph was the head/oldest brother; another child was named swallow because they claimed that Joseph was swallowed by a wild animal. It is important to emphasize Rashi's approach. Rashi follows Biblical style and sees the churning of emotions and the crying as examples of a more general phenomena. It is perfectly consistent with Biblical style to fill in details and explain supplementary sources for these emotions not explicitly given by the Biblical text. I have to emphasize that the reader is expected to see these details as if they are actually in the text. This is analagous to Ex21-35 when an owned ox gores a friends ox.... Clearly this law applies whether an ox or any other animal damages and applies whether the ox gores the ox of a friend or distant person. It is a matter of Biblical style that the Bible talks this way - it speaks in examples and expects the reader to generalize.
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 indicates bold, italics, underline by using repetition. In other words if a modern author wanted to emphasize a word they would either underline, bold or italicize it. However when the Biblical author wishes to emphasize a word He repeats it. The effect - whether thru repetition or using underline - is the same. It is only the means of conveying this emphasis that is different. Verse Gn43-20b discussing the descent of Jacob's children to Egypt states and said: 'Oh my lord, we came down down at the first time to buy food. Note the repetition indicated by the underlined words. This repetition creates an unspecified emphasis. Rashi comments Two descents are connoted: a) a physical descent to Egypt and b) a social descent - they use to provide others and are now are dependent. Rashi of course conjectures that the second descent was social but such an interpretation of the unspecified emphasis seems reasonable. Advanced Rashi: The dialogue teaches us political etiquette. By emphasizing that they themselves were providers it made it more unlikely that they would stoop to theft since they were distinguished and responsible people.
Advanced Rashi: First we point out that we haven't conclusively proved that Shimon instigated Joseph's sale. Maybe most of the brothers disliked him. All we have done is given a reasonable piece of evidence - Joseph is called ox and Jacob curses Shimon and Levi for attempting to castrate an ox which would tie in with the stripping and placing in a pit. This is typical of the flavor of the database rule. It is not always punchy and to the point. Sometimes it simply points, albeit strongly, in a certain direction. The point of the rows at the bottom of the table, that of the 4 oldest brothers, Reuven, #1, and Judah #4, protested to Joseph's treatment also points to the idea that the remaining oldest, Shimon and Levi conspired on Joseph. This is based on the reasonable assumption that the older brothers in a family lead. I heard this argument by Rabbi Boncheck. I would add, the point in the middle (my point) that Shimon and Levi took the law into their own hand when their sister was raped and Shimon seems to have been the most hotheaded of the tribes as evidenced by the fact that his participation in the sin with the Moabite women stood out. So even if the other brothers felt enmity towards Joseph, still, it required a brother who had experience in taking the law into his own hands, Shimon, to instigate the action. I especially note the Talmudic treatment of Gn37-18:19, which states And they - each person to his brother - said, 'Behold the master of dreams comes.' This verse seems to say that all the brothers spoke this way. However the verse could be interpreted to mean that a minimum of two brothers spoke this way. We therefore cannot prove anything from this verse. However we can use our other proofs - Jacob's curse, Shimon/Levi's taking the law into their own hands, and the protest of only Reuven and Judah - to justify reinterpreting this verse to refer to Shimon and Levi. As already indicated this is characteristic of the flavor of the database rule. What we have importantly done in the table above is carefully distinguished between the most important arguments, supportive arguments, and arguments arising from reinterpretation after an initial examination.
Verse Gn44-13a discussing the return of the brothers to Egypt after their donkeys were unloaded and searched states And they rent their clothes, and each man laded his donkey, and returned to the city. Rashi explains the real-world connotations of the underlined words: The emphasis that each man ladeled his donkey emphasizes that each of the brothers was strong and physically independent since they were capable of ladeling a donkey by themselves.
We are all familiar with the basic idea of Pharoh's dreams. Pharoh dreamt of 7 thin cows devouring 7 plump cows. Joseph symbolically interpreted this to mean that 7 years of starvation would come and make people forget the 7 years of plenty which had preceded them. In the table below we provide a linear symbolic translation of Pharoh's dream and its interpretation.
Advanced Rashi: The above table uses the so called linear translation method. This method was introduced (or popularized) by Rabbi Dr. Benjamin Sharfman in his Linear Translation of the Bible and Rashi. Rabbi Sharfman's linear translation is still very popular among those who are beginners in learning Rashi. Rabbi Sharfman was in fact Rabbi of my synaggoue when I was young and I spent many enjoyable Shabbath afternoons listening to his very lucid explanations of Rashi.
Conclusion
This week's issue contains examples of all Rashi methods. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||