1. RASHI METHOD: REFERENCES BRIEF EXPLANATION: Commentary on a verse is provided thru a cross-reference to another verse. The cross references can either provide (1a) further details, (1b) confirm citations, or (1c) clarify word meaning. This examples applies to Rashis Ex011-08e URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/w33n7.htm Brief Summary: Ex11-08a, MOSES LEFT WITH GREAT ANGER reference Ex10-28 where Pharoh said DONT SEE ME ANYMORE

Verse Ex08-28a discussing how Moses left Pharoh with great anger states And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down unto me, saying: Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee; and after that I will go out.' And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. Rashi clarifies the underlined words in hot anger by referencing verse Ex10-28 which states And Pharaoh said to him, Get out from me, take heed to yourself, see me no more; for the day you see my face you shall die. Hence the Rashi comment: Moses was angry because Pharoh refused to talk to him.

Text of Target verse Ex11-08e	Text of Reference Verse Ex10-28
And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down unto me, saying: Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee; and after that I will go out.' And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger.	And Pharaoh said to him, Get out from me, take heed to yourself, see me no more; for the day you see my face you shall die.
Rashi comments: Moses was angry because Pharoh refused to talk to him.

Sermonic Points: The above Rashi has a simple modern interpretation: Pharoh broke off negotiations and this is a cause for anger.

When Rashi uses the synonym method he does not explain the meaning of a word but rather the distinction between two similar words both of whose meanings we already know.

The following Hebrew words all refer to fear
• Cheth-Pay-Zayin, ChiPaZon impetuous;
• Pay-Cheth-Daleth, Pachad, fear
• Yud-Resh-Eye, Yirah, revere
• Beth-Hey-Lamed, Behalah, rattled.

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.

Verse Ex10-02b discussing God's treatment of the Egyptian states and that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's son, how I have mocked Egypt, and My signs which I have done among them; that ye may know that I am HaShem.' Rashi translates the Biblical word Hey-Tauv-Ayin-Lamed-Lamed-Tauv-Yud, HithAllalTi, as coming from the Biblical root Ayin-Lamed-Lamed which means to do, to act. We have conveniently embedded the Rashi comment in the translation of the verse. The conjugation rule governing this Biblical word may be found by using tables 1 or 4 (Table 10 does not apply) in the Ibn Shoshan dictionary for the interactive mode (HiTPael). In the interactive (Hitpael) mode, this root means interactive action, mocking (interactively responding to each action of the target victim with a similar action).

The table below presents an aligned extract of verses in Ex13-09c, Ex13-16 Both verses discuss the obligation to place Tefillin on the left hand. The alignment justifies the Rashi assertion that The Tefillin must be placed on the handlet - the weaker hand which in most people is the left hand.

Verse	Text of Verse	Rashi comment
Ex13-09c	And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thy hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the law of HaShem may be in thy mouth; for with a strong hand hath HaShem brought thee out of Egypt.	The underlined words require that the Tefillin be placed on presumably any hand.
Ex13-16	and it shall be a sign upon your handlet ....	The word handlet never occurs in the Bible. The contrastive alignment with hand suggests a coined term meaning the weaker hand. Hence the requirement is to place tefillin on the left hand.

Advanced Rashi: The actual aligned Hebrew words are Yud-Daleth-Caph vs. Yud-Daleth-Caph-Hey. A terminal hey in Hebrew indicates a feminine or weaker form. This explains the Rashi comment: the weaker hand, the left hand.

English however has no letter indicating the feminine. To mimic the Hebrew we used the let suffix: hand-handlet. The purpose of this construction was to give the feel underlying the Rashi.

The table below presents two contradictory verses / verselets. Both verses speak about a convert bringing a Passover sacrifice The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says let him circumcise and then he brings his Passover sacrifice while the other verse states he will be like other citizens (who bring their sacrifice on their Passover sacrifice on the 14th.) We see the contradiction---which is it? Does a convert bring a personal Passover offering immediately upon conversion and circumcision or does he only bring Passover offerings on 14 Nissan like other Jewish citizens. Rashi simply resolves this contradiction using the 2 stages method: First the convert must circumcise and second the 14th of Nissan must come so that he may participate with everyone else. However if the 14th came and he did not yet circumcise he may not participate in the passover offering. The convert does not bring a personal Passover offering immediately after circumcision.

Summary	Verse / Source	Text of verse / Source
Circumcision is the prerequisite for a convert bringing the Passover offering	Ex12-48a	And when a stranger shall sojourn with you [convert], and will keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it;
He is like other citizens (Who bring the offering on Nissan 14)	Ex12-48	and he shall be like citizens; for no uncircumcised person shall eat of it.
Resolution:	2 Stages	First the convert must circumcise and second the 14th of Nissan must come so that he may participate with everyone else. However if the 14th came and he did not yet circumcise he may not participate in the passover offering. The convert does not bring a personal Passover offering immediately after circumcision.

Advanced Rashi: The contradiction here was not very deep. The resolution you need both circumcision and the 14th was sort of obvious. Rashi does have a subtle point - It might be the case that converts bring a personal Passover offering immediately upon conversion supplementing the national Passover offering. This personal offering would make sense since the conversion is an Exodus for the convert. It is also possibly implied by the Biblical text: ...then he shall offer it. Hence the resolution of Rashi that all Passover offerings are communal/national and brought on the 14th.

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.

Verses Ex12-46c discussing the requirement of eating the Pascal lamb: states
• General: It shall be consumed in one house
• Detail:
  • Don't take any meat outside
  • Don't break any [meaty] bones
The general clause states it will be consumed in one house and could mean that besides consuming the meat one must consume the marrow inside the bones. The detail clause provides specificity to the general clause and describes how it should be interpreted: Although you must consume all meat you need not break bones to expose the marrow and eat it.

Advanced Rashi: This Rashi is based on the Mechiltah which forms the basis for the Talmudic passages in Pesachim 85, 95. The Talmud adds complexity to the exegesis by bringing in an identical verse repeated in Nu09. The Talmud actually makes several inferences. My way of taking the Talmudic exegesis is as follows:
• Eat all meat of the Passover sacrifice (Ex12-08)
• But don't break bones to eat the marrow inside (Ex12-46c)
• Don't break bones with meat on the outside (since nothing should be leftover) (Nu09-12)
• It is permissable to break bones which neither have meat inside nor outside (General-Detail).

The climax principle asserts that a sequence of similar phrases should be interpreted climactically even if the words and grammatical constructs used do not directly suggest this. That is the fact of the sequence justifies reading into the Biblical text a climactic interpretation even if no other textual source justifies it. For this reason we consider the climax method a distinct and separate method.

Verse Ex12-35b discussing what the Jews took from Egypt when they left states And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they asked of the Egyptians
• Silver utensils
• Gold utensils
• and clothing

Rashi interprets this Biblical verse Climactically: Silver utensils were the least important, gold utensils were more important and clothing was most important. We infer this from the fact that clothing is mentioned last in the verse.

Advanced Rashi: Rashi tells us that clothing were the most important but does not elaborate further. Perhaps he is being discrete. After all slaves do not traditionally wear good clothing. The Midrash relates that Vashti, the Queen or Persia, used to make her Jewish slaves work naked to humiliate them. In such a context Rashi's statement the clothing was the most important emphasizes the degraded state in which the Jewish slaves were - all they could think about was getting a good pair of clothing.

What we have called the climax method, modern scholars call parallelism. Modern scholars classify climactic parallelism in what we have called the alignment method. Dr. Kugel particularly emphasized that parallelism requires a climactic increasing intensity of interpretation.

We ask the following database query: What are the characteristics of the 10 plagues? 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: The 10 plagues were delivered in military formation. The 10 plagues punished Pharoh by sea(plagues #1,4), by land (plagues #2,5), and by air (plagues #7,8). The 10 plagues punished Pharoh for making the the Jews go through the three stages of non-citizenship mentioned at Gn15-13 in the Convenant of cuts. Pharoh was punished for making the Jews feel like non-citizens (#1,4,7), like slaves (#2,5,8) and for inflicting pain (#3,6,9). The list below presents the results of the database query.

Gn15-13	Non Citizens	Slaves		Pain
10 Plagues	Non Ownership	No Social Prominence		Pain
By sea	Blood Non Ownership of Nile	Frogs Embarassment in one's own house		Lice Pure pain
By land	Animal mixtures Non ownership of your land	Animal plagues Loss of Egyptian Prominence - Egypt known for horses		Boils Pure pain
By air	Hail Non ownership of your air space	Locusts Loss of Egyptian Prominence - Egypt exported flax		Darkness /immobilization Pure pain

Just to clarify the use of the table we illustrate with the first plague, blood. Recall that Moses was sent to free the Jews from Egypt. In his dialogue with Pharoh, Moses, at the order of God, brought 10 plagues on Egypt. The plague of blood consisted of turning the Nile river into blood. Thus this plague attacked Egypt by sea. Furthermore the message in this plague was You do not even own your own Nile...if I,God, want I will turn it into blood. So the plague of blood is the intersection of the two parameters sea and non-citizenship.

The correspondences of Gn15-13 and the 3 sets of punishments should be clear:
• non-citizenship is punished by lack of ownership.
• slavery is punished by lack of honor and social prominence.
• pain is punished by pain.

While presented this Rashi this week someone asked my about the 10th plague, the plague of the firstborn. Rav Hirsch points out that the plague of the firstborn combines aspects of all three punishments:
• Lack of ownership: People don't own their own family (Their children die)
• Lack of Social Prominence: The eldest son who continues the family name, dies.
• Pure pain: Loss fo a child.

Rashi Hirsch, following Rashi, points out that because plagues #3,6,9, dealt with pure pain, there was no warning to Pharoh. By contrast, plagues #1,2,4,5,7,8 were to educate Pharoh to his lack of citizenship and his lack of social honor in God's world, and consequently, Moses was told to prepare Pharoh for the plague by warning him.

Acknoweldgement: Rashi Ex08-17b introduced the idea of the plagues being in military formation. Rav Hirsch further developed this idea and corresponded the three sets of plagues to the three stages of non-citizenship mentioned in the convenant of cuts at Gn15-13. I introduced the idea that the Pain plagues were not by sea,land and air while the non citizenship and slavery plagues were by sea,land and air.

Praise be Him who chose them and their learning.

Todays Rashi presents a map, a geographical description, of Israeli geography and the surrounding (Biblical countries). The map is presented below and appropriate footnotes outline Rashi's comment. Because Rashi clarifies diagrammatic material we classify this Rashi as non-Verse. We have explained the Rashi Ex10-13a using two methods: The NonVerse method and the reference method. We have begun the explanation of this Rashi above in rule #1, reference.

===========================================================
MAP OF SOUTHERN BORDER OF ISRAEL (Nu34-03:05)
=========================================================== 
'  Great  |        ISRAEL        |
'  Sea    |                      |Salt
'         |                      |Sea
'         |                      |
'         |                      |
'         |Egypt River           |
' -------------------------------|            
'                Kadesh Barnaya       EDOM
' EGYPT
'
'
'                 Sinai
'                 Peninsula
'                              Ezion Geber
'

Verses Nu34-03:05 states the following
• The Salt Sea and Edom define the South-East border of Israel Nu34-03
• Kadesh Barnaya, the Egyptian River and the Great Sea define the South-West border of Israel Nu34-04:05.

The above picture shows that Egypt is on the South-West of Israel. Hence God transported locusts from Israel to Egypt via an Eastern wind (Ex10-13a) which brought the locusts to the South-West Egyptian-Israel border.