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 Ex38-08b URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/w33n10.htm Brief Summary: Women organized into groups for Temple donations; men came second; leaders came third.

Verse Ex38-08b discussing the copper mirrors donated to the Temple states And he made the laver of brass, and the base thereof of brass, of the mirrors of the organized women that did organize at the door of the tent of meeting. Rashi clarifies the underlined words organize by referencing verse Ex35-22 which states And the men came after the women; all who were willing hearted, and brought bracelets, and ear rings, and rings, and bracelets, all jewels of gold; and every man who offered offered an offering of gold to the Lord. Hence the Rashi comment: [The women came first] The women organized into groups from each tribe with each woman donating specific items so that as a whole the women provided a large percentage of temple items.

Text of Target verse Ex38-08b	Text of Reference Verse Ex35-22
And he made the laver of brass, and the base thereof of brass, of the mirrors of the organized women that did organize at the door of the tent of meeting.	And the men came after the women; all who were willing hearted, and brought bracelets, and ear rings, and rings, and bracelets, all jewels of gold; and every man who offered offered an offering of gold to the Lord.
Rashi comments: [The women came first] The women organized into groups from each tribe with each woman donating specific items so that as a whole the women provided a large percentage of temple items.

Advanced Rashi: To properly understand this Rashi we must use several Rashi methods:
• The other verse method shows us the purpose of the women organizing by the Temple
• The word meaning method shows us that the Hebrew Tzade-Beth-Aleph which is usually translated as army really means organized.
• Finally the format method shows us that the repetition in Ex38-08 - the organized women who organized - indicates an emphasis showing that they deliberately organized for the purpose of donations.
We will therefore revisit this Rashi at several other points in this issue. Such a panaromic view of this Rashi will crystalize its understanding.

The FFF submethod states that words can be named by Form, Feel, and Function.
• Some examples of naming words by Form include (a) the leg of a chair, (b) the handle of a pot, (c) the branch of a family tree, (d) surfing the net or (e) brainstorming Some of these examples illustrate naming objects by form while other examples illustrate naming activities by form.
• A good punchy example distinguishing naming by form vs. function is pentagon-UN. The pentagon is named after the shape and form of the building while the United Nations is named after the function and purpose of the building. Although both these buildings have as a purpose world peace they are named differently.
• Examples of naming by feel/substance are glasses, hardship, ironing-board, plaster etc.

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.

An example of the triple FFF method occurs in verse Ex38-18a discussing the construction of the Temple door-screen which states And the door-screen for the gate of the court was needlework, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen; and twenty cubits was the length, and the height in the breadth was five cubits, opposite [and equal in measure to] the wall-curtains of the court. Rashi explains: The word opposite in this verse means of the same measure. The reason the word opposite means of the same measure is because the oppositeness of two objects is a good example (synechdoche) of pairs of objects with the same measurement since such pairs of objects with the same measurement have an appearance of being opposite each other. As can be seen from the underlined words the Rashi comment is compactly and explicitly combined in the Biblical text.

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 illustrate grammatical rules governing deliberate misspellings. The technical term for this is metaplasmus. Metaplasmus is a general literary phenomena applicable in all cultures.There are some secular scholars who consider these types of spelling puns as something read into the text by the reader. However there are other scholares who consider these types of spelling puns as intended by the author to convey meanings and nuances to the reader. In other words these other scholars consider the deliberate misspellings as the simple intended meaning of the text.

The table below presents presents two contradictory verses. Both verses talk about the temple construction. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says ...the wise men constructed the temple while the other verse says ... Bezalel constructed.... Which is it? Did Bezalel construct the Temple or did the staff of wise people construct it? Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 aspects method: Bezalel was the manager of Temple construction The crafstmen were the staff of Temple construction. Managers obtain credit for the entire project since by overseeing the project they enable others to do its work.

Summary	Verse / Source	Text of verse / Source
The wise staff constructed the Temple	Ex36-01:02	Then, Bezalel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whom the Lord put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all kinds of work for the service of the sanctuary, did according to all that the Lord had commanded. And Moses called Bezalel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whose heart the Lord had put wisdom, every one whose heart stirred him up to come to the work to do it;
Bezalel made the ark	Ex37-01	And Bezalel made the ark of shittim wood; two cubits and a half was its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height;
Resolution:	2 Aspects:	Bezalel was the manager of Temple construction The crafstmen were the staff of Temple construction. Managers obtain credit for the entire project since by overseeing the project they enable others to do its work.

The Rabbi Ishmael style rules govern whether Biblical laws are considered as exclusive or paradigmatic examples. For example the example ox in don't muzzle an ox is interpreted paradigmatically. The law applies to any animal. One cannot muzzle any animal while working. By contrast when you offer animal sacrifices from cattle and penned animals is intepreted exclusively. Only cattle and penned animals may be offered as sacrifices but other animals - like lions and tigers - cannot be offered as sacrifices.

The major Rabbi Ishmael style rules are well known: Theme-development, development-theme, theme-development-theme. These rules and their interpretation are well known. Occasionally rare forms of the Rabbi Ishmael rules occur. These rare forms don't have standard interpretations; their interpretation may be subject to controversy. We examine one such form today.

Verse Ex35-02:3a discussing the obligation to observe the Sabbath states
• General: Six days shall craftsmanship be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a sabbath of rest to the Lord
• General: whoever does craftsmanship in it shall be put to death
• Detail: You shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day
As can be seen the verses have a General-General-Detail form. There are in fact no rules on this form. Rashi therefore brings two possible interpretations.

The traditional style rules are interpreted as indicating either exclusive or paradigmatic examples. The rare forms are interpreted as either exceptions or explanatory footnotes on the rules.
• Exception approach: Don't work on the Sabbath since work carries a death penalty except in the case of lighting a fire which is a non-capital prohibition.
• Explanatory footnote approach: Don't do crafstmanship on the Sabbath - even lighting a fire as part of an overall craftsmanship is prohibited (You needn't do the whole act to incur a death penalty).

Advanced Rashi: Rashi does not take sides. He simply prevents the controversy. Because this particular style form is rare it is not possible to justify one interpretation over another through a list. Nevertheless Jewish law takes the explanatory footnote approach: It is e.g. prohibited to die cloth on the Sabbath. A person who lit a caldron in which the die is being mixed would be liable to a death penalty even though he hadn't done the whole act of craftsmanship.

We ask the following database query: In the Bible, does God select by lineage or merit? 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-Midrashic inference: Selection for important posts was frequently done by merit not by lineage. The list below presents the results of the database query.

Advanced Rashi: As can be seen from the above list God in many situations choses people based on merit rather than on tribal status (Judah vs. Benjamin or Dan) or seniority (the eldest). A famous clash between Jacob and Joseph in Gn48 further emphasizes that merit takes place on lineage and form. Judaism firmly believes that our standing before God is based on our own deeds. Such a positive attitude, placing responsibility on each individual, strongly encourages good deeds and action.

Verse Ex38-24:26 discussing the aggregate amount of silver gathered for the temple states And the silver of those who were counted of the congregation was a 100 Kikar, and a 1775 shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary; A bekah for every man, that is, 1/2 a shekel, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, for every one who went to be counted, from twenty years old and upward, for 603,550 men.

This most beautiful Rashi uses the principles of solving linear equations to derive the number of shekels per kikar. The three basic principles of solving linear equations are
• The Simplication Principle: First eliminate parenthesis by performing all necessary computations till all you have left in the equation are numbers and variables.
• The addition Principle: One can subtract or add equal amounts from each side of the equation;
• The Multiplication Principle: One can divide or multiply equal amounts from each side of the equation.

Rashi: Using these two principles we can use the above verses to calculate as follows:

Rule	How applied	Equation
Original Equation	Citation	1/2 603,550 Shekel = 100 KiKar + 1775 Shekel
Simplication	Multiply 1/2 x 603,550	301,775 Shekel = 100 KiKar + 1775 Shekel
Addition Principle	Subtract 1,775	300,000 Shekel = 100 KiKar
Multiplication Principle	Divide by 100	3,000 Shekel = 1 Kikar

Advanced Rashi: Rashi can't really be fully understood without the rules of elementary algebra. This example hi-lights the need for including non-verse methods such as the spreadsheet method in our list of rules.

We note that Rashi supplies additional historical information such as the fact that each Kikar contains 120 Maneh with each Maneh containing 25 shekel. However the maneh is not a Biblical unit of currency. However interesting Rashi's additional comment is we confine ourselves in this email newsletter to Torah-itic commentary.