|
Their presence in Rashis on Parshath EMOR Volume 16, Number 10 This weeks Weekly Rashi with Hebrew/English source tables Is accessible at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1610.htm (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, May 6th, 2011 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 Lv23-39b discussing when to celebrate the holiday of Succoth states Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep a feast to the Lord seven days; on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath. Rashi clarifies the underlined words when you have gathered in the fruit of the land by referencing verses Dt16-01 which states Watch for the month of Spring, and keep the Passover to the Lord your God; for in the month of Spring the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. Hence the Rashi comment: The Bible ties Passover to Spring and Succoth to harvest. From this requirement we infer that calendar months must be watched (adding if necessary extra months) so that Passover always falls out in Spring and Succoth at Harvest time.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi literally states From here - Verse Lv23-39b, discussing Succoth and harvest - we learn that calendar months must be adjusted so that Succoth coincides with harvest. Ah! But that is not true! It is not true that we learn this law (adjusting the calendar) from Succoth. In fact we learn the law requirement of adjusting the calendar from the explicit Biblical verse at Dt16-01 Watch [for] the Spring time and make a Passover. It appears to me that this Rashi text is proof that when Rashi say we learn from here this phrase should not be taken literally. It rather should be interpreted as This is one of the possibly many places where we learn from and it is not even the main place. Throughout this email list I have encouraged such reinterpretations of exclusive statements by Rashi. The serious student of Rashi should carefully review the Rashi text and the arguments presented above to convince him/her self of this. For this reason we always feel free to supplement a Rashi statement we learn from here with other derivations. The more skeptical reader is encouraged to read the Rashi on Dt16-01 which proves that Rashi did not learn the calendar law requirement from here. For another application of this fundamental principle in reading Rashi please see below rule #4, alignment.
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 Lv24-16a discussing the death penalty due to a blasphemer we obtain He who identifies God's name [utters God's personal name, the Tetragrammaton] shall be put to death. Advanced Rashi: The above translation may not seem punchy and exact. But other verses with the root Nun-kuph-beth are also problematic in translation. To illustrate one example Nu01-17 states And Moses and Aaron took these men who were fixed by names [their new social position/slots/holes were fixed]. Finally comapre the English idiom an opening referring to a job title; here opening closely resembles the Hebrew hole! Thus while these translations are correct they don't fit in English as snugly as most translations do.
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.
Today we deal with the topic of gender agreement Verse Lv23-09 talking about the weekly bread has a strange shift from female to male pronouns. The verse states And it [the Minchah offering of bread (feminine)] will belong to Aaron and his children and they will eat it [the bread (masculine)] in a holy place. As is our usual custom we have embedded the Rashi explanation in brackets in the translation of the verse. Just to summarize: The Priests bring the 12 loaves on the table and eventually eat it. The Biblical text simultaneously uses the feminine and masculine it to refer to what is eaten. Rashi explains that the masculine it refers to bread which is masculine while the feminine it refers to the minchah offering since any plant offering is called Minchah. Since the 12 loaves are perceived both as bread and as minchah consequently both the masculine and feminine it are used. But there is a deeper level to appreciating Rashi. The remarkable thing about this insight of Rashi is that the word Minchah is not even mentioned in the Chapter. Thus Rashi introduces a new principle of grammar: Pronouns can refer to implicit nouns; nouns referring to objects that are understood to be spoken about even though they are not explicitly mentioned!! Supporting this remarkable principle of gramamr Rashi observes ...Any offering made of plant material is classified as a Minchah.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses in Lv21-01e,Lv21-11. Both verses discuss the prohibition of priests becoming ritually impure by contact with a dead person The alignment justifies the Rashi assertions that The priest should not come to a dead body in ordinary funerals in the country. But if he bumped into the dead body (strewn on say a road) the priest should defile himself and bury the person.
Advanced Rashi: In our analysis we have emphasized the two contrastive aligned pairs come-defile and in the country indicated in bullets (2) and (4) in the above table. The combined nuances of these two bullets - come vs. bump into- and - in the country vs on the road - make it plausible that the Bible makes an exception if either the priest or High Priest bumped unexpectedly into a dead body on the road with no one attending to the person to bury it. In such a case the Priest must defile himself and bury the body. In presenting this explanation we have deviated from Rashi's literal statement that we infer this law from the extra phrase in the country (bullet #(2)). We instead offer a combined approach come vs bumped into unexpectedly (bullet #(4)) and in the country vs on the road (bullet #(2)). The combined approach makes Rashi more plausible. Such a reading of Rashi where we interpret Rashi's statement we learn from here to mean We learn from a variety of places inclding here is consistent with the approach to Rashi laid down in rule #1, references above. There are some further subtleties in this Rashi which we have not gone into. For example the Bible splits the aligned nuances between the chapters dealing with Priest and High Priest. The High Priest should not come to a dead body but he may defile himself to a dead body he bumps into unexpectedly. Similarly the ordinary priest should not let himself be defiled for funerals in the country; but for a dead body on the road he may or even should let himself be defiled. It is my opinion that Rashi simply noted one difference in the country. He expected each student to supplement this one observation with other differences.
The table below presents presents two contradictory verses. Both verses talk about penalties for damages. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says a death penalty applies when you smite the entire soul of a person while the other verse says a death penalty applies when you smite a person. Which is it? Is there a death penalty simply for wounding / smiting or does the death penalty require murder / smiting the whole soul? Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 Aspects method: (1) There is a death penalty for smiting people only if death occurs. (2) There is a death penalty for smiting parents even if wounding, not death, occurs.
This Rashi is a good example of the contradiction method since the contradiction is inferred from the alignment of the entire soul of a person vs. person. Furthermore the resolution is supported by an explicit verse stating that smiting parents in and of itself is punished by a death penalty.
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. Todays example shows a generalization from two verses. Verse Lv24-11e discussing the act of blasphemy committed in the desert states and the name of his mother was Shlomith, the daughter of Divri, from the tribe of Dan. Verse Ex31-06 discussing the craftmanship of Bezalel, the Temple architect, states and with him Ahaliav....from the tribe of Dan. The Rabbi Ishmael example rule requires generalization of these passages. In this case we simply generalize from blasphemers and Temple architects to all people with distinguishing deeds: any person with a distinguishing deed - whether good or bad - brings reflection - whether honor or disgrace - to his tribe.
We ask the following database query: What activities does the Torah classify as charity? 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: There are 4 ways to fulfill the obligation of charity: 1) Monetary gifts 2) monetary loans 3) business support 4) abandonment of items letting the poor work (gather) for them. The list below presents the results of the database query.
Advanced Rashi: Note the exquisite contrast in these 4 examples: Give him freely vs. loan on condition of repayment; Strengthen and help him in business vs. let them gather the gleanings themselves - let them work, do not help them! This rich spectrum of charity obligations allows all to participate in this important commandment. I believe the results of this database query an innovation of this email list as I have not seen it explicitly in any books on charity.
The table below presents the 3 commandments as well as their symbolic interpretation. We also include a non-commandment example of leaning. It follows that this Rashi combines the database and symbolism methods.
Sermonic points: The idea of symbolically affirming a serious moment such as transfer of responsibility occurs in many cultures with many diverse symbols. All cultures recognize the need to symbolically affirm serious moments and values. The symbolism here identifes support in the physical realm with moral support in the social realm. It is a symbol based on function.
Conclusion
This week's parshah does not contain examples of the Contradiction Rashi methods. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||