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Their presence in Rashis on Parshath Pinchas Volume 16, Number 20 This weeks Weekly Rashi with Hebrew/English source tables Is accessible at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1620.htm (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, July 15th, 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 Nu24-39b, discussing the obligation to fulfill ones vows on festivals states These things you shall do to the Lord in your set feasts, beside your vows, and your freewill offerings, for your burnt offerings, and for your meal offerings, and for your drink offerings, and for your peace offerings. Rashi clarifies the underlined words vows by referencing verse(s) Dt23-22:24, discussing the Biblical commandment to keep ones vows (and not delay them) which states When you shall vow a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not be slack to pay it; for the Lord your God will surely require it of you; and it would be sin in you. But if you shall forbear to vow, it shall be no sin in you. That which is gone out of your lips you shall keep and perform; even a freewill offering, according to what you have vowed to the Lord your God, which you have promised with your mouth. Hence the Rashi comment: ...the vows he made during the year should be fulfilled on the festival; otherwise he will be far away, unable to fulfill them, and violate the prohibition against delaying vows.
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 Nu28-02 discussing the offering of the daily offering we obtain Command the children of Israel, and say unto them: My food which is presented unto Me for offerings made by fire, of a sweet savour unto Me: professionally standardize to offer it unto Me in its due season. Advanced Rashi: Hence the Rashi comment: From this Biblical requirement of professional standardazation the Rabbis based the institution of the Standers groups of lay Israelites who would stand and pray in their synagogues simultaneously with the offering of the daily sacrifice. These Standers helped standardize and watch the institution of the daily offering since a wider spectrum of Jews knew of the offering by virtue of the representatives in their community.
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 study a Rashi based on a simple grammatical rule: pronoun reference. In English the rule is that the pronoun must refer to the nearest noun. But in the Bible the rule is that the pronoun refers to the most logical antecedent. This Biblical rule appears somewhat strange to English speakers and they must acclimate to it. Let us apply it to Nu28-15c: Verse Nu28-15c discussing the requirement to offer a sin offering states And one he-goat for a sin-offering unto HaShem; it shall be offered beside the daily day-offering, and its [the daily up offering] libations The pronouns its libations could refer to either of the underlined nouns: the daily day offering or the sin offering. Rashi explains But based on Nu15 only up- and peace- offerings have libations. Sin offerings don't have libations. Hence the pronoun its refers to the libations of the daily up offering. Here we see Rashi using the Biblical rule of most logical antecedent to justify his conclusion.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Nu29-19, Nu29-28, Nu29-31. Both verses/verselets discuss the offering festival libations. The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: The verses speak about its libation, its libations, and their libations. There were in fact multiple libations: There was the traditional oil-wine-flour libation. There was also an additional libation - the water libation.
Praise be Him who chose them and their learning. Note that this Rashi also deals with certain symbolic issues. We therefore regard this Rashi comment as a multiple Rashi comment and will deal with the other Rashi comments in future issues.
The table below presents two contradictory verses. Both verses talk about the hand-placement inauguration ceremony of Joshua. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says God ordered Moses to place his hand on Joshua for the inauguration. while the other verse says Moses placed both his hands on Joshua for inauguration. Which is it? Was one or two hands suppose to be placed on Joshua. Rashi simply resolves this using the broad-literal method: The literal requirement was for Moses to place one hand on Joshua for the inauguration. This symbolized delegation and transfer of responsibility. However symbolically Moses did not have to give Joshua his full powers. Moses then interpreted God's order broadly. He placed both hands on Joshua during the inauguration cermemony symbolizing not only a transfer and delegation of responsibility but best wishes for a full and generous giving over of all his powers.
Certain Biblical paragraphs are stated in an 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. Verses Nu29-12:39 discussing the offerings brought on each of the 8 days of Succoth-Shmini-Azereth states And on the fifteenth day of the seventh month you shall ... And you shall offer a burnt offering, thirteen young bulls,.... And on the second day you shall offer twelve young bulls,... And on the third day eleven bulls, ... And on the fourth day ten bulls, ... And on the fifth day nine bulls, ... And on the sixth day eight bulls, ... And on the seventh day seven bulls, .... On the eighth day... But you shall offer one bull, one ram, .... Rashi commenting on the underlined phrases states: Immediately after the forgiveness of Yom Kippur we are in ecstasy and offer 14 bulls. As the holiday progresses we offer 13,12,11...,7, until on the last day we offer 1. This ecstasy with a graduated decrease to normalacy is a prototype for all interpersonal occasions of happiness (Both between God and man and between man and man) - We should always start big and gradually return to normalacy.
Very often Rashi will make an inference from the paragraph structure. A typical paragraph structures can be parallel or contrastive with or without bullets. The parallel and contrastive structure naturally generate Rashi comments. This type of inference also follows from the Rabbi Ishmael Style rule of inferring from context since the paragraph structure endows the disparate paragraph sentences with a unified context.
Today we ask the database query: What is the normal way to reference a person's name and ancestors? The reader is encouraged to perform the query using a standard Biblical Konnkordance or search engine. These database queries yield the list below. The list justifies the following Rashi inference: 1) Normal genealogies typically have 2 generations (e.g. X son of Y). 2) When more genealogies are given there is emphasis. The list below presents the results of the database query and show examples
Advanced Rashi: There are less than a 100 examples of generalogies with more than 2 names in the Bible. In the Torah there are only 3 (The 3rd is Zelaphchad's daughters). This is certainly a rich hunting ground for those eager to do a Midrashic project.
People have a naive approach to tribes and subtribes. We use a genealogical model, forgetting that our religion is not tribal! The model should properly have a dimension of merit! Jews were never tribal and Judaism certainly isn't. There are three proofs to seeing merit as well as genealogy in the Jewish Biblical tribal model. First we have the explicit statement of Jacob, Gn48-05:06, that And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you to Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. And your issue, born to you after them, shall be yours, and shall be called after the name of their brothers in their inheritance. So we have an explicit statement that 2 grandchildren, Ephraim and Menasseh, will have equal trible status to the children. That is Reuben, Jacob's son formed one Israeli tribe and similarly, Ephraim, Jacob's grandson,formed one Israeli tribe. The verse further says that the rest of Joseph's children belong to the tribes of Ephraim and Menassheh. Commentators have overlooked this. It is a mistake to think Joseph had only 2 children. Indeed a famous Rashi says that all Jews had sextuplets (In this email list we have interpreted this to mean many children, not necessarily exactly six). So where were Joseph's other 4 children! The truth is we don't know their names but they were certainly there. The real point is that Joseph had many children, two of which were worthy of being tribes. Here, directly from Jacob's order, we have the first instance of a tribal system based on genealogy and merit. A second proof can be found in Judah's children. Gn46-12 states And the sons of Judah; Er, and Onan, and Shelah, and Perez, and Zarah; but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. And the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul. Here we have grandchildren - Hezron, Hamul - taking a subtribe status equal to that of children. This is confirmed in the census in Numbers, Nu26-19:22, where Hezron, Hamul are given subtribe status. But Rashi is pedagog par excellence! Rashi does not make his punchline on Ephraim and Menasshe since Jacob explicitly declared it. He also does not make his punchline by Judah since two of Judah's sons died suggesting that a replacement must be necessary. Instead Rashi waits for a verse with no excuses. Nu26-36 discussing the subtribes of Menassheh states And these are the sons of Shuthelah; from Eran, the family of the Eranites. Now does anyone really think that in a nation where everyone had sextuplets, Shuthelah had only one son. But the truth is as Rashi says Shuthelah's other children were censused under Shuthelah. But one of Shuthelah's children, Eran, was distinguished and merited to form their own subtribe. Here we have the explicit statement that the assumed equation one child = one (sub)tribe is not true. Rather the accurate principle is Tribality was based on two dimensions of genealogy and merit. From among the children those that merited became subtribes. In this way Judaism preserved its non-tribal nature as a religion based on personal merit. Advanced Rashi: In translating this Rashi I am translating Ravah as distinguished rather than many. In other words I am not translating Rashi as Eran was a big family so they made him his own tribe (Sort of like making a big block their own zip code for operational convenience). Rather I am translating Eran was a distinguished family. This translation is consistent with the other precedents I mentioned above. If one chooses to translate Ravah as many the above explanation would still hold since it is based on Jacob's explicit statement, other precedents such as that of Judah, and the reasonable assumption that families did not have just 1 or 2 children. I also point out that Judaism uses the merit-genealogy approach with the selection of the High Priest. From among the High Priest's children we take the one most meritorious for the successor (Not necessarily the oldest). I believe the ideas enunciated here are of extreme importance to Jewish philosophy and contradict the often cited tribal approach to Judaim. Note: Since this rule elucidates how to trace the relationship between children and tribes we have called it non-verse since, dealing with enumeration, it resembles a spreadsheet method. Acknowledgement: When the youngest of my sisters was in High School she asked me If everyone had sextuplets why do we only know 3 of Amram's children- Moses, Aaron, Miriam. I answered that Perhaps the others were not as famous. I believe the above Rashi places a context by which to understand the distinction between distinguished and ordinary children. This distinctdsion affects tribality and apparently other matters also.
We have already explained the symbolic meaning of Shmini Azereth in rule #6, style above. We recap here: Immediately after the forgiveness of Yom Kippur we are in ecstasy and offer 14 bulls. As the holiday progresses we offer 13,12,11...,7, bulls until on the last day we offer 1. This ecstasy with a graduated decrease to normalacy is a prototype for interpersonal occasions of happiness - start big and gradually return to normalacy. In effect God is telling us: We (God and Jews) had such a good time Yom Kippur when you were totally forgiven; in this moment of ecstasy we had a big meal (huge number of animals offered) on the first day of Sukkoth. We then gradually returned to normalacy (Symbolized by the decreasing number of bulls offered per day). Finally after the wedding and honeymoon are over God says to the Jews:'Please don't go - stay one more day for a small but intimate get together (Symbolized by the offering of only one bull). This symbolism illustrates dealing with the contrastive emotions of ecstasy and intimacy.
Conclusion
This week's parshah contains examples of all Rashi methods. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||