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Their presence in Rashis on Parshath SheMoTh Volume 17, Number 18 This weeks Weekly Rashi with Hebrew/English source tables will be accessible, on Sunday, at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1718.htm (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, Jan 12 2012 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 Ex06-01c discussing God's promise to get Pharoh to let the Jewish people leave states And the Lord said to Moses, Now shall you see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he expel them out of his land. Rashi notes that the underlined words, expel references verses Ex12-33:34 discussing how the Jews left Egypt. Hence the Rashi comment God's promsie that Pharoh will expel the Jewish people from Egypt echoes the explicit statement in Ex12-33 that the Egyptians, fearing for their lives, expelled the Jews from Egypt and didn't even leave them time to bake bread.
Students of Rashi must bear in mind that Rashi could sometimes use universal principles applicable in all languages. This particularly applies to the meaning methods.
Verse Ex02-11b discussing Moses exposure to the Jews states And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, and empathized with their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. The Hebrew Biblical root used, Resh-Aleph-Hey normally refers to physically sight. However seeing can equally mean empathizing. In a similar manner the Biblical root Shin-Mem-Ayin which normally refers to physical listening can equally mean understand. Words for other sensory perceptions have similar dual meanings. Thus in English we use the word scent to indicate a hunch; we similarly use the word feel to indicate intuition.
In all these examples Rashi is using the synechdoche / good example figure of speech method. Thus understanding is a good usage of listening; similarly empathy is a good example of seeing. Especially since empathy is often communicated by eye contact.
Verse Ex05-16b discussing the greater taxing work that the Jews were given by Pharoh states There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us: Make brick; and, behold, thy servants are beaten, and your nation has become [a paradigm of] fault.
Advanced Rashi: But it is the construct interpretation - this lack of production is the fault of ourselves - that makes sense. What sense does the non-construct mean - we are fault. I have interpreted this to mean we have become the paradigm of fault. Thus a person who wanted to criticize a fellow person would rank him out you are a Jew by which he means you are full of faults. Such identifications of people with their attributes is a powerful poetic technique: Perhaps the most famous example is P109-04, in which King David says I am prayer. That is, instead of saying I am a person who prays King David says I am prayer. In a similar manner the Jews say we are fault which has a similar construction to I am prayer. Here the Jews indicate that they have become a paradigm of ridicule and fault.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Ex03-14a Both verses/verselets discuss God's intended relation with the Jews. The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: God initially identified himself as I will be I will be indicating God's promise of being with the Jews during all tragedies (and hence the repetition of the phrase connoting always). But then in His final statement God simply says I will be, once, emphasizing nearness to the Jews in their current crisis. It wasn't appropriate to mention other crises at this time.
The table below presents two contradictory verses/verselets. Both verses speak about coming to Pharoh to negotiate the release of the Jews. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse/verselet says Moses, Aaron and the elders would go to Pharoh and ask for the release of the Jews while the other verse/verselet says Moses and Aaron went to Pharoh to ask for the release of the Jews We see the contradiction Which is it? Did the elders go to Pharoh or not? Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 Stages method: Initially Moses, Aaron and the elders were suppose to go to Pharoh to negotiate the release of the Jews; but At the final moment only Moses and Aaron came. Apparently the elders chickened out at the last momemnt.
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. The style rule requires that we interpret the general theme with special focus on the attributes of the illustrative detail selected. Today's example illustrates this as shown below.
Rashi comments: The two sentences form one paragraph. That is the statement in the theme sentence who did not know Joseph refers to the details mentioned in the second sentence outsmart them lest they multiply and join our enemies in time of war and banish us. In other words the King certainly knew who Joseph was and what Joseph had done for the Egyptian people. But the King no longer trusted Joseph despite his former record. The King was suspicious of the Jews. Advanced Rashi: The Hebrew Yud-Daleth-Ayin equally means know and appreciate. For example when Joseph's brothers were talking in Hebrew about the sale of Joseph the verse says they didn't appreciate that Joseph was listening Gn42-23. They obviously knew he was listening but they didn't think he understood; in other words, although they cognitively knew he was listening they didn't fully appreciate it. By translating the Hebrew word Yud-Daleth-Ayin as appreciate we emphasize that although Pharoh knew that Joseph during famine fought for the Egyptian people and cared about them he no longer appreciated this fact. Rather, he treated Joseph like a stranger, someone he didn't know. Joseph and the Jews might multiply and might join an enemy in time of war and banish the Egyptians. Hence Pharoh had to make the first strike and outsmart the Jews. To recap: The statement Pharoh didn't know/appreciate Joseph could be interpreted on many levels. The general-detail structure restricts the interpretation to the detail phrase: He didn't appreciate his kindness and acted suspiciously to him. On a very deep level this Rashi and verse portends to a very current theme - the relation between population growth and food growth. The classical argument is that if people and food continue to grow as is there will be wars because of lack of food resources. But Joseph refuted this. During the years of famine there was adequate food because they gathered food during the good years! So too - if the Jews were multiplying Joseph with his ingenuity could produce enough food for all. The argument of the religious people who continue to reproduce is that with faith we find the means to produce adequate food. Joseph had proven that faith works. But Pharoh acted in a conventional conservative manner and no longer appreciated Joseph's faith and his devotion and abilty to provide food and prevent famines.
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 indicated bullets by using repeating keywords. That is, if a modern author wanted to get a point across using bullets - a list of similar but contrastive items - then the Biblical Author would use repeating keywords. Today's verse illustrates this principle. Bullets whether indicated through modern notation or through the Biblical method of repeating keywords always indicate contrastive emphasis - that is, each bullet is presumed to be a distinct item contrasted to the other items on the list. Very often the bullets are also used to indicate that the entire list is exhaustive of some spectrum.
We ask the following database query: Are Biblical items named by future events which have not happened yet? 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: Items are frequently named in the Bible by how they will be called rather then what they are called now--e.g. the Kosher animals in Noah's ark. The list below presents the results of the database query and shows examples.
We should clarify the nature of the above list. The Bible, in Abraham's time, calls Amalyk's field after Amalyk who was not yet born. Similarly God's mountain (Mount Sinai) is named by the future reception of the Torah there.
Today's Rashi is a peach of an example showing the true flavor of the Fill-in method. I would urge all serious students of Rashi to carefully study this. Verse Ex02-11:15a discussing Moses attempt to stop Jews from fighting with each other states And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. And ... he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. And he went out the second day, and, behold, two men of the Hebrews were striving together; and he said to him that did the wrong: 'Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?' And he said: 'Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? thinkest thou to kill me, as thou didst kill the Egyptian?' And Moses feared, and said: 'Surely the thing is known.' Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, ... Rashi Fills In: Pharoh heard about the murder from the two Hebrews who were fighting. They slandered Moses to Pharoh.
For this reason I have called this Rashi method,Non-Verse. The submethod used here is the Fill-in method. Although these names are not glamorous they are part of serious Rashi study and do significantly enrich our understanding of the Bible.
Verse Ex03-02b describing the Revelation of God to Moses in the thornbush states And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a thornbush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. Rashi, using the symbolism of the fire and thornbush states God appeared with burns from the midst of the suffering and pain. Here Rashi interprets fire and thornbush as indicating pain and suffering. The verse, according to this interpretation indicates that God was empathic with the suffering of the Jews. The idea of God using symbolic objects in prophecies is quite common and occurs frequently in the Bible. To take another example we cite Nu17-16:20 where a tree-branch symbolically indicates a tribal branch. Hence the blossomed branch indicates a productive tribe who is worthy of service in God's temple: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, and take from every one of them a branch according to the house of their fathers, from all their princes according to the house of their fathers twelve rods; write every manÆs name upon his rod. ... And you shall lay them up in the Tent of Meeting before the Testimony, where I will meet with you. And it shall come to pass, that the manÆs branch, whose [tribe] I shall choose [to serve in the temple], shall blossom; ... Advanced Rashi: We can not fully defend the symbolic Rashi's in a newsletter of this size. We refer the more interested reader to my article on symbolism, available on the world-wide-web at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/gen-1.htm. Finally I point out that we in no way intend to exhaust the explanation of the Rashi with the above. There is a rich literature on the symbolism of the burning thornbush. We have given the basic ideas by which it should be examined.
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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||