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Their presence in Rashis on Parshath Ki ThiSaH Volume 15, Number 25 This weeks Weekly Rashi with Hebrew/English source tables Is accessible at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1525.htm (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, February 17th, 2010 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 Ex30-36a discussing the method of compounding incense states And thou shalt beat some of it [the incense] very small, and put of it before the 10-commandments in the Temple, where I will meet with thee; it shall be unto you most holy Rashi clarifies the underlined words and put of it before the 10-commandments in the Temple by referencing verses Ex30-07:09 which states And Aaron shall burn on it [the golder altar before the ark with the 10 commandments] sweet incense every morning; when he dresses the lamps, he shall burn incense upon it. And when Aaron lights the lamps at evening, he shall burn incense upon it, an everlasting incense before the Lord throughout your generations. You shall offer no strange incense on it, nor burnt sacrifice, nor meal offering; nor shall you pour drink offering on it. Hence the Rashi comment: The statement to place the incense before the 10 commandments refers back to the obligation to offer incense morning and evening each day on the golden altar which is outside the ark which contains the 10 commandments.
Advanced Rashi: Notice how verses Ex30-07:09 mention the prohibition of offering additional incense offerings over and beyond the daily incense offerings. This prohibition prevented Rashi from interpreting Ex30-36 as referring to additional voluntary incense offerings. Instead Rashi was forced to interpret Ex30-36 as referring to the already required incense offerings explicitly mentioned in Ex30-07:09
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 Ex31-14c discussing the death penalty for descecration of the Sabbath we obtain Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore, for it is holy unto you; every one that profaneth it [treats it like sand/dirt] shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. In providing this English translation notice that we have used the English idiom treats it like dirt which mirrors the Hebrew treats it like sand since sand and dirt resemble each other - in fact sand is inferior to dirt in that plant growth cannot take place in it. Advanced Rashi: Rashi literally translates descecrates as Treating it like a weekday. The Hebrew word weekday literally means a profaned day and is the opposite of the Sabbath which is a holy day. We in fact could have added weekday to the above list. In Hebrew weekday = sand day = profaned day.
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.
Hence from the noun phrase, beaming face we obtain the verb phrase, indicating a creation of the noun-phrase: that is, his face beams, means he has a beaming face. English already has a word for this verb-noun transofrmation. Using the English words we translate Ex34-29 as follows: And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of Testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses knew not that his facial skin beamed. We have already explained in rule #2, meaning above that in Hebrew we use the word horn instead of beam: So the verse literally says his face horned.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses in Ex25-22, Ex30-36b Both verses discuss designation of the Kaporeth area as a place of meeting God. The alignment justifies the Rashi assertions that God meets the Jews in the Kaporeth area for prophetic communication.
The table below presents two contradictory verses / verselets. Both verses speak about God's reward of those who serve him. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says God rewards to thousands of generations, while the other verse states God rewards to only one thousand generations. We see the contradiction---which is it? Does God reward to thousands or only one thousdand generations. Rashi simply resolves this contradiction using the 2 aspects method: As can be seen from the above verses God rewards and shows mercy (a) To those who love him for thousands of generations (b) To those who only serve Him (from fear) to only 1 thousand generations.
Advanced Rashi: It might seem slightly arbitrary and picky that we emphasize proximity of words in these verses: to thousands of generations to those who love Him and watch his commandments vs. watches the convenant and treaty ....to those who watch his commandments to one thousand generations. Actually it is not the word order that is driving the interpretation of this Rashi. Rather this Rashi comment is driven by the contradiction. Resolution of a contradiction frequently does not even require a verse! Rather the force of the contradiction in and of itself encourages breaking up the applicability of the verses to two cases based on logic. The proximity of thousands vs. thousand to those who love him vs. those who watch his commandments is an afterthought that supports this distinction. It is not the driving force of the Rashi comment. Such a perspective on Rashi makes it more palatable.
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. Verse Ex34-25c discussing the time limits for consumption of the Pascal lamb states ...neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning. The Rabbi Ishmael example rule requires generalization of this passage. In this case we simply generalize from of the feast of Passover to any sacrifice: ...neither shall [any] sacrifice [such as] the feast of the passover be left unto the morning. Advanced Rashi: The Rashi Generalization rule is frequently applied to typical situations. For example the punishment of rape victims is presented as a punishment of field-rapes since rapes frequently happen in un-manned areas (Rashi, Dt22-25.) Siimilarly responsibility for animal torts is presented in terms of ox torts since oxen were a frequently owned animal (Rashi, Ex21-35). So too here: Most sacrifices are consumed by morning. However the Passover sacrifice is a typical example of a sacrifice that might not be finished till morning since the Passover sacrifice is consumed by people, not the altar, during a meal with prolonged discussion and much wine which encourages early sleep. So the correct way to look at this Rashi is that Even the Passover sacrifice which might typically be left over till morning should not be left over till morning and certainly other sacrifices where there is no reason to delay altar consumption should not be left over till morning.
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.
Non-Jews are not explicitly mentioned above. Rather Rashi inferred contrastively that since one bullet #1 mentions the Jews the other set of bullets must be addressed to non-Jews. This in fact is exactly how bullets function - they create a contrastive emphasis which can lead to detailed meaning.
It is a well known Rashi that there wer 3 ascents of Moses on the mount, for 40 days each, resulting in forgiveness on the Day of Atonement. This is literally a spreadsheet listing a chronology. It is presented below with the source verses and the events that happened.
Rashi translates Ex34-29a as follows: And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of Testimony in Moses’ hand,[ that is, the day after Yom Kippur, after the 2nd receipt of the ten commandments, which happened after the first tablets were broken and Moses obtained forgiveness for the sin of the Golden Calf] when he came down from the mount,Moses knew not that his facial skin beamed after God prophesied to Moses.
The symbolism method seeks to extract meaningful inferences from the symbolism of the biblical text. The concept of symbolic interpretation is very involved. A good, compact, clear reference explaining when symbolism can be used and how to apply it may be found in my article Genesis 1 speaks about the creation of prophecy not the world which you can find at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/gen-1.htm. Today we explore the symbolism in Ex30-34 which reads as follows:
Rashi makes symbolic inferences from the use of a bad smelling fatty spice in the sweet incense: This inclusion--of a bad smelling fatty spice in the sweet incense--teaches you that there is a requirement to include the bad smelling spices in the incense. Symbolically this means that every community who wishes to approach God in prayer which is compared to incense, is required to include bad and foul-smelling people.
Conclusion
This week's parshah contains no examples of the database Rashi method. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com and http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule.htm for further details and examples. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||