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Their presence in Rashis on Parshath BeHa'aLoTheChaH Volume 18, Number 12 This weeks Weekly Rashi with Hebrew/English source tables will be accessible, on Sunday, at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1812.htm (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, June 8 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 Nu10-02f discussing the commandment to make trumpets states Make two trumpets of silver; make them hard; you may use them for calling the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps. Rashi clarifies the underlined words hard by referencing verse(s) Ex25-36, discussing the construction of the Temple Candellabrah, which states Their bulbs and their branches shall be made from it; it shall all be one hard work of pure gold. Hence the Rashi comment: A hard work means sculptored vs. soldered That is all parts of the work are From it; the entire work forms one hard piece.
The example below combines two Rashi methods: The meaning method and the alignment method. The special word method deals with the few dozen special words that exist in all languages. Familiar examples are also, when, that, because, only, this,.... Rashi's job, when he comments on a special connective words, is to list the varied nuances and usages of the word. The most famous example is the Hebrew word Kaph Yud which can mean because, that, when, perhaps, rather, if. Sometimes Rashi explicitly gives all meanings of a connective word as happens with Kaph Yud while at other times Rashi does not give all meanings at once. In such a case the student must gather all the meanings together from various places. Today we deal with the special connective word this, Zayin-Aleph-Tauv. The word this always indicates an unspecified emphasis. This unspecified emphasis will clarify the application of the alignment discussed immediately below. The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Nu08-24a, Lv21-17 Both verses/verselets discuss requirements of people - priests, levites - serving in the Temple. The alignment justifies the Rashi assertion that One verse says that blemished priests may not serve. One verse says that young/old levites may not serve. There are 3 approaches to interpreting this alignment. Approach 1 - Shared: Both priests and levites are prohibited from serving if they are either blemished or young/old. Approach 2 - Additive: Priests may not serve if blemished. Levites may not serve if blemished or young/old. Approach 3 - Contrastive: Priests may not serve if blemished. Levites may not serve if young/old. The true approach: The true approach is given by the special connective word, this, introducing the Levite law. In other words This law only applies to the Levites but not to the priests. Hence the alignment is interpreted contrastively - blemishes only invalidate Priests while age only invalidates Levites.
Advanced Rashi: Special note should be made of the possible three approaches to interpreting the alignment. Indeed we do find alignments whose interpretation uses the shared approach, the additive approach or the contrastive approach. There is no reason, a priori, to chose one over the other. A position of this email group is that interpretations are not politically motivated but rather grammatically motivated. That is the Bible indicated through special words, phrases and styles which approach should be emphasized. In this case the introductory word this is what applies to the Levites emphasizes a contrastive approach - this law only applies to the Levites, not to the Priests. We believe that this observation is one of the most important contributions of this email newsletter.
Verse Nu11-15b discussing Moses' prayer to die rather than see the punishment of the Jewish people states And if Thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray Thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in Thy sight; and let me not look upon my wretchedness.' Rashi points out that logically the verse should read And if Thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray Thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in Thy sight; and let me not look upon their wretchedness.' Rashi explains: Considerations of politeness and etiquette justify grammatical changes that avoid confrontation. Here by changing the underlined word their to my Moses avoids mentioning the horrible catastrophe about to befall the Jewish people. There are in fact 18 politeness-grammatical changes in the Bible. These politeness-grammatical changes are grammatical usages common to all languages and all cultures. These politeness-grammatical changes are in the original biblical text and, as indicated, are common to all languages.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Gn06-09, Nu07-01 Both verses/verselets discuss Noach's greatness. The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: (A) You state the full praise of a person behind his back. (B) However in a person's presence you only state partial phrase. We infer this from the contrast that behind his back Noach was called (1)a man (2) righteous, (3) perfect, (4) walking before God while to his face Noach was only called (2) righteous and (4) before God. In a similar manner God called Moses, Aaron and Miriam when Aaron and Miriam complained about Moses' behavior but God only fully praised Moses to Aaron and Miriam.
The table below presents presents two contradictory verses. Both verses talk about the number of Jews that left Egypt. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says 600,000 Jews left while the other verse says 603,550 Which is it? Did 600,000 people leave or did 603,550 leave? Rashi simply resolves this in two ways: One using the 2 Aspects method and one using the broad-literal method. We present two solutions. Solution 1: 600,000 is a legitimate approximation for 603,550 [Support for this solution may be found in Ex12-37 which explicitly says that the 600,000 is approximate!]. Solution 2: The 600,000 men who left Egypt complained. The 3,550 people who became adults (reached age 20) since leaving Egypt did not complain.
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 and consequently the law or narrative statement only applies to the enumerated details but not to other cases. Today's example illustrates this as shown below.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi actually states They simply fabricated claims; for example even though they left Egypt with alot of cattle (Ex12-38) and even though when they entered Israel they had alot of cattle (Nu32-01) they fabricated and said who will give us meat. Rashi appears to be using the contradiction method since the verses stating that the Jews had cattle contradicts their statement who will give us meat? However the preceding verse also says They fabricated desires. The verb for desire is in the Hitpael mode. There is a 4 way controversy on what the hitpael mode is used for. In this email list we have adopted the position that hitpael means interactive. The statement they interactively desired could be interpreted to mean they fabricated desire, that is they interacted with whomever they were talking; even if they had what to eat they claimed they had desires. On a psychological level we need not interpret this maliciously. We can interpret this in terms of standard paranoia of slaves. The slave may have everything (s)he needs but because of lack of ownership the slave paranoically worries that they may be lacking. Such a paranoic worry leads to fabricating desires that are not there: I need more meat because tomorrow I may not have. The exploration of the paranoic feelings of the Jews who left Egypt is a well known psychological theme and is used to explain certain tragedies and sins that happened in the desert.
Having established a break in chronological order we seek to explain this break by seeking a contrastive, causal, or unifying theme of Nu09 with the surrounding biblical chapters. The table below shows that Nu09 presents a unifying theme with the surrounding chapters of Jewish complaining.
We ask the following database query: Which procedures require a shaving of the entire body. 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: Shaving the entire body is symbolic of feminization. Female passivity - the capacity to be a good listener has importance for two purposes: a) to cure the lepor who slanders people. By acquiring female passivity and listening the lepor will cure his urge to slander. b)to indoctrinate the Levites who counsel people. It is well known that passive listening is an important part of counseling. The list below presents the results of the database query and shows examples
Acknowledgement: Although Rashi states the lepor-levite connection it was Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch who founded the entire field of Biblical symbolism on a deep elegant and logical axiomatic basis. We owe much to Rav Hirsch who, culminating several 100 years of midieval symbolic commentary, unlocked the doors to a biblical room filled with color, aroma and an etheral beauty not expected in the bible.
Verse Ex19-01 describing the Jews arrival at Sinai, where they received the Torah, states: In the third month after the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. Verse Nu10-11a describing the departure of the Jews from Sinai, states: And it came to pass in the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth day of the month, that the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle of the testimony. Based on these two verses Rashi infers The Jews stayed at Sinai for a little under a year. [The table below shows they stayed for 11 months 3 weeks)] The spreadsheet below shows the computations that led to Rashi's conclusion.
Sermonic Points: There is an absolutely delicious explanation of the above Rashi. The Torah was received at Sinai. But you can't learn a whole new law code in one day. Most probably Moses lectured at the rate of one biblical paragraph per day thereby ensuring mastery of biblical content. There are in fact 293 paragraphs in the Torah. It is reasonable that Saturdays were used for review. Hence the whole Torah was reviewed in 293 days (one for each paragraph) + 49 Saturdays (293/6 = 49) = 344 days = 11 months x 29.5 days per month + 19 days. In other words this Rashi The Jews camped at Sinai for 344 days is not a numerical curiosity but rather a profound method of biblical pedagogy. Here the Torah and Moses show us the proper way to absorb new learning material thru small digestable daily learning. This Rashi is the basis of the Page-a-day (DafYomi) Talmud learning project. Praise be Him Who chose them and their learning. Acknowledgement: This 293 calculation (with modifications) is based on modern biblical research. The interested reader can find a detailed reference in the introduction to the Israeli Korain Tanach.
The example below combines two Rashi methods: The symbolism method and the database method.
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 contains examples of all Rashi methods. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||