1. RASHI METHOD: REFERENCES BRIEF EXPLANATION: Commentary on a verse is provided thru a cross-reference to another verse. The cross references can either provide (1a) further details, (1b) confirm citations, or (1c) clarify word meaning. This examples applies to Rashis Dt05-16b URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/w34n6.htm; Brief Summary: Ten Commandments: Observe the Sabbath AS GOD COMMANDED YOU. Rashi: Commanded at Marah. Similarly for HONOR FATHER/MOTHER.

Verse(s) Dt05-12,Dt05-16b discussing the obligation to observe Sabbath and honor parents states Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord your God has commanded you. ... Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you; that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you, in the land which the Lord your God gives you. Rashi clarifies the underlined words as the Lord your God has commanded you by referencing verse(s) Ex15-25,Ex16-28:30 discussing the laws given in Marah and the Seen Desert, which states And he cried to the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he threw into the waters, and made the waters sweet; there he set for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he tested them, ... And the Lord said to Moses, How long refuse you to keep my commandments and my laws? See, because the Lord has given you the sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide you every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day. Hence the Rashi comment: As can be seen from Nu33-08:15, Marah and Seen Desert were pre-Sinai stops on the Jewish journeys. It says explicitly that the Jews were given the (a) Sabbath and (b) a Statute and (c) Ordinance. We are not told further details about this Statute and Ordinance. However in the 10 commandments in Deuteronomy the phrase as your God the Lord commanded you is added by the commandments to honor the Sabbath and to honor ones parents. Hence we infer that the statute and ordinance mentioned by Marah probably refers to the obligation to honor ones parents.

Text of Target verse Dt05-12,Dt05-16b	Text of Reference Verse Ex15-25,Ex16-28:30
Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord your God has commanded you. ... Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you; that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you, in the land which the Lord your God gives you.	And he cried to the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he threw into the waters, and made the waters sweet; there he set for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he tested them, ... And the Lord said to Moses, How long refuse you to keep my commandments and my laws? See, because the Lord has given you the sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide you every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day.
Rashi comments: As can be seen from Nu33-08:15, Marah and Seen Desert were pre-Sinai stops on the Jewish journeys. It says explicitly that the Jews were given the (a) Sabbath and (b) a Statute and (c) Ordinance. We are not told further details about this Statute and Ordinance. However in the 10 commandments in Deuteronomy the phrase as your God the Lord commanded you is added by the commandments to honor the Sabbath and to honor ones parents. Hence we infer that the statute and ordinance mentioned by Marah probably refers to the obligation to honor ones parents.

Advanced Rashi: Rashi also mentions that the commandment of the Red Heiffer was given in Marah. Unlike the Seen Desert where it is explicitly mentioned that the Sabbath was given, we are only told that a statute and ordinance were given in Marah. We are not told which statute and ordinance. Rashi therefore notes that the phrases as God commanded you or that God commanded Moses are mentioned by the commandments to honor one's parents Dt05-16 and to observe the Red Heiffer ceremony Dt19-02. Rashi therefore identifies the Statute and ordinance as referring to honoring ones parents and the red heiffer.

True, there are other commandments where it says as God commanded. For example the entire building of the Tabernacle Ex35 - Ex40 mentions the phrase as God commanded Moses 18 times. But in this case we have the original verses where God commanded Moses (Ex25 - Ex28).

So the proper statement is that there are only three commandments were the phrase observe... as God commanded you is mentioned without a corresponding reference text where God actually commanded. Hence Rashi assumes that these three commandments #NAME? Statute and ordinance taught in Marah and Seen desert.

There are various manuscripts of Rashi; which commandments are taught has driven alot of speculation. The above analysis is not based on a particular Rashi manuscript but rather based on universal principles that Rashi always used. Hence, based on this analysis, I would assume that those manuscripts which mention Red Heiffer, Honoring Parents, and Sabbath are the correct ones. Notice, here, how we use logic to justify the manuscript rather than using the manuscript to justify identification of the correct text.

We will revisit this example below in rule #7, format and rule #8, database below.

An idiom is a collection of words which means more than the sum of the meanings of each of the phrases' individual words. Verse Dt04-21b discussing God's anger at Moses states And the Lord was angry with me because of your words, and swore that I should not go over the Jordan, and that I should not go into that good land, which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance; Rashi explains: The phrase because of your words is an idiom meaning because of your incidents We can compactly combine the Rashi comment with the Biblical text by translating as follows: And the Lord was angry with me because of your incidents, and swore that I should not go over the Jordan, and that I should not go into that good land, which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance;

Most people know that the Biblical meaning of a word is determined by its underlying three-letter root. The Biblical root can be conjugated in different a) persons, b) tenses, c) pluralities, d) genders, e) constructions and f) modalities. For example I watched has a different conjugation then I will be watched even though both phrases use the same 3 letter Hebrew root.

Rashi explains that the Hebrew root Resh-Aleph-Hey can mean both see and prophetically see. However the causative-passive (Hafal) always means that we received (passive) from God (causative) a prophecy. The following verses illustrate this: Dt04-35a You have received prophecy, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other beside him ; Ex25-40 And see that you make them after their pattern, which was prophetically shown to you in the mount.

The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Dt06-09b Both verses/verselets discuss the obligation to place Mezuzoth on your doorposts. The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: Mezuzoth must be placed (a) on the doorposts of your house and also (b) on the gateposts of courtyards and cities.

Verse	Text of Verse	Rashi comment
Dt06-09b	And you shall write them upon the posts of your house, and in your gates.	Mezuzoth must be placed on the doorposts of your house and also on the gateposts of courtyards and cities.
Dt06-09b	And you shall write them upon the posts of your house, and in your gates.

Advanced Rashi: Rashi does not explain why one verselet has the word on while the other verselet has the word in. I would conjecture that the Torah is indicating a requirement that the affixment of the Mezuzoth on the doorposts satisfy a requirement of both on and in. Hence the law The doorposts have a side facing the outside of the house and a side (about 2-3 inches) perpendicular to the house which is so to speak more inside. The law requires that the Mezuzoth are placed on the inside part of the doorposts.

5. RASHI METHOD: CONTRADICTION BRIEF EXPLANATION:Rashi resolves contradictory verses using 3 methods. (5a) Resolution using two aspects of the same event (5b) Resolution using two stages of the same process (5c) Resolution using broad-literal interpretation. This examples applies to Rashis Dt04-19b URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1302.htm Brief Summary: Although God created celestial beings to give the world energy, warmth and tides He is fully aware that people might worship them; He gives man free will.

The table below presents two contradictory verses. Both verses talk about idolatry. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says Idolatry is severely prohibited, while the other verse says the idolatrous celestial beings were apportioned to the nations! Which is it? Is idolatry prohibited to the nations or is it given/apportioned to them? Rashi simply resolves this using the Broad-Literal method: Idolatry is prohibited. But God apportioned great forces to the nations of the world. If they willfully ignore God's commands and worship them God does not intefer since He tests people by allowing them to sin. This aspect of God as someone who tests man and allows him to conquer or acquiesce to sin is explicitly stated in Dt13-02:04. So in summary the statement that God apportioned these to the non-Jews can be interpreted literally - He apportioned their power for non Jews to harvest - or broadly - He apportioned them to test non Jews and let them worship idols and fail.

Summary	Verse / Source	Text of verse / Source
Idolatry is absolutely prohibited	Dt12-02:03	You shall completely destroy all the places, where the nations which you shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree; And you shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire; and you shall cut down the carved images of their gods, and destroy their names out of that place.
God apportioned the worshipped objects to the nations	Dt04-16:19b	Lest you corrupt yourselves, and make you an engraved image, the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, The likeness of any thing that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth; And lest you lift up your eyes to the skies, and when you see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, all the host of the skies, should you be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord your God has apportioned to all nations under the whole sky.
Resolution:	Broad-Literal	Idolatry is prohibited. But God apportioned great forces to the nations of the world. If they willfully ignore God's commands and worship them God does not intefer since He tests people by allowing them to sin. This aspect of God as someone who tests man and allows him to conquer or acquiesce to sin is explicitly stated in Dt13-02:04. So in summary the statement that God apportioned these to the non-Jews can be interpreted literally - He apportioned their power for non Jews to harvest - or broadly - He apportioned them to test non Jews and let them worship idols and fail.

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. Today's example illustrates this.

Verses Dt04-32:34 discussing the greatness of God's deliverance of the Jews from Egypt states For ask now of the days past, which were before thee, since the day that G-d created man upon the earth, and from the one end of heaven unto the other,
• The Theme: General, Broad idea:....whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?
• Development Details:
  • Did ever a people hear the voice of G-d speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?
  • Or hath G-d assayed to go and take Him a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that HaShem your G-d did for you in Egypt before thine eyes?

Rashi's sole purpose of comment is to indicate that the underlined phrase Has there ever been such a great thing refers to a) the Divine revelation to an entire nation and b) the deliverance of an entire enslaved nation.

The climax principle asserts that a sequence of similar phrases should be interpreted climactically even if the words and grammatical constructs used do not directly suggest this. That is the fact of the sequence justifies reading into the Biblical text a climactic interpretation even if no other textual source justifies it. For this reason we consider the climax method a distinct and separate method.

Verse Dt06-05d discussing the requirement to observe God's commandments is written in a climactic manner as shown. For convenience we have inserted the Rashi comments clarifying the nature of the climax in brackets
• Love your God [ ]
• with all your passions [ e.g. observe commandments prohibiting forbidden foods and relations ]
• with all your soul [ e.g. if martyrdom is required ]
• with all your muchness [ in all conditions of wealth and poverty; e.g. even if observance requires a lower paying job or monetary sacrifice ]

Advanced Rashi: We make two points. First we have combined both interpretations of Rashi: a) the interpretation that muchness refers to money and b) the interpretation that muchness refers to all trials, successes and failures, of life.

Rashi notes the oddness that the climax ends with money. Rashi explicitly answers this For many people money is more important than their life. I think Rashi's point is that money is something you leave your heirs and therefore it is less distasteful to terminate your life if you have money to leave your heirs but if you have to lose your wealth you might not be willing to do so for the sake of religion. Note: This aspect of Rashi affects the way we analyze end-of-life issues since frequently a silent aspect of these decisions is that for example people are relunctant to fund non-conscious continuation of life.

We ask the following database query: Which commandments mention that they should be observed becauase 'you are to remember that God took you out of Egypt'? 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: Commemoration of the salvation from Egypt is emphasized as a reason for commandment observance in laws requiring a) equality b) ritual purity and c) no anxiety-business practices.

The list below presents the results of the database query. We first present in detail a typical verse. Verse Dt05-14a:15 discussing the obligation to treat slaves and orphans nicely states but the seventh day is a sabbath unto HaShem thy G-d, in it thou shalt not do any manner of work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. And thou shalt remember that thou was a slave in the land of Egypt, and HaShem thy G-d brought thee out thence by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore HaShem thy G-d commanded thee to keep the sabbath day. As can be seen in this example, the Biblical obligation to let slaves/servants rest on the Sabbath is linked to remembering the Exodus. This linkage between the commandment and the exodus, which does not occur at all commandments, is made explicit here because the essence of Egypt consisted of a class society in which certain people were free and certain people were slaves. Consequently any commandment attacking class distinctions - such as the requirement to equally let owners and slaves rest on the Sabbath - will explicitly mention the Exodus. A full set of further examples if presented in the Table below.

Verse Dt04-47a states And they possessed his land, and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, who were on the side of the Jordan eastward; Rashi interprets the underlined phrase, eastward diagramatically, The Jordan river goes from the North East to the south west. Hence it naturally divides Israel into east and west. The Bashan and Emorite territories were on the east. Rashi's diagramtic statement is illustrated in the diagram below.

'                       Mount Chermon
'                       Syria, North
'                               /
'                              /      Bashan, Emori
'                             /
'       West   Jordan River /      East
'                           /  
'                          /          TransJordan
'                         / 
'                      Dead Sea
'                     South