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Their presence in Rashis on Parshath VaEyQueV Volume 18, Number 21 This weeks Weekly Rashi with Hebrew/English source tables is accessible now, at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1821.htm (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, Aug 10th 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(s) Dt11-22b discussing the obligation to walk in God's ways states For if you shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to hold fast to him. Rashi clarifies the underlined words to walk in all his ways by referencing verse(s) Ex34-06:07 discussing God's 13 attributes of mercy, which states And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, to the third and to the fourth generation. Hence the Rashi comment: The ways of God, in which we were commanded to walk, are the 13 personality traits of God shown to Moses in response to his request to know God's way.
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. Rashi explains in about a dozen places, that the the Hebrew root Yud-Daleth-Ayin does not mean, as usually translated, to know, but rather means to appreciate, be familiar with. The list below supports this point. In this list, as indicated by the undelined words, we have embeded the suggested Rashi translation into the verse. Note especially the effortless elegance with which the words flow.
Verse Dt07-23a, discussing the aid God gives the Jews in conquering Israel, states Ad-noy, your G-d, will defeat them before you, and will confuse them with great confusion until they are destroyed. The Hebrew word Hey-Mem-Mem is punctuated Kamatz-Kamatz. Rashi consequently interprets the terminal suffix letter Mem as indicating an object confuse them. Had the word been punctuated Kamatz-Patach it would simply mean to confuse without any object. Rashi frequently taught grammar using what I have called the near miss method. Rashi examines several almost identical forms and identifies the grammatical differences between them.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Dt11-21b, (Gn17-08 Gn26-03 Gn28-13. Both verses/verselets discuss the inheritance of Israel. The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: All three Patriarchs were promised the land of Israel would be given to them and to their descendants. But in Dt11-21 God refers to the land promised to them. Hence the emphasis that not only will the Jewish people inherit Israel but the Patriarchs themselves will also so inherit (upon resurrection).
Advanced Rashi: Another approach to this Rashi is through the format rule. If you inspect all three promises to the Patriarchs you will see a repetition of the repeating keyword to. The repetition of to in to you and to your descendants creates a bullet like effect emphasizing that both the Patriarchs themselves as well as their descendants will inherit Israel. Note, traditional Rashi=ists would learn this Rashi from the emphasized phrase to you. But you by itself could mean the plural you and refer to your nation. However, Rashi is preferably learned by the emphasis indicated by the bullets or by the aligned contrast which emphasizes both you and your descendants.
The table below presents two contradictory verses. Both verses talk about clothing. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says your clothing did not wither, while the other verse, actually logic, says clothes do not last for 40 years. Which is it? Did the clothes of the desert Jews wither as normal or were they actually preserved 40 years. Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 Aspects method: Prophets are known both for their charitable style and superior personal life. (1) Their charitable style leads to extra caring - hence the hand-me down clothes of older children to younger children are more carefully preserved so that the clothes don't wither. (2) Their personal life style with a lack of excessive indulgence in physical pleasure leads to superior body odors which results in a slower decay rate of clothes.
Advanced Rashi: Well we have some explaining to do. First, the contradiction here is a contradiction, not between two verses, but between a verse and logic. However that is still a contradiction. Second Rashi does not literally say what we have attributed to him above. He rather literally says about the adults The prophetic spirit cleaned the clothes so that they did not wither. About the children he says The children's clothes grew by stretching similar to certain animal skins. There is a long history in Judaism of interpreting miracles naturally (They are still miracles). So I interpreted the prophetic spirit cleaned the clothes to refer to the lack of eroding agents on the bodies of the desert Jews. I then used the well known fact that excessive physical indulgence (especially sexual indulgence) results in the productions of different chemicals on the skin which have eroding capacity. I refer to this as superior body odors. I think most people intuitively grasp that a person who is excessively engaged in sex will appear different. There are also journal articles documenting this. In fact some brand name perfumeries will not allow women to work on the perfumes during their periods since the chemicals on their skin would hurt the perfumes. I similarly interpreted The children's clothes grew by stretching similar to certain animal skins to refer to hand-me-downs. Hand-me-downs usually wither because people don't care for them. Charitable people who knew their clothing is being handed down would take extra care so that the recipients would have good clothes. Perhaps there are other ways to interpret this Rashi along the rational approach I have taken.
Certain Biblical paragraphs are stated in a Theme-Development-Theme form. In other words a broad general idea is stated first followed by the development of this broad general theme in specific details. The paragraph-like unit is then closed with a repetition of the broad theme. The Theme-Detail-Theme form creates a unified paragraph. The detailed section of this paragraph is therefore seen as an extension of the general theme sentences. Today's example illustrates this as shown immediately below.
Rashi generalizes the detail clause observe Mezuzah, learn, don't intermarry as illustrative of the general clause, do God's commandments and you will reap reward, and states: There is reward even for minor commandments such as Mezuzah; how much more so for major commandments. We believe this comment evident and consistent with the Rabbi Ishmael style guidelines. Advanced Rashi: Rashi notes that many items in the detail section in the above passage deal with symbolic, emotional, and informational items, love, teaching, Tefillin, Mezuzoth, favors. People tend to belittle such laws as non-important since they are means to an end. The important law is not to forsake one's own religion. Consequently Rashi paraphrased interprets the detail section as prototypical The Torah promises Gods providence in exchange for the Jews following all commandments of separation from the Canaanite nations. This includes both major items such as the obligation to conquer them and the prohibition of worshipping idols as well as minor items such as the symbolic, emotional and intellectual commandments affirming our values against those of the Canaanites. This includes the commandments such as love, symbols (Tefillin, Mezuzah), education, lack of favors to the Canaanites etc. The traditional interpretation of this Rashi comment, as found in modern and midieval Rashi commentators, focuses on the strange Hebrew word used for consequence, Ayin-Kuph-Beth which normally means heel. In English also the phrase such and such came in the heels of such and such can connote causality. Rashi seems however to make a pun on the word heel: The Bible speaks about minor commandments which people step on with their heels. This literal Rashi phrase suggested to many people that Rashi's focus in this verse was the unusual Hebrew word Ayin Kuph Beth. We however believe that the explanation we presented above, focusing on the overall structure of the Biblical paragraph is deeper, sounder and more mature. True, Rashi expressed this sound idea by creating a pun on the Hebrew word Ayin Kuph Beth--heel-consequence-despise. However it would appear that the primary reason for the Rashi comment is the paragraph structure cited.
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.
Advanced Rashi: There are obvious sermonic points to the above Rashi. We are told that God's protection is unconditional, because of the promise to the Patriarchs, and cannot be removed if we sin. This is important during times of persecution - the awareness of God's protection gives persecuted Jews strength and helps prevent them from defecting from their religion. Furthermore, we are told that God's protection emanates from Love. That is the protection is not just because 'He has to' but rather is something God is interested in. Again: This gives encouragement that God will give full attention to the Jews and maintain them in all circumstances.
Today we ask the database query: When God decrees a punishment how much lag time does God give in order to give people time to repent? The query uncovers three major examples. An examination of these examples justifies the Rashi assertion that (a) The generation of the flood and Ninveh did not have leaders to learn moral behavior from; hence they were given extra time to repent (b) The Jews had great leaders to learn from and hence their punishment is immediate (Since no further time is needed to learn and repent) The table below presents results of the query along with illustrations of Rashi's comment.
Advanced Rashi: I have brought Ninveh as a supplementary example to Rashi. I would argue that Jonah's job was both to rebuke them that they would be destroyed as well as teach them proper behavior. Since Jonah was a temporary prophet-scholar (unlike Moses who was a permanant prophet-scholar) 40 days were given. By contrast the generation of the flood had no prophet to teach them - it is well known that Noah did not preach to his generation and the prophetic orders from God to him were personal not communal.
Since Rashi's innovation requires bringing in real-world knowledge of vegetable gardens we classify this Rashi as Non Verse. One should note that we also used the grammer method since the sentences have a contrastive structure. Rashi weaves the real-world knowledge about vegetable gardens into the textual meaning by generalizing the details and examples so that they illustrate the intended contrast.
Conclusion
This week's parshah contains no examples of the symbolism Rashi method. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||