Ideas and Model Lessons in Learning Rashi-#1 Copyright RashiYomi Inc 2003 Adapted From Rashi-is-Simple http://www.RashiYomi.Com/
Written by Dr. Russell Jay Hendel;
A: REVIEW

This is the first chapter of a book about the methods of Rashi, a Biblical commentator. The goal of the book is to introduce the 10 major Rashi methods and the four dozen Rashi submethods. Examples of Rashi comments and methods will be presented below.

The methods I introduce are useful to teach Rashi in a wide variety of situations including children of ages 6-20, whether in a classroom or home-schooling situation. The methods introduced will also be of use to advanced students, Rabbis and professors.

Each method is a skill competency: That is, it is something specific and can be learned. Once learned, the student can apply it to many situations.

The methods I use may overlap, modify, supplement or enrich any of a number of Rashi teaching methods currently in use.

B: NOTATION Dt26-05d

All examples in this book will be completely worked out and ready to use by students at any level. Frequently the examples are supplemented by exercises to allow mastery of skill competencies.

We first introduce our notation. Most people are familiar with the division of the Bible into books, chapters and verses.

Hence Dt26-05 refers to the 5th verse of the 26th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy (Dt) which reads as follows

And you will answer and say before God:
An Aramaean tried to destroy my father;
so he went down to Egypt and lived there
with a few people

If you open a standard Chumash you will find 4 Rashi comments on this verse. Each Rashi comment starts with a boldface citation from the verse followed by a Rashi comment.

For example the first Rashi comment is as follows
Answer: (Rashi) This refers to a raising of the voice
Notice how the underlined word answer occurs in the verse Dt26-05. This boldface word is followed by the Rashi comment.

I refer to this as Rashi a on the verse since it is the first Rashi. Similarly I refer to the 2nd Rashi as Rashi b and the 3rd Rashi as Rashi c. The 4th Rashi on the verse I refer to as Rashi d. It reads

with a few people: (Rashi) 70 people

We can compactly refer to this as Rashi Dt26-05d (The 4th Rashi (Rashi d) on Deuteronomy Chapter 26 verse 5. In the future I will not go into as much detail and will rely on the reader to check the Rashis him/herself. When necessary I will add explanatory information.

C: EXAMPLE 1 Dt26-05d

The Biblical Text: Dt26-05
And you will answer and say before God:
An Aramaean tried to destroy my father;
so he went down to Egypt and lived there
with a few people

The Rashi Text:
with a few people: (Rashi) 70 people
Rashi can be best understood using another Biblical verse (Gn46-27) which states all the people of Jacobs family that came to Egypt were 70

We can summarize this as follows. Rashi illuminates the meaning of the phrase a few people in Dt26-05 with another Biblical verse Gn46-27 which explains that the few people were in fact 70 in number.

We can further summarize this example by stating that Rashi used the further details submethod of the other verse method.

D: METHOD: OTHER VERSES - FURTHER DETAILS

Consequently, we will call this the other verse-further detail method. A method is something you should do
whenever you see a verse. That is, you should ask yourself what other Biblical verses speak about the same subject matter and give further details.

E: THREE STUDENT LEVELS

We now present teaching materials, for the above verse and Rashi, for three levels of students.

At the advanced level: Have the student answer the following questions
- Where else is Jacob coming to Egypt mentioned
- What do we learn from there?

At the intermediate level: Have the student answer the following questions
- Review Gn46.
- State who the people who came to Egypt were.
- How many people were there

At the elementary level: Have the student answer the following questions
- Read Gn46-27 which also talks about the people who came to Egypt with Jacob.
- How many people were there?
- Who were these people?

F: ANSWERS TO STUDENT EXERCISES

The correct answers to the above exercises are as follows:
- Gn46-27 describes the grandchildren and children that came down to Egypt with Jacob
- The Bible explicitly states there were 70 people who came with Jacob to Egypt.

G: RASHI and STUDENT NOVELTY

Notice how in all 3 cases the student supplemented the Rashi text. For all Rashi said was that a few people meant 70 people. By contrast, at all 3 levels the students made 2 Rashi-like comments:
(a) The few people were 70 in number
(b) the few people were the children and grandchildren of Jacob

Such supplementing of Rashi texts elicits student creativity - the student applies the Rashi method and produces something new. Educational theory has shown that student retention and understanding is superior when the student creates rather than passively listens.

Some students may be ambitious and for example create genealogical trees of Jacobs 70 children and grandchildren. All this helps understand Rashi better.

H: COMPARISON TO OTHER METHODS

Some other, current, popular methods of learning Rashi are those proposed by Dr Leibowitz or Rabbi Boncheck. These methods suggest starting the teaching of Rashi by asking What is Rashis question? or What is bothering Rashi?

The teacher or student who wants to, can begin learning Rashi this way. They can then supplement their lesson by identifying the particular method Rashi uses to answer the question (In this example Rashi uses the other verse / further detail method.

In other words we have simply given a further resource to learn by since we are classifying the various questions and answers that Rashi uses.

We would even go a step further: It is not necessary to say that Rashi was bothered by something on the Biblical verse text with a few people Jacob came down to Egypt. It is not necessary to assume that Rashi had a question. It is sufficient to say that Rashi supplemented the verse text with a few people Jacob came down to Egypt by providing further details from an other verse which states that the people coming down to Egypt with Jacob is 70.

I: EXAMPLE 2 - Lv01-05a

Biblical Text:
(In a discussion of the Olah
offering:)
Then he shall slaughter the animal
Rashi paraphrased:
This teaches that the slaughtering may be done by a non-priest

J: EXERCISES AT THREE STUDENT LEVELS

(The following ideal lessons were inspired by the commentary of the Malbim, a nineteenth century Biblical commentator)
Here are student exercises at 3 levels

Advanced Level: Have the student answer the following questions:
- Who could do the slaughtering?
- What other verses in Tanakh shed light on this?

Intermediate Level: Have the student do the following
- 2C30 (2nd Chronicles, Divray Hayamim, Chapter 30) discusses the offering of the Passover sacrifice during the First temple.
- After reading this chapter make an inference on who was eligible to slaughter the sacrifices.

Elementary Level: Have the student do the following
- Usually sacrifice procedures were done by Priests.
- Read 2C30-17(2nd Chronicles, Chapter 30, Verse 17).
- Make an inference about who is eligible to slaughter sacrifices.

After reader 2C30-17 the student can infer that non-priests, such as Levites, may slaughter sacrifices. (The students may also have questions such as how we know that Israelites can slaughter sacrifices. These are good questions. For the moment we suffice with pointing out how the method of further details from other verses sheds light.

K: THE RASHI WEBSITE

The Rashi website is located at URL http://www.Rashiyomi.com/. The goal of the Rashi website is to explain all 7800 Rashi comments on the Torah by classifying them among 10 major methods. Consequently the Rashi website contains many examples of each Rashi method. This book will also be placed on the Rashi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/wbook.htm.

The following urls provide further resources to give students the opportunity to practice the other verse further detail method.
-http://www.RashiYomi.com/other-20.htm
-http://www.RashiYomi.com/h17n13.htm

The first url listed above comes from a 3 week series on the old RashiYomi calendar discussing other verses. You can visit the old RashiYomi calendar at url http://www.RashiYomi.com/calendar1.htm The other verse series was presented in November of 2000.

The teacher or student can use this series to provide many exercises practicing the same method. By continually practicing the same method the students gains mastery over it.

L: FUTURE ISSUES

As mentioned, the purpose of this book is to introduce the 10 major Rashi methods and the four dozen Rashi submethods. In this first chapter we have introduced the further detail sub-method of the other verse method. This chapter is typical of the book. Each method is presented thru examples. The examples are analyzed on three student levels; the analysis is supported by lists. The examples are accompanied by exercises to provide mastery. We have also presented the RashiYomi website as a resource for further explanations and examples.