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.

There are many classical aspects to grammar whether in Hebrew or other languages. They include
• The rules for conjugating verbs. These rules govern how you differentiate person, plurality, tense, mode, gender, mood, and designation of the objects and indirect objects of the verb. For example how do you conjugate, in any language, I sang, we will sing, we wish to sing, she sang it.
• Rules of agreement. For example agreement of subject and verb, of noun and adjective; whether agreement in gender or plurality.
• Rules of Pronoun reference.
• Rules of word sequence. This is a beautiful topic which is not always covered in classical grammatical textbooks.

Today we deal with the topic of prepositions, words that link nouns (objects) to other parts of the sentence. English is rich with 72 prepositions. By contract Biblical Hebrew only has a few prepositions. These prepositions are normally indicated by prefix letters. Some typical examples are prefix,
• Lamed - to
• Mem - from
• Beth - in
• Caph - like

However Radack in his famous masterpiece, Roots, explains that each preposition can frequently have any of the traditional prepositional meanings. Radack actually gives examples where Lamed means from while Mem means to. Readers, interested in pursuing this further, are welcome to visit the Rashiyomi grammar page at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/grammar.htm. By scrolling down to the preposition section and clicking on the appropriate links one can find many examples of prepositions with multiple meanings. For example, the page hosts examples where to (in Biblical Hebrew) can mean with, on, for.

In verses Lv13-48a, Lv13-52a Rashi translates both the prefix Beth and Lamed (occuring in two verses) as meaning of (This is indicated by the underlined words.) (When there is leprosy in a garment...or in the warp, or in the woof, whether they be of linen, or of wool; or in a skin, or in any thing made of skin. ... And he shall burn the garment, or the warp, or the woof, whether it be of wool or of linen, or any thing of skin, wherein the plague is; for it is a malignant leprosy; it shall be burnt in the fire.

Advanced Rashi: Since it is now the time of the counting of the Omer we point out that this comment of the Radack has legal implications. Although there is controversy whether we say "Today is 17 days in Beth the Omer count" vs. Today is 17 days towards Lamed the Omer count, either formulation is adequate since the meanings of the underlying prepositions can vary.