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#*#*# (C) RashiYomi Inc. 2008, Dr. Hendel, President #*#*#
      3. RASHI METHOD: GRAMMAR
      BRIEF EXPLANATION: Rashi explains verses using grammar principles, that is, rules which relate reproducable word form to word meaning. Grammatical rules neatly fall into 3 categories
      • (a) the rules governing conjugation of individual words,Biblical roots,
      • (b) the rules governing collections of words,clauses, sentences
      • (c) miscellaneous grammatical, or form-meaning, rules.
      This examples applies to Rashis Gn25-23b
      URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/w33n5.htm
      Brief Summary: The Bible uses PUNS to communcate nuances. The verse says "Two People are you pregnant with".(Capital P, singular). a) Two peoples/nations b) Distinguished individual People, millionairres of great social influence.

    Verse Gn25-23b discussing Rivkah's pregnancy with twins states And HaShem said unto her: Two People are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger. Here we have mirrored the Hebrew pun with an English pun. The underlined word should say two peoples but instead says two People with a capital P and in the singular. This suggests that
    • two nations (peoples) will come from the pregnancy
    • Also two individual great People (hence the singular P)
    Rashi further explains: From Jacob came the Jews and from Esauv came the militant nations. Both the Jews and militant nations had great people, of greath wealth and social influence such as Rabbi Judah the Head of Court and Antiyochus.

We have mirrored the Hebrew pun with an English pun. The actual Hebrew pun looks at the Hebrew word which is pronounced Gimel-Vav-Yud-Mem, meaning nations but written, misspelled Gimel-Yud-Yud-Mem, meaning great people. The use of deliberate misspelllings to communicate secondary nuances is known as metaplasmus.

Advanced Rashi: People think puns are a luxury not necessarily intended by the author. Not so! Puns are like any other literary device. For further details read my article Biblical Puns located at url http://www.Rashiyomi.com/puns.pdf 


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