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      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 Ex26-36c
      URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1208.htm
      Brief Summary: The curtains were the work of an embroiderer.

Most people are aware that Hebrew verbs come from three-letter roots. Each root is conjugated in the 8 dimensions of person, gender,plurality, tense, activity, modality, direct-object, and prepositional connective. For example the root Shin Mem Resh means to watch. The conjugations Shin-Mem-Resh-Tauv-Yud and Nun-Shin-Mem-Resh-Nun-Vav mean I watched and we were watched respectively.

The rules for Hebrew grammar are carefully described in many modern books and are well known. Rashi will sometimes comment when a verse is using a rare conjugation of an odd grammatical form.

When presenting grammatical Rashis my favorite reference is the appendix in volume 5 of the Ibn Shoshan dictionary. This very short appendix lists most conjugations.

Verse Ex26-36c discussing the construction of the temple curtain states And you shall make a curtain for the door of the tent, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, the craftmanship of an embroiderer. Rashi translates the Biblical word Resh-Vav-Kuph-Mem as coming from the Biblical root Resh-Kuph-Mem which means to embroider. We have conveniently embedded the Rashi translation in the translation of the verse. The closet conjugation rule governing this Biblical word may be found by using table(s) 1 in the Ibn Shoshan dictionary for the Kal mode

Advanced Rashi: The translation is obvious. Rashi explains his point. The verse should not be translated as embroidered craftmanship but rather as the craftmanship of an embroiderer. That is the present tense conjugation of a verb should not be translated as a verb but rather as a noun - it refers to the person who does the act, the embroiderer.

Rashi does not further explain this point. We leave in a mechanistic age: Embroidery is seen as an attribute of a cloth rather than as a creation by an embroiderer. We tend to think of the Temple as being simply ordered by God. But this is not so! In several #####

I think this emphasis on the person vs. the created object is especially important in our modern mechanistic age.


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