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      2. RASHI METHOD: WORD MEANING
      BRIEF EXPLANATION: The meaning of words can be explained either by
      • (2a) translating an idiom, a group of words whose collective meaning transcends the meaning of its individual component words,
      • (2b) explaining the nuances and commonality of synonyms-homographs,
      • (2c) describing the usages of connective words like also,because,if-then, when,
      • (2d) indicating how grammatical conjugation can change word meaning
      • (2e) changing word meaning using the figures of speech common to all languages such as irony and oxymorons.
      This examples applies to Rashis Lv25-09a
      URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/w33n18.htm
      Brief Summary: AYIN-BETH-RESH means SIDE. Hence it can mean a) To PASS, b) the PAST, c) a mountain PASS, d) ANNOUNCE (Pass a message through the community).

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.

    Today we examine the Biblical root Ayin-Beth-Resh whose basic meaning is side. Hence we have the following additional meanings:
  • To Pass: To move past the side;
  • Mountain pass: (identical usage in English!);
  • Anger: go past one's borders
  • pregnant: pregnancy is recognizable becuase her side expands and changes;
  • and produce: when mother earth becomes pregnant; again the emphasis is that land produce is recognizable by the side of the earth rising;
  • cement/fixate a wall: strengthen/define the sides of the building;
  • To cause: After doing an act the consequence is what is on the other side;
  • announce: as in English, to pass a message through a community - to make sure it reaches all sides;

A nifty way of appreciating Rashi comments is to directly embed them in verses. Rashi would translate Lv25-09:10 as Then shall you announce by trumpet(shofar) on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the Day of Atonement shall you announce by trumpet(shofar) throughout your country that: 'you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants of it; it shall be a jubilee to you; and you shall return every man to his possession, and you shall return every man to his family'.


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