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    7. RASHI METHOD: FORMATTING
    BRIEF EXPLANATION:Inferences from Biblical formatting: --bold,italics, and paragraph structure.
    • Use of repetition to indicate formatting effects: bold,italics,...;
    • use of repeated keywords to indicate a bullet effect;
    • rules governing use and interpretation of climactic sequence;
    • rules governing paragraph development and discourse
    This examples applies to Rashis Dt28-56a
    URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/dt28-56a.htm
    Brief Summary: Women in famine shall eat a) their husband b) their grown children c) their little children and d) their stillbirths

The Bible can state a theme in a climactic manner, building up from the obvious to more serious consequences. The job of the commentator is to clarify the climactic manner. The rule of climax is powerful. It is independent of other rules such as word meaning and grammar. That is, climax by itself justifies reinterpretation of a verse even if not supported by meaning and grammar.

    Verse Dt28-56a:57 discussing the famine curses that shall befall the Jewish people if they sin, states The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not venture to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil
    • towards the husband of her bosom, [Rashi: Her husband] and
    • towards her son, and towards her daughter [Rashi: Her grown children],
    • And towards her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet [Rashi: Her young children], and
    • towards her children whom she shall bear [Rashi: Foetus - still birth];
    for she shall eat them secretly, ... in the siege and distress, ...

We have incoroporated the Rashi comments into the above translation. Notice how Rashi slightly bends the literal meaning of the words. The driving force behind this Rashi interpretation is not the individual words but rather the general climactic structure. Climax justifies a poetic bending of words that makes a verse progress in a climactic manner.

Advanced Rashi: I have added the interpretation of the last clause as referring to consumption of foetus / stillbirths. Although this is not explicitly in Rashi it is consistent with the bulleted list of four clauses and with the climactic nature of the phrases.


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