The goal of this Weekly Rashi Digest is to use the weekly Torah portion to expose students at all levels to the ten major methods of commentary used by Rashi. It is hoped that continual weekly exposure to these ten major methods will enable students of all levels to acquire a familiarity and facility with the major exegetical methods.

Today we have a straightforward but delightful application of the Other Verse method. Recall that God had decreed death on Moses and consequently he would not be going over into Israel. Moses in verse Dt03-25 requests to see parts of Israel: I beg you, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that goodly mountain region, and Lebanon. God, in verse Dt03-27a although upholding the death sentence and the prohibition of Moses to enter Israel nevertheless promises to show him Israel Get up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up your eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and see it with your eyes; for you shall not go over this Jordan. Rashi then cites an other verse at Dt34-01:04 in which God actually fulfills his promise and shows Moses all of Israel And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to the Mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead, to Dan, And all Naphtali, .... all the land of Judah, This is the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, I will give it to your seed; I have made you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there. Note the underlined word all. Hence the additional Rashi comment You Moses [only] asked to see [selected parts of] Israel. I, God, however will show you all of Israel.

One of Rashi's 10 major commentary methods is the word meaning method. Here Rashi functions like a dictionary providing meanings of words. Rashi had 10 submethods of word meaning one of which allowed usage of literary methods common to all languages.

The metonomy principle is one such method common to all languages. Metonomy allows naming an item by a related item. For example the statement Israel is defeating Lebanon really means that The people residing in Israel are defeating the people residing in Lebanon. In fact an even more precise statement is that The people residing in Israel are defeating the people belonging to terrorist organizations operating out of Lebanon. Here we have identified location --Israel and people--Israelies. Some purists don't expect metonomy in the Bible because the Bible is Divine and metonomy is vague and ambiguous. But metonomy is a powerful word meaning method that is frequently used.

Dt04-32b states For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether there has been any such thing as this great thing is, or has been heard of?

Rashi interprets the underlined phrase and ask from one end of heaven to the other using the metonomy principle; Rashi identifies the location with people dwelling in that location. Consequently Rashi interprets the verse as follows For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from [the nations living at] one end of heaven [the horizon] to the other, whether there has been any such thing as this great thing is, or has been heard of?

Other common examples of metonomy include
• naming sexual passion and anger heat Gn30-38d
• naming concealing murder covering blood Gn37-26b;
• naming Temple coins holy coins Ex30-13c
• naming a person with numerous assets heavy Ex13-02
• naming the arm the hand Gn24-18a

The Rashi grammar rule encompasses several areas. Most people are familiar with the root conjugation rules. However grammar also deals with paragraph development and sentence connection. Rashi knew of 3 basic methods of paragraph development
• Cause, enablement
• Contrast
• Unified theme

Let us apply the Rashi paragraph development rules to Dt03-23 -- Dt04-41 which naturally divides into 3 paragraphs
• Moses requests to enter Israel: And I pleaded with the Lord at that time, saying, ..... I beg you, let me go over, and see the good land [Israel]... But the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, and would not hear me;...
• Moses exhorts people before death: Now therefore give heed, O Israel, to the statutes and to the judgments, which I teach you, .... You shall keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments, which I command you this day, that it may go well with you, ....
• Moses sets aside refuge cities: Then Moses set apart three cities on this side of the Jordan toward the rising sun;

Rashi considers these paragraphs contrastive
• Moses' request to enter Israel was rejected; he found out he would die and therefore exhorted the Jewish people.
• Despite the fact that Moses knew that he would die, he nevertheless set aside 3 of the 6 refuge cities even though the refuge cities weren't operational till all 6 of them were set aside.

The refuge cities were prison cities which gave asylum to negligent murderers and who feared retalition from vengeful relatives.

Here Rashi contrasts Moses' impending death- which would prevent the refuge cities from becoming operational - to his desire to nevertheless perform God's commandments even though they wouldn't have effect. In other words Moses' action affirms the value of commandment performance for its own sake even if there is no visible consequence.

In analyzing the above Rashi we have made reference to the fact that the refuge cities were not operational till all 6 of them were operational. This is inferred from explicit verses and we will return to this when we do Mattos next year.

The Rambam in his great code also cites this Rashi comment See how precious the commandments were to Moses. For he set aside refuge cities even though they would not yet become operational. Moses said A Divine commandment has come to me and therefore I will be eager to do what I can.

Note the alignment of the underlined words in the following verses
• Verse Dt05-18a discussing the Biblical prohibition of coveting states
  • Nor shall you desire your neighbor’s
    • wife,
  • nor shall you covet your neighbor’s
    • house, his
    • field, or his
    • manservant, or his
    • maidservant, his
    • ox, or his
    • ass, or
    • any thing that is your neighbor’s.
• Verse Ex20-14 also discussing the prohibition of coveting using almost the same language as Dt 05-18a states
  • You shall not covet your neighbor’s
    • house,
  • you shall not covet your neighbor’s
    • wife, nor his
    • manservant, nor his
    • maidservant, nor his
    • ox, nor his
    • ass, nor
    • any thing that is your neighbor’s.

Just looking at the aligned verses immediately and spontaneously evokes the obvious Rashi comment The English words covet and desire or the corresponding Biblical Hebrew roots Cheth Mem Daleth and Aleph Vav Hey are synonyms. Here Rashi infers word meaning from alignment.

Biblical paragraph Dt04-05:14 has a theme-development-theme structure as shown immediately below.
• Theme: Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, as the Lord my God commanded me, ....
• Development: Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations,.... Only take heed to yourself, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, ... but teach them to your sons, and to your grandsons; .... And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; ... And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, ten commandments; ...
• Theme:And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, ....

The above theme-development-theme style-- teach justice, take heed, teach justice-- motivates the following paraphrased Rashi comment: The theme teach law is developed with the details
• take heed
• lest you forget
• God taught us the 10 commandments

Recall that the 10 commandments are chapter headings which encompass many further laws both Biblical and Rabbinic. For example, the prohibition don't steal prohibits witholding wages, kidnapping and rabbinically covers teasing theft with intent to return. The Rabbis enacted such laws to enable people to heed the law.

This implies that teaching law encompasses both Biblical obligations as well as oral law and rabbinic enactments which fulfill the development section details take heed and don't forget.

Modern authors use a variety of Formatting techniques to communicate meaning. Modern Formatting techniques include use of bold,underline,italics,bullets,....

Let us examine the meaning implied by the use of bullets. When an author bullets a passage they are indicating unspecified emphasis. They are indicating that each bulleted item has some special significance and that together the bulleted list describes a unified whole.

The Biblical Author(s) did not use Bullets per se. But the Biblical Author(s) could indicate a bullet effect of contrastive unspecified emphasis in a group of items. When a Biblical Author wished to indicate a bulleted effect they would use repeating keywords. The following example illustrates this.

Verse Dt03-28c states But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him; for
• he shall go over before this people, and
• he shall cause them to inherit the land which you shall see.

Note the repeating keyword he. This creates a bullet like effect as shown. Without the bullets I would simply interpret the verse as stating one item: Joshua shall lead the military conquest of Israel. However because of the bullets the reader --Rashi, you and me!-- are required to see a contrastive emphasis in the two bulleted items:
• Joshua will militaraly lead the people to inherit
• Joshua will go over before the people to spiritually lead them.

We emphasize the flavor of this comment: The Biblical verse uses the underlined words inherit, go over before them. These underlined words by themselves do not imply military and spiritual leadership. However, because of the bulleted items and the requirement to identify distinct emphasii by the author it becomes reasonable to identify inherit with military conquest and go over before them with spiritual leadership.

We can clarify this Rashi further by reviewing other symbolic metaphors for leadership. This is done in rule #10 the symbolism rule. There we show that use of the phrase go over before them to connote spiritual leadership is consistent with other Biblical metaphors for spirituality.

One final point. Many Rashi-ists use the too many words approach to explain Rashi. The argument goes something like this The Bible repeated the word he---He shall go over...he shall conquer. But the Bible could have said this in a terser fashion: he shall go over ...and conquer for them. Since the Bible is a Divine Book we view every extra word has having some special meaning. Our approach is slightly different. We are not focusing on the extra word but rather we are focusing on the stylistic implication indicated by the extra word. It is the bulleted list that implies two items---conquest and spiritual leadership---. The superiority of the Format rule over the too many words rule is that the Format rule both identifies a problem -repeating keywords--and a solution- a bulleted list. Furthermore the format rule is specific and tells the reader how they should use the extra word in understanding the text.

Today Rashi studies the following database query: Find all verses that
• describing a dialog from Moses to God
• where Moses requests a< u>response. This request for response is normally indicated by the Hebrew word Lamed Aleph Mem Resh--which indicates that the purpose of the dialog was to say back [a response].
• The verb could be any speaking-activity verb such assay, supplicate, scream

The search uncovers 5 situations
• Statement that Jews are inpatient: Ex06-12 states And Moses spoke before the Lord, to say back, Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised lips?
• Request for a leader replacement: (*#*) Nu27-15:17 states And Moses spoke to the Lord, to say back, Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation, Who may go out before them, and who may go in before them, and who may lead them out, and who may bring them in; that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd.
• Request to heal Miryam: (*#*)(*%*) Nu12-13 states And Moses cried to the Lord, to say back, Heal her now, O God, I beseech you.
• Request to enter Israel: (*#*) (*%*) Dt03-23:25 states And I supplicated with the Lord at that time, to say back, I beg you, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that goodly mountain region, and Lebanon.
• Statement that nation is very restless. (*%*) Ex17-04 states And Moses cried to the Lord, to say back, What shall I do to this people? they be almost ready to stone me.

The above database query gives us a rare opportunity to see the interaction between
• the primary Biblical texts
• the original Talmudic and midrashic sources
• Rashi's citation and emendation of these sources.

First we point out that the above five verses could not be derived by pressing a button on a CD-rom since different verbs---speak, cry, scream, supplicate are used. One of the great privileges of reading the Talmudic-midrashic scholars is the opportunity to review complex database queries. Using todays technology we can find the above five verses using CD-roms with artificial intelligence capabilities--these search engines allow creating lists of words with similar meanings.

We have 3 sources on the above database inquiry
• The actual query uncovers 5 verses as shown above
• The Sifrah-Sifray, an ancient midrashic-halachic text, cites all 5 verses
• But surprisingly Rashi states There are 3 places where Moses demanded a response from God.

  There are three approaches to dealing with this contradiction between Rashi and the Sifrah-Sifray -- 3 vs 5 verses:

• In the above 5 verses only the 3 marked with (*#*) show actual prayer. The other 2 cases are not prayers but statements. This approach was first stated by the raam and later cited by the famous Rashi commentator, Sifsay Chachamim. Notice that this approach explains Rashi as adding to the Sifrah: There are 5 verses where Moses demanded response from God, three of which involved prayer.
• Alternatively of the 5 verses found only 3 of them use verbs of supplication/screaming. The other two verses use the verb to speak. This explanation was set forth by me in my twice-weekly Rashi digest, Rashi is Simple and can be found at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/h14n19.htm . Notice that this approach also explains Rashi as adding to the Sifrah: There are 5 verses where Moses demanded response from God, three of which involved deeply emotional requests expressed by the words, supplicate, scream
• My own opinion is that the proper approach to studying Rashi is to gather all verses where Moses spoke to God and demanded a response. The fact that 3 of them involves prayer vs facts or that 3 others involves supplication vs speech is then a secondary fact. The main primary focus is that there are 5 cases where Moses made demands of response on God. Further secondary study of the database inquiry for patterns in certain subsets of verses are always welcome.

The database Rashis have a distinct flavor to them: Rashi simply reports There are 3 cases where Moses would not let God go till he answered him. Rashi does not go further; he does not tell us why Moses acted this way in these 3 cases. This reinforces the attitude suggested by me above that the focus of a database Rashi should be the mere existence of the database query. Further commentary and analysis are welcome but are typically not found in Rashi.

In rule #7, Formatting we have shown that the Biblical phrase Joshua shall go over before them could reasonably refer to spiritual leadership. We re-cite the verse in its bulleted form below. Our goal in this section is to further justify the symbolic association between the phrase he shall go over before them and leadership

Verse Dt03-28c states But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him; for
• he shall go over before this people, and
• he shall cause them to inherit the land which you shall see.

Recall from rule #7, Formatting that Rashi intperprets the underlined word inherit as meaning military leadership and interprets the underlined phrase go over before his people as indicating spiritual leadership. The following list of verses shows similar underlined metaphors which symbolically refer to spirituality using words meaning upwards or at the head. This list makes our understanding of Dt03-28c more reasonable. In this list of verses we have underlined the word being commented on and indicated in brackets the symbolic interpretation cited by Rashi.
• Verse Nu21-08b states And the Lord said to Moses, Make a venomous serpent, and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks [up in prayer] upon it, shall live.
• Verse Ex17-11a states And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand [indicating the up direction which in turn symbolically indicates prayer to God above], that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.
• Verse Dt03-28c states But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him; for
  • he shall go over before this people, [i.e. he shall lead them spiritually] and
  • he shall cause them to inherit [i.e. militarily] the land which you shall see.

This week's parshah contains no examples of the contradiction, and spreadsheet methods. This concludes this weeks edition. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples.