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.

Verse Ex12-35a discussing the Jew's request for silver and gold prior to leaving Egypt states And the people of Israel did according according to Moses' order; and they borrowed from the Egyptians silver utensils and gold utensils and clothing. . The underlined words according to Moses' order references a former order of Moses. Rashi comments: This former order of Moses to request silver and gold utensils and clothes may be found in Ex11-02. Indeed, Ex11-02 states Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow from his neighbor, and every woman from her neighbor, silver utensils and gold utensils

Verse Ex10-26a presenting Moses' request for the Jews to leave Egypt to make a pilgramage holiday for God states Our cattle also shall go with us; no hoof shall be left behind; for we must take it to serve the Lord our God; and we know not with what we must serve the Lord, until we come there. Rashi comments on the underlined word hoof: The word hoof here means animal. That is the verse should be translated as follows: Our cattle also shall go with us; no animal shall be left behind; for we must take it to serve the Lord our God; and we know not with what we must serve the Lord, until we come there.

Here Rashi uses the literary poetic technique, common to all languages, known as synechdoche, naming the whole by the part. A common English example might be give me a hand which in fact means give me your self. Similarly she gave her hand in marriage means she gave her self in marriage. In a similar manner Moses refers to the whole animal by a part of it, the hoof.

This part-whole technique, synechdoche can be applied to activities as well as objects. For example in verse Ex10-24a Pharoh had requested And Pharaoh called to Moses, and said, Go, serve the Lord; only let your flocks and your herds stand let your little ones also go with you. Rashi comments: The underlined word stand means remain. In other words Pharoh had requested only let your flocks and your herds remain . In this case also Rashi uses synechdoche since standing in place is a good example -- or a good member/part -- of the class of all ways to remain.

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 example applies to Rashis Ex12-35c
URL Reference:http://www.Rashiyomi.com/gn10-25a.htm

Acknowledgement: In presenting todays Rashi I follow a pedagogic technique of Professor Gary Long who in his books on Biblical Hebrew Grammar first introduces comparable grammatical items in English grammar and then presents, with appropriate contrasts, the corresponding Hebrew grammar. The idea of using culturally comparable examples was first introduced by me in my Tradition article on Biblical Interpretation which may be found on the world wide web at A New Approach to Biblical exegesis. The emphasis in my Tradition article is on using culturally comparable examples for translation while the emphasis in Professor Long's book is on using culturally comparable examples for grammar.

English grammar allows
• The simple past: E.g. I ate an apple yesterday.
• The Past Perfect: E.g. When she entered the room, I had already eaten the apple.
The distinction between these two past tenses is straightforward
• The simple past refers to an event that happened before the present point in time.
• The past perfect refers to an event that happened prior, - not to the present- but prior to another event. Thus in the example above the eating of the apple happened prior to a person coming into the room.
We illustrate Biblical Hebrew's approach to the past tenses using the root, Shin-Mem-Resh, to watch.
• The Simple Past is indicated by Shin-Mem-Resh-Tauv-Yud, I watched.
• The past perfect is however indicated by a prefix vav with the future conjugation: Vav-Aleph-Shin-Mem-Resh, I had watched.
Using the above concepts Rashi suggests the following translation of Biblical verse Ex12-35c:36 which states
• And the people of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and
• they had borrowed from the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and garments;
And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they had lent them such things as they required. And they had carried away the wealth of the Egyptians. Rashi paraphrased comments:
• The Jews had already borrowed items once from Egypt.
• Now, following Moses' order they borrowed a second time.
Hence the Biblical verse
• uses the simple past to describe the second loan The people of Israel did according to the word of Moses but
• uses the past perfect to describe the first loan: they had borrowed from the Egyptians jewels of silver and jewels of gold.
4. RASHI METHOD: ALIGNMENT
BRIEF EXPLANATION: Aligning two almost identically worded verselets can suggest
• (4a) 2 cases of the same incident or law
• (4b) emphasis on the nuances of a case
• (4c) use of broad vs literal usage of words
This examples applies to Rashis Ex11-05a Ex11-05b Ex12-29d
URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/ex11-05a.htm
Note the alignment in the following Biblical verses, both of which describe the 10th plague, the smiting of the firstborn.
• Verse Ex11-05 states And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the
  • firstborn of Pharaoh that sits on his throne, even to the
  • firstborn of the maidservant who is behind the mill; and all the
  • firstborn of beasts.
• Verse Ex12-29 states And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the
  • firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the
  • firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon; and all the
  • firstborn of cattle.
Notice the difference in the underlined aligned phrases
• Pharaoh
• captive vs. maidservant
• beasts / cattle
Rashi comments on the implied emphasis in the contrast captive vs maidservant. Both captive and maidservant are mentioned.
• The maidservants are mentioned since despite the fact that they themselves were slaves they were allowed to own Jewish slaves; consequently since they subjugated the Jews they were also punished
• The captives were punished, even though, being in prison, they did not subjugate the Jews, because they were claiming Our god, the god of the captives, overthrew Egypt, in order to free us, and as a side-benefit, the Jews were freed also.

Sermonic points: Implied in the above Rashis is the idea that God did not just punish the Egyptians. Rather He punished each class of Egyptians for a reason. Those who subjugated the Jews, including maidservant slaves were punished. Similarly, those who did not enslave the Jews, like prisoners and captives, were punished for lack of recognition of the Jewish God as the cause of the plagues. This emphasis on God's Justice is important.

5. RASHI METHOD: CONTRADICTION
BRIEF EXPLANATION:Rashi resolves contradictory verses using 3 methods.
• (5a) Resolution using two aspects of the same event
• (5b) Resolution using two stages of the same process
• (5c) Resolution using broad-literal interpretation.
This example applies to Rashis Ex11-09a
URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/ex11-04a.htm
Note the contradiction in the following verses.
• Verse Ex11-01 discussing the remaining plague of the first born states And the Lord said to Moses, Yet will I bring one more plague upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go from here; when he shall let you go, he shall certainly thrust you out from here altogether ;
• But Verse Ex11-09a discussing the remaining miracles God intended to bring on Egypt states And the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh shall not listen to you; that my miracles may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.
We see the contradiction: Was there going to be
• one more plague, or was there going to be
• [many more] miracles
Rashi resolves this contradiction using the two aspects method of resolution.
• There was going to be only one more plague in the set of 10 plagues that led to the freeing of the Jews.
• However in general there were going to be many more miracles against the Egyptians since besides the 10th plague they were going to be destroyed on the Red Sea.

Sermonic Points: Rashi's resolution of this contradiction sheds light on an important concept: Freedom by itself is not sufficient. The freedom attained can be quickly lost. Judaism expresses this in several ways: First, the freedom of Passover is bound to the acceptance of the Torah on Shavuoth - this link is expressed thru the counting of days from Passover to Shavuoth, showing a bond and link between them. Second, Egypt, the previous owner of the Jews, "changed its mind" and wanted to reenslave them. Finally we bring the tragic point that certain groups of Jews wanted to return to Egypt on the grounds that a life of slavery where someone worries about your needs is superior to an adult life where you have to personally worry about your own needs.

6. RASHI METHOD: STYLE
Rashi examines how rules of style influences inferences between general and detail statements in paragraphs.
• Example: Every solo example stated by the Bible must be broadly generalized;
• Theme-Detail: A general principle followed by an example is interpreted restrictively---the general theme statement only applies in the case of the example;
• Theme-Detail-Theme: A Theme-Detail-Theme unit is interpreted as a paragraph. Consequently the details of the paragraph are generalized so that they are seen as illustrative of the theme.
This examples applies to Rashis Ex06-29b
URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/ex06-29b.htm
Biblical verses Ex12-43:49 form a Biblical paragraph with a specific-general structure: And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the Passover;
• Specific: No stranger shall eat of it;
• Specific: But every man’s servant who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then shall he eat of it.
• Specific: A foreigner and
• Specific: a hired servant shall not eat of it. In one house shall it be eaten; you shall not carry anything of the meat out of the house; neither shall you break a bone of it.
• Specific: All the congregation of Israel shall keep it.
• Specific: And when a convert shall sojourn with you, and will keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one who is born in the land; for no uncircumcised person shall eat of it.
• General: One law shall be for him who is native born, and for the convert who sojourns among you.
We should clarify
• The obligation of the convert to observe the Passover is specific since this only applies to the Passover laws.
• The obligation mentioned in the general sentence, one law shall be for...native born...convert is interpreted generally to apply to all laws.
In other words the paragraph as a whole is interpreted to mean that converts must observe the Passover laws like full-fledged Jews and more generally must observe all Torah laws like full-fledged Jews.

Advanced Rashi: We can explain why the Torah expressed the general obligation of the convert through a specific-general style: I might think that converts are only obligated to observe most Torah laws such as Shabbath which acknowledges God's creation of the world. However I could argue that converts do not have to observe Passover since neither they nor their ancestors were ever enslaved. Consequently the Torah has to explicitly indicate both: Converts must observe Passover and converts must observe all other Torah laws.

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 example applies to Rashis Ex12-09c
URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/dn.htm

In my paper, just published, Biblical Formatting, I suggest that just as a modern author will use bold, italics or underline to indicate unspecified emphasis, so to the Biblical author(s) will instead use repetition to indicate unspecified emphasis. In other words the Biblical reader perceived repetition the same way the modern reader perceives underline.There is an important implication to this that is often overlooked. The unspecified emphasis implied by underline as used by a modern author is perceived as the intended meaning of the text - it is not exegetical, though since the emphasis is unspecified it is conjectural. In a similar manner the unspecified emphasis implied by repetition should be perceived as the intended meaning of the text - not as homiletic fancy.

Let us apply this underline-repetition analogy to verse Ex12-09, which discusses the requirements of eating the Passover offering: Eat it not raw, nor boil boil it with water, but roast it with fire; its head with its legs, and with its inner parts. Our formatting analogy would suggest rewriting this verse as follows: Eat it not raw, nor boil it with water, but roast it with fire; Here we have substituted an underline for the repetited word boil.

Rashi interprets this repetition as indicating unspecified emphasis. Rashi interprets: You may not eat the Passover offering boiled in water or boiled in any other liquid. That is the underlined word boil emphasizes that any type of boiling of the Passover offering, whether in water or otherwise, invalidates it.

Sermonic points: The symbolic interpretation of this Rashi is presented by Rav Hirsch: The Passover offering can only be eaten roasted. Roasting is traditionally done by hanging the animal over the fire. This hanging is symbolic of alien-ness, non-citizenship. The alien does not have a firm foot on the ground but hangs in mid-air never sure where he will live or how he will earn a living. The roasted animal symbolizes this lack of being firmly on the ground. The roasted Passover offering is eaten with Matzoh and bitter herbs to complete the symbol of the alien not having plump bread but having a bitter life.

8. RASHI METHOD: DATABASES
BRIEF EXPLANATION:Rashi makes inferences from Database queries. The precise definition of database query has been identified in modern times with the 8 operations of Sequential Query Language (SQL).
This examples applies to Rashis Ex10-01a
URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/ex10-01a.htm

Rashi on verse Ex10-01a notes that some plagues have warnings -- Pharoh is told to cooperate or else. A full appreciation of this Rashi requires a contrast with the 3rd, 6th and 9th plagues which do not have any warning. That is, these plagues simply suddenly state: ...the following plague was brought on Pharoh... while the other plagues have a warning ..God told Moses/Aaron...warn Pharoh that if he doesn't let the Jews go the following plague will be brought.

To properly appreciate this we construct the following database query: Among the 10 plagues, which introductory warnings are used. The output of the query is presented below. The explicit construction of this database query is due to Rav Hirsch in his commentary. However it has its roots in other Rashis.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
PLAGUE  # VERSE    TEXT: INTRODUCTORY WARNING PHRASE    ATTACK ON
------- - -------- ------------------------------------ ---------
Blood   1 Ex07-15  IN MORNING: Stand by Pharoh on Nile  SEA/AIR
BEASTS  4 Ex08-16  IN MORNING: Stand by Pharoh on Nile  SEA/AIR
Hail    7 Ex09-13  IN MORNING: Stand by Pharoh          SEA/AIR
------  - -------  --------------------------
Frogs   2 Ex07-26  COME TO PHAROH                       Humiliate
Plague  5 Ex09-01  COME TO PHAROH                       Humiliate
Locust  8 Ex10-01  COME TO PHAROH                       Humiliate
------  - -------  --------------------------
LICE    3 Ex08-12  NO INTRODUCTORY PHRASE               PAIN
Boils   6 Ex09-08  No introductory phrase               PAIN
Darknss 9 Ex11-21  No introductory phrase               PAIN
-----------------------------------------------------------------

In analyzing the output of the above query we follow the analysis of Rav Hirsch. The Egyptians were being punished for inflicting on the Jews
• Alien status
• Slavery
• Pain
Here Rav Hirsch follows the text of God's speech to Abraham, in Gn15-13 And he said to Abram, Know for a certainty that
• your seed shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs,
• and shall be enslaved by them; and
• they shall afflict them four hundred years;
Rav Hirsch now beautifully conjectures as follows
• Plagues #1,4,7 attacked the Nile, animals and crop of Egypt making them feel like aliens
• Plagues #2,#5,#8 humiliated the Egyptians, the primary emotion of slaves
• Plagues #3,#6,#9 inflicted pain on the Egptians in retaliation for the affliction they afflicted on the Jews.
Hence, concludes Rav Hirsch, plagues #3,#6,#9 did not have warnings since their purpose was infliction of pain. By contrast the other plagues did have warnings since their purposes was partially educative: The Egyptians were taught what it feels like to be aliens or slaves.

Sermonic Points: Rav Hirsch's deep analysis emphasizes God's justice. The Egyptians sinned against the Jews with alien-ship, slavery, and pain. Hence they were punished with alien-ship, humiliation, and pain. The idea of equating God's justice with a tit-for-tat response to sin is explicitly mentioned in several other Biblical passages and has intuitive appeal.

9. RASHI METHOD: SPREADSHEETS
BRIEF EXPLANATION: The common denominator of the 3 submethods of the Spreadsheet method is that inferences are made from non textual material. The 3 submethods are as follows:
• Spreadsheet: Rashi makes inferences of a numerical nature that can be summarized in a traditional spreadsheet
• Geometric: Rashi clarifies a Biblical text using descriptions of geometric diagrams
• Fill-ins: Rashi supplies either real-world background material or indicates real-world inferences from a verse. The emphasis here is on the real-world, non-textual nature of the material.
This examples applies to Rashis Ex10-11b
URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/ex10-11b.htm

Verses Ex10-09:11 discussing which groups would be freed from Egypt to serve God states as follows And Moses said, We will go with
1. our young and with
2. our old, with
3. our sons and with
4. our daughters, with
5. our flocks and with
6. our herds
will we go; for we must hold a feast for the Lord. And he[Pharoh] said to them, ... Not so, go now
1. the adult warriors,
2. and serve the Lord;
for that is what you desire. And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence.

Rashi, in effect, lines up 
the two ordered lists using a 
spreadsheet type device, as follows:
------------------------------------
Moses Ex10-09       Pharoh Ex10-11
------------------- ----------------

 young          not adult warrior
 old            not adult warrior
 sons           not adult warrior
 daughters      not adult warriors
 flocks         serve the Lord
 herds          serve the Lord

-------------------------------------

Hence the Rashi: Not so:As you requested to take the children with you, rather, the adult warriors can go and serve the Lord. I interpret Rashi as emphasizing that Pharoh allowed both adults and animals but not children.

Sermonic points: The cultural clash here has obvious moral meaning: Pharoh saw god and religion as enabling victory in war. The important thing about god is that he allows his nation to win wars. By contrast Judaism sees God as enabling families. To have a holiday means to escape from the world and have parents, children and grandparents all together.

Conclusion

This week's parshah does not contain examples of the symbolism method. This concludes this weeks edition. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples.