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.

Verses Lv23-08 discussing the Jubillee year states And you shall count seven sabbath years to you, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty and nine years. Rashi explains the underlined phrase sabbath years by citing a nearby reference Lv25-02:04 which describes the land sabbatical: Speak to the people of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath to the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in its fruit; But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest to the land, a sabbath for the Lord; you shall not sow your field, nor prune your vineyard. Hence the Rashi comment: The sabbath year refers to the earlier mentioned land sabbatical during which no agriculture is done.

Today we explore how conjugations can transform the word meanings of common nouns into verbs. This happens in three ways:
• The verb can indicate the production / creation of the noun
• The verb can indicate the removal of the noun
• The verb can indicate the typical activity done with the noun.
The following examples illustrate the above 3 paradigms:
• to vine, means to remove / prune vines [Rashi: Lv25-04b];
• to dust, means to remove dust;
• -------------------------------------------------
• to flower, means to produce new flowers;
• -------------------------------------------------
• to hammer, refers to the typical activity done with a hammer;
• to insectify, swarming and producing many children [Rashi: Ex01-07a]
• to fish-ify, producing a school of many children. [Rashi: Gn48-16c]

Many students of Rashi are aware of Rashis based on grammatical peculiarities or excessive words. However Rashi can also be based on a non-standard word order. A non-standard word order generally indicates unspecified emphasis. The examples below illustrate this principle.

Before proceeding we point out the difficulty in mirroring these Rashis in the translations. Some terminology will help clarify this difficulty. Most languages have a characteristic word order.
• For example the characteristic word order in English is Subject-Verb-Object, for example, your enemies will reign over you. Here enemies is the subject, reign is the verb, and you is the object. Hence, this sentence has the typical subject-verb-object order. Linguists, for short, call this sequence S-V-O, using the first letters of Subject-Verb-Object.
• However the characteristic word order in Hebrew is V-S-O; that is the verb comes first, followed by the subject, followed by the object.
It is therefore hard to capture order, or deviance from order, in an English translation! Instead we shall adopt the following translation rule: We shall translate a standard word order in Hebrew into a standard word order in English. We shall similarly translate a non-standard word order in Hebrew into a non-standard word order in English. However we shall not otherwise attempt to translate word-order literally.

With this in mind let us analyze Lv16-17j which states On you, your enemies will reign. The standard-word order would require Your enemies will regin on you, since the phrase on you is the direct object of the sentence. The non-standard word order, On you, your enemies will reign, indicates an unspecified emphasis in the phrase on you. Hence the Rashi comment: Your enemies will not only reign over you but your enemies are on you, they will come from you; you will be the victim of your own Jewish anti-semitism. Here, Rashi is not just making a pun; rather Rashi is focusing on the non-standard word-order.

Advanced Rashi: We will further use the word order method in rule #7, Formatting below. The word order rule is overlooked by many students of Rashi. Its use greatly simplifies certain Rashis.

The two Biblical verses below discuss the prohibition of abusing slaves. One verse applies to slaves of Jewish owners while the other verse applies to slaves of non-Jewish owners. Note the aligned difference between the two verses:
• Slaves (Jewish owners) - Lv25-43a, states do not work him abusively;
• Slaves (non-Jewish owners) - Lv21-53a ... do not work him abusively openly.

Notice the extra underlined word - openly - exposed by the alignment. Hence the Rashi comment:
• Non-Jewish Owners:
  • You are only prohibited from letting a non-Jewish owner openly create an abusive work environment for his Jewish slave.
  • If you however hear about it, but do not see it openly, then you are not obligated to enter the non-Jew's home.
• Jewish Owners:
  • You are prohibited from letting a Jewish owner openly create an abusive work environment for his slaves.
  • You are also obligated, if you hear of indoor abusive work practices, to enter the premises and stop the abusive practices.

Note the contradiction in the following two sets of verses, discussing the requirement to allow the land to lie follow every 7th year (the so-called land sabbatical). Verse Lv25-20:23 states:
• And if you shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our produce;
• Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And you shall sow the eighth year, and eat still of old fruit until the ninth year; until its fruits come in you shall eat of the old store.

We see the contradiction, indicated by the underlined phrases. Which is it? Are we prohibited from agriculture only in the 7th year? Or, are we also prohibited in the 6th and 8th year? If we are not prohibited in the 6th and 8th year why do we need a Biblical promise that the blessings of the sixth year will carry forward for three years.

It is not hard to resolve this contradiction. Rashi resolves it using some simple operational details:
• In each year we sow and harvest for that year and also the beginning of the next year. Hence, in the 6th year we sow and harvest (as usual) for that year.
• However the harvest from the sixth year, which should typically feed us for that sixth year, will also feed us for the totality of the 7th year when we can't perform agriculture.
• But then when the 8th year begins we still don't have any harvest. Rather we have to sow in the 8th year and we do not reap the harvest of the 8th year till after the summer. But after the summer is the Jewish New Year and the ninth year begins. Hence the harvest of the 6th year is needed while harvesting the agriculture of the 8th year which gets completed at the beginning of the 9th year.

Advanced Rashi: We have employed the contradiction method to explain the above verses. Further clarification may be obtained from the non-verse-diagram method. The following time diagram clarifies the above Rashi. Very often the use of two Rashi methods adds clarity. Please feel free to read rule #9, Spreadsheets-Diagrams now.

In my article Biblical Formatting I have indicated that the Biblical Author will use a theme-detail-theme style to indicate a paragraph the same way a modern author will use indentation and a line of white space to indicate a paragraph. The fact that several sentences form one paragraph generally indicates exegesis: The diverse sentences are perceived as indicating one central theme; they are not interpreted exclusively.

With this in mind let us review verses Lv21-18:21 which is written in a theme-detail-theme style as shown below. The verse-paragraph discusses the obligation to declare a Jubilee year every 50 th year in order to free all slaves and in order to let land revert to their current owner.
• General: And you shall count seven sabbath-years,
• Detail: seven times seven years;
• General: the seven sabbath-years shall be forty nine years.
... And 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.

We can already see, in the verses above, all the terms defining the number of years prior to Jubilee:
• 7 Sabbatical-years
• 7 times 7 years
• 49 years
Hence the deceptively simple Rashi comment: The Jubilee always occurs every 50 years.

Advanced Rashi:To fully appreciate how the General-Detail-General method affects Rashi we interpret the verses both with and without the General-Detail-General method:
• If the verses did not use the General-Detail-General method and simply said Count 7 sabbaticals and then have a Jubilee I would interpret the verse literally: You must observe 7 sabbaticals in order to have a Jubilee. If you sinned and didn't observe the 7 Sabbaticals you can't have a Jubilee. This makes sense: If people did not forgive the monetary debts forgiven every 7th year then society would not be economically and psychologically ready for freeing personal (slavery) and land debts.
• By using the general-detail-general style the law is interpreted broadly: Yes in a typical century you will observe 7 sabbaticals and then have a Jubilee but even if you didn't observe the 7 sabbaticals you still must have the Jubilee in the 50th year.
This - the difference between a literal and broad interpretation - is the essence of using the theme-detail-theme paragraph method.

We have explained in our article Biblical Formatting located on the world wide web at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/biblicalformatting.pdf, that the Biblical Author indicates bold, italics, underline by using repetition. In other words if a modern author wanted to emphasize a word they would either underline, bold or italicize it. However when the Biblical author wishes to emphasize a word He repeats it. The effect - whether thru repetition or using underline - is the same. It is only the means of conveying this emphasis that is different.

With this in mind let us read verse Lv25-14:15, which discusses apostasy. The discussion develops in three pairs of bulleted texts. The bullets are indicated by the underlined repeating keywords. With each verselet we present the Rashi comment. After the citation we explain how the bullet rule gives rise to the comments, not language and grammar. Many serious students of Rashi have errored by misunderstanding Rashi as emanating only from language and Grammar.

The six verselets describing apostasy are:
• • But if you do not listen to me [Don't study], and
  • do not do [Don't perform] all these commandments;
• • And if my statutes [religious laws] are despised
  • and if my civil cases[interpersonal civil laws] are loathed by your soul
• • until you don't do any of my commandments [Don't contribute to help others perform and actively interfer with others performing],
  • until you break my covenant;[Apostasy]

We now explain what Rashi did, and did not, do. In the first set of bullets Rashi interprets the Biblical word pair, listen-do as referring to learning-perform. Rashi did not do this because of requirements of language. Indeed, listen can equally mean study or performance. Similarly do can easily mean study-performance together. Rather because the repeating underlined keyword do not create a bullet atmosphere, therefore, Rashi was justified in reading into the listen-do sequence the interpretation of learning-perform.

In the second set of bullets we use the grammar-word-order rule which we reviewed in rule #3 above. Hebrew is a verb-object language. A reversal of this order (e.g. civil laws despised vs. despise my civil laws) indicates unpsecified emphasis. When we couple this emphasis with the repeating underlined keyword, if, we see that Rashi choses to emphasize the specific nuances of statute and civil law, which very roughly refer to religious vs. civil law. Again it was not the word meaning which drove Rashi to this. Indeed, in many verses, the word statute by itself can refer to all laws just as the word civil law by itself can refer to all Jewish laws.

Because of the third set of bullets, indicated by the underlined keyword, until, Rashi contrasts commandments vs. treaty, as differentiating non-performance vs. apostasy / denial. Rashi sees further nuances in the repeating keyword, until. Rashi interprets this to mean a general development over time of non-performance and treaty violation. Hence, this is interpreted broadly to refer to being annoyed by community performance of commandments and outright denial of God.

Sermonic Points: One does not just get up and suddenly deny God. Apostasy takes place as a gradual process. The above 6 verselets present a 6-stage process as follows:
1. One stops learning every day
2. One forgets and doesn't perform every law
3. In one's dinner conversations with one's friends, the trans-rational laws are attacked as meaningless
4. One doesn't bother to understand Jewish civil law; one attacks the rational laws.
5. When the above 4 happen over a period of time the hatred of the law turns outward to other people - commandments should not be performed because they are rediculous.
6. Finally, after having been cut off from learning, performance, appreciation and community, apostasy naturally evolves (With nothing to stop it).

Today we ask the database query: What words or phrases are used to indicate charity requirements in Hebrew. The database query uncovers the results given in the list below. Given the spectrum of words for charity, Rashi suggests nuances peculiar to each word.

Sermonic points: Although the above Rashis appears to be a simple exercise they mirror profound halachik requirements. The various terms used, each with its own connotation, - money, food, loans, business association - forms the basis for the Rambam's famous ladder of charitable activities. Thus creating a business association with a poor person is superior to loaning or giving him money since the business association enables self-sufficiency. Traditionally, we think of the Rambam's ladder as deriving from Talmudic sources. But it has its roots in Biblical sources.

We have already, rule #5, contradiction presented the diagram approach to the Rashis on verses Lv25-20:23 which state And if you shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our produce; Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And you shall sow the eighth year, and eat still of old fruit until the ninth year; until its fruits come in you shall eat of the old store.

The diagram below shows us that: The produce of the 6th year is used
• at the end of the 6th year
• all during the 7th year
• and at the beginning of the 8th year (until new produce is produced)
Hence, although the land sabbatical is only one year, the produce of the 6th year is needed for three years.

TIME DIAGRAM FOR AGRICULTURAL CYCLES:
Year 5
| Eat produce of year 4
|
|
|
| Sow for years 5,6
|
Year 6
| Finish Gathering harvest of Year 5
| Eat produce of Year 5
|
| Sow for years 6,7
| 
| Harvest for year 6 ----------------------- Year 6 Produce
|
Year 7
|- Land Sabbatical - No sowing or harvest
|- Eat produce of year 6-------------------- Year 6 produce
|
|
Year 8
|- No harvest of Year 7
|- Continue eating produce from Year 6------ Year 6 Produce
|
| Sow for Years 8,9
|
| Begin Harvest of Year 8
| Eat some produce of year 8
|
Year 9
| Complete produce of Year 8
| Eat year 8 produce  
|
| Harvest for years 9,10

Conclusion

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