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Their presence in Rashis on Parshat ShoFeTiM Vol 7, # 10 - Adapted from Rashi-is-Simple Visit the RashiYomi website: http://www.Rashiyomi.com/ (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, Aug 16th, 2007 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 Dt18-01 states that the Levites do not inherit land with their fellow Jews, but rather, God is their inheritance as God has stated. Rashi clarifies that this cross reference alludes to Nu18-20.
Advanced Rashi: Notice how Dt18-01 provides further details to the reference: We are told how God is the inheritance of the Priests: They eat the offerings and gifts. Such clarification by the method of references is typical.
Verse Dt18-12a discussing the prohibition of following Canaanite customs states For whosoever doeth any of these things is an abomination unto HaShem; and because of these abominations HaShem thy G-d is driving them out from before thee. The Rashi comment is straightforward: It does not say For whosoever doeth these things....is an abomination but rather it says For whosoever doeth any of these things ...is an abomination. Hence a person who only does one of them has committed an abomination. Advanced Rashi: Note that this uses the method of special connective words. The special connective word method refers to words like if, also, when, all, because, that.... Rashi's goal when dealing with special connective words is to list all usages of these words. Sometimes Rashi does this explicitly; other times Rashi lists throughout the Torah the various usages and the student must infer the list.
Advanced Rashi: In aligning the above two verselets we see other similarities. For example we find watch and perform aligned. Similarly we find this and these aligned. I believe the proper approach to Rashi requires that the reader supply Rashi-like comments to further aspects of the alignment. In this case we could say: Miracles and stories must be watched and kept while laws must be performed.
The table below presents presents two contradictory verses. Both verses speak about a perjury case. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says a false witness testifies while the other verse states two witnesses testify. Which is it? Is there one or two witnesses?
Rashi resolves this contradiction using the broad-literal method. Rashi reads the two verses as follows. If a false-witness [Group] rises up against a litigant to testify against him that which is wrong; Then the two [witness] men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges, who shall be in those days By using the table structure with underlines we are able to participate and empathize with Rashi in construction of the Rashi comment. Advanced Rashi: Rashi makes other comments on this verse. For example Rashi states this teaches that the witnesses must stand. The other Rashi comments are explained using other Rashi rules. See rule #8 databases for an explanation of the other Rashi comments.
Certain Biblical paragraphs are stated in a detail-Theme form. In other words a detailed specific law is stated first followed by a thematic restatement of a broad general nature. Today's example illustrates this as shown below.
The Rabbi Ishmael style rules require interpreting a Detail-General style almost restrictively with a slight generalization. Hence the Rashi comment: From the people but not from the priests [That is, a priest who offers a sacrifice is not obligated to provide priestly gifts since he is not a people but a priest.] Advanced Rashi: Note: One traditional approach to Rashi is to say Rashi derived his comment from the extra words from the people. These words are extra since the verse reads fine without them. Our approach however is to derive the Rashi comment from the contrastive emphasis of a detail vs. general stage. People is seen as more restrictive then offerers of sacrifice and hence because of this contrast Rashi emphasizes from the people but not from the priests.
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 indicated bullets by using repeating keywords. That is, if a modern author wanted to get a point across using bullets - a list of similar but contrastive items - then the Biblical Author would use repeating keywords.
Advanced Rashi: People sometimes ask me: But the verse did not explicitly say States a correct law in the name of idolatrous gods - how did Rashi know this? The answer comes from mathematical logic. Rashi points out that the verse requires falsehood in either content or source. Logic teaches us that to emphasize the two parameters we should consider true content but false source and false content but true source. Thus Rashi's clarification is a routine application of mathematical logic to a disjunctive criteria (That is, a criteria with an either-or condition).
We ask the following database query: How many commandments mention a requirement of standing. The reader is encouraged to perform the query using a standard Biblical Konnkordance or search engine. This database query yields the list below. The list justifies the following Rashi inference: Several commandments mention a requirement of standing. In some of them the word standing is used contrastively to indicate absstention or waiting. However in the remaining commandments there is a requirement of standing. The list below presents the results of the database query.
Advanced Rashi: Notice how this requirement of standing is echoed in several Rashis. Furthermore the use of the list enriches our understanding of Rashi since we see that the obvious explanation The verse says standing and therefore standing is required does not apply since Jewish law does not always require standing when the verse mentions standing as the above list shows. Sermonic points: Standing (vs. sitting) requires extra energy and hence symbolically affirms seriousness. It is very reasonable that such activities as testifying against a fellow Jews, deciding not to marry your widowed sister-in-law should only be done after serious, not casual, deliberation, and this is symbolized by performing the act standing not sitting.
Verse Dt19-03, discussing the importance of adequately maintaining refuge cities where negligent murderers could flee to avoid attacks by the relatives of the murdered, states Thou shalt prepare thee the way, and divide the borders of thy land, which the LORD thy God causeth thee to inherit, into three , that every manslayer may flee thither. Rashi explains that
In this case Rashi clarifies through a geometric diagram.
Rashi symbolically interprets this gift as affirming the original act of zealotry by Pinchas which earned him eternal Priesthood. Recall that Pinchas speared a couple having relations openly in public and thereby assuaged God's anger at the promiscuity with the Moabite women.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi does not literally say what we have said. He corresponds cheek with mouth and prayer and corresponds hand with thrusting the sword. However we feel that Rashi was simply being discrete here. He did not want to explicitly speak about such things. He left it to the reader to infer it. Also Rashi wanted to explain that besides the description of the development of sin the priestly gifts also symbolized the act of zealotry which came about through prayer and using a sword.
Conclusion
This week's parshah contains examples of all methods. This concludes this weeks edition. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||