1. RASHI METHOD: REFERENCES BRIEF EXPLANATION: Commentary on a verse is provided thru a cross-reference to another verse. The cross references can either provide (1a) further details, (1b) confirm citations, or (1c) clarify word meaning. This examples applies to Rashis Gn28-11e URL Reference: (c) http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1317.htm Brief Summary: (Gn28-11:12) Jacob sleeping in a particular place and dreaming of angels going up and down REFERENCES (Gn28-16) God is in this place (God is in Temple/House of study; God is in wilderness / campouts)

Verse Gn28-11:12 discussing Jacob's camping out on his trip from Beer Sheva to Charan states And he lighted upon a certain place, and remained there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. Rashi notes that the underlined words, lay down in that place to sleep. references verses Gn28-16 discussing the presence of God in a mere camping ground. Hence the Rashi comment (Gn28-11:12)Jacob slept in that place ...saw angels ascending and descending... references Gn28-16 Jacob woke up and God is in this place. In other words Jacob had previously thought that God could only be found in holy places - Temples and houses of Study. But all of a sudden Jacob sees God in a camping ground and discovered God is all over. (In rule #5 below we will see that in Houses of Study people climb up to God while in camping grounds God descends to help people.

Text of Target Verse Gn30-37a	Text of Reference Verse Ho04-13
And he lighted upon a certain place, and remained there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.	And Jacob awoke from his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.
Rashi comments: (Gn28-11:12)Jacob slept in that place ...saw angels ascending and descending... references Gn28-16 Jacob woke up and God is in this place. In other words Jacob had previously thought that God could only be found in holy places - Temples and houses of Study. But all of a sudden Jacob sees God in a camping ground and discovered God is all over. (In rule #5 below we will see that in Houses of Study people climb up to God while in camping grounds God descends to help people.

Advanced Rashi: Rashi doesn't literally state what we have indicated above. However this is a beginning of an analysis of this Rashi using all 10 rules. In rule #2 and rule #3 we will review the use of the pronoun this which always gives special emphasis. Then in rule #5 we will deal with the contradiction that God is everywhere but also God is more in some places such as Temples and Houses of Study. In rule #8 we will show the unusual feature that this is the only place in the Bible where a person sleeping is described as making a bed, again a special emphasis suggesting that previously he was active without time to sleep. In rule #9 we will review the chronology of Jacob's journeys and show that 14 years are missing, suggesting separate spiritual activities prior to coming to Laban. Finally in rule #10 we will deal with the symbolism of angels going up and down.

The botton line is as follows: In rule #9, spreadsheets we see there is a 14 year gap between Jacob's departure from Beer Sheva and his arrival in Charan. Jacob camps in the middle of nowhere but sees God in a dream and concludes that God is here even though he didn't expect it. In rules 5, 10 - contradiction and symbolism we see that Jacob learns that God manifests himself in two ways: 1) In Temples and Houses of Study man ascends to God; 2) In camping grounds and profane places God descends to man to help him out. This second manifestation of God surprises Jacob who hadn't been aware of it. Finally in rule #8, databases we discover the unusual reference to Jacob making a bed in this place suggesting that prior to this he had slept haphazardly creating connotations of a prior life of a student who sleeps haphazardly. In rule #2 we see a further emphasis that Jacob made a bed and slept in this place (but not in others). Combining the above we arrive at the conclusion that Jacob's former life was a life of prayer and study - he erroneously thought God was only found there. But Jacob now finds God in the profane. Jacob sees God manifesting in two ways - man ascends to God in Temples and houses of study but God descends to help man in the profane.

The special word method deals with the few dozen special connective words that exist in all languages. Familiar examples are also, when, that, if, then, all, because, only, this,.... These words are typically
• adverbs such as all,also or connective words, either
• conjunctions such as if, then, because or
• articles or demonstrative or abstract pronouns such as the, this, that or
• propositional connectives such as in,on,to,from.
Rashi's job, when he comments on a special connective words, is to enumeratively list the nuances and usages of the word.

The most famous example of the special word method is the Hebrew word Kaph Yud which can mean because, that, when, perhaps, rather, if. Sometimes Rashi explicitly gives all meanings of a connective word as happens with Kaph Yud while at other times Rashi does not give all meanings at once. In such a case the Rashi student must gather all the meanings together from various places.

One can classify the special word method as either a meaning sub-method or grammar sub-method.

Today we deal with the Hebrew special word Hey-Vav-Aleph, Zayin-Hey which can have any of the following meanings.
• only this for example, Gn28-11 only in this place did he sleep
• this (in the sense of something pointed to) for example, Gn28-16 I didn't know God was in this place (out in the wilderness where I gathered some stones to sleep/camp)

Applying this rule to the translation of Gn28-11e, Gn28-16 we obtain He came upon a place and stayed there overnight because night was falling - he took some stones, placed them at this head. Only in this place did he sleep (But in previous places he had not slept with a regular bed . .....And he was in a state of shock and said - how awesome is this place (where I merely camped); it is this place (where I merely camped) which is a House of God ( vs. Temples and Houses of Study which might be thought to be Houses of God) and it is this place which is the gate to heaven (and not the Temples and houses of study which might be thought to be houses of God) As is our practice we have embedded the Rashi translation in the verse.

The botton line is as follows: In rule #9, spreadsheets we see there is a 14 year gap between Jacob's departure from Beer Sheva and his arrival in Charan. Jacob camps in the middle of nowhere but sees God in a dream and concludes that God is here even though he didn't expect it. In rules 5, 10 - contradiction and symbolism we see that Jacob learns that God manifests himself in two ways: 1) In Temples and Houses of Study man ascends to God; 2) In camping grounds and profane places God descends to man to help him out. This second manifestation of God surprises Jacob who hadn't been aware of it. Finally in rule #8, databases we discover the unusual reference to Jacob making a bed in this place suggesting that prior to this he had slept haphazardly creating connotations of a prior life of a student who sleeps haphazardly. In rule #2 we see a further emphasis that Jacob made a bed and slept in this place (but not in others). Combining the above we arrive at the conclusion that Jacob's former life was a life of prayer and study - he erroneously thought God was only found there. But Jacob now finds God in the profane. Jacob sees God manifesting in two ways - man ascends to God in Temples and houses of study but God descends to help man in the profane.

The table below presents two contradictory verses. Both verses speak about the sanctity/profanity of the place Jacob slept. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says Jacob camped/slept in a bumped-into place. The place was ordinary with nothing but stones. Jacob did ordinary things like sleeping there, while the other verse states This place is a House of God. We see the contradiction---Was the place ordinary or holy - a place of stones and sleeping or a House of God. Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 Aspects method: Jacob's dream shows angels ascending and descending. Jacob discovered that God manifests Himself in two ways: 1) In Temples and Houses of Study man ascends to God while 2) in profane camping grounds where people merely sleep God descends to help man.

Summary	Verse / Source	Text of verse / Source
Jacob slept in an ordinary profane place	Gn28-11:12	And he lighted upon a certain place, and remained there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
Jacob slept in a Holy place, a House of God.	Gn29-16:17	And Jacob awoke from his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How awesome is this place! this is no other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven
Resolution:	2 Aspects	Jacob's dream shows angels ascending and descending. Jacob discovered that God manifests Himself in two ways: 1) In Temples and Houses of Study man ascends to God while 2) in profane camping grounds where people merely sleep God descends to help man.

Advanced Rashi: We will revisit this Rashi in several other rules, particularly the symbolism rule where we will explore the angels ascending, descending.

Readers will of course recognize the resolution of the contradiction as the famous immanence-transcendence dichotomy. It is also the paradox of God's omnipresence. After all if God is present everywhere why do we need Temples and Study hall's to get closer to him? It is not sufficient to resolve this controversy by saying that God is more manifest in Study Halls and Temples. Rather, we analytically resolve it. In Temples and Study Halls God manifests Himself by allowing man to ascend to him. By contrast, in camping grounds and places of sleep God manifests Himself by descending to help man. This immanence-transcendence or ascent-descent dichotomy is also highlighted by Chasidus. The scholars found God in Houses of Study while the Chasidim found God in mundane life.

We ask the following database query: Does the Bible ever describe the making of beds to sleep? 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: There are about 5 dozen references to sleeping in the Bible. Only in Gn28-11 do we find the strange detail: He made a bed and slept only in that place. The excessive detail coupled with the emphasis slept only in that place contrastively suggests that prior Jacob had slept haphazardly without made beds. This nostagically conjurs images of a Temple or Student life with haphazard sleeping patterns. The list below presents the results of the database query and provides examples.

Verse	Text of Verse	Is making a bed mentiond?
Gn28-11e	And he lighted upon a certain place, and remained there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.	Yes
Gn41-05	and he slept and dreamt a second time and ....	No
Ju16-03	Samson slept until midnight and he arose at midnight and grabbed the city pillars...	No
2S11-09	But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.	No
Ru03-14	And she lay at his feet until the morning; and she rose up before one could recognize another. And he said, Let it not be known that a woman came into the threshing floor.	No

Advanced Rashi: If we combine the database query with the meaning rule that this connotes emphasis - only this - we would translate the verse as follows: ....he bumped into a place...took stones and placed by his head....and only in this place did he [thus] sleep. In other words it was only in this profane place that Jacob attended to making the bed and sleeping. This contrastively suggests that prior Jacob had led a Temple or Study life with haphazard sleeping habits.

Today is a delightful example of the spreadsheet method. The spreadsheet below is a peach of an example of this important Rashi method. The spreadsheet with its underlying assumptions justifies the Rashi assertion that
• Jacob waited 14 years after leaving his father before coming to Laban
• But the contrast of Gn28-11,12,16 shows that Jacob was surprised that God was in this place, a profane place where one camps and sleeps
• This suggests that contrastively he spent the previous 14 years in spiritual endeavors, places where God is expected to be found
• We don't know (from the verses) where Jacob spent the previous 14 years, nor do we know what spiritual endeavors he was doing. It is logical that he was engaged in prayer, charity or learning. Rashi picks a specific example - he was learning at the academy of Shem and Ever. However the verses don't explicitly suggest this but rather simply suggest that Jacob was engaged in spiritual behavior.

  'Egyptian Time*1	'Event	'Abraham's age	'Ishmael's age	'Isaac's age	'Jacob's / Esauv's age	'Joseph's age	'Jacob working for Laban	'Supporting Verses
  ' 0	'Abraham visits Egypt	'75	'	'	'	'	'	'Gn12-04
  ' 11*1	'Ishmael Born	'86	'0	'	'	'	'	'Gn16-16
  ' 25	'Isaac Born	'100	'	'0	'	'	'	'Gn21-05
  ' 85	'Yaakov Born	'	'	'60	'0	'	'	'Gn25-26
  ' 100	'Abraham's death	'175	'	'	'	'	'	'Gn25-07
  ' 148	'Ishmael's death; Jacob/Esauv leave Isaac*2	'	'137	'	'63*3	'	'	'Gn25-17, Gn28-05:09
  ' 162	'Jacob arrives at Laban	'	'	'	'	'77*4	'-14*5	'Gn31-41,Gn30-25
  ' 176	'Joseph's birth	'	'	'	'	'	'0	'Gn31-41,Gn30-25
  ' 206	'Joseph begins to reign	'	'	'	'	'	'30	'Gn41-46
  ' 213	'7 years of plenty	'	'	'	'	'37	'Gn41-47
  ' 215	'Jacob reunites with Joseph	'	'	'	'	'130	'39	'Gn45-06,Gn47-09

  Footnotes:
  • 1: The 400 years of exile started in Abraham's 75th year; so this year is numbered 0. The Jews left Egypt in year 405. This table links pairs of events with verses. The linked pairs justify an update of the Egyptian time column. Example: Gn16-16 states that Abraham was 86 when Ishmael was born. This justifies placing an 86 in the Abraham column and a 0 in the Ishmael column. By subtracting 75 from 86 we obtain 11 and hence this is 0+11=11 years Egyptian Time. Other rows in the spreadsheet are filled in similarly.
  • 2: One verse states Ishmael was 137 when he died. An other verse states that Jacob and Esauv left Isaac around the time that Esauv got married. But the verse says that Ishmael did not marry off his own daughter but rather Nevayoth, her brother established the marriage. This suggests that Ishmael started the marriage but died before its completion and Nevayoth the brother completed it. So we link Ishmael's death with Jacob and Esauv leaving Isaac.
  • 3: Jacob's age of 63 is computed by using Egyptian absolute time: Ishmael died at 137, which is year 148 Egyptian time. Jacob was born in year 85 Egyptian time. So Jacob was now 137-85 = 63 years.
  • 4: Here the computation of 77 is prospective instead of retrospective. We see that Jacob was 130 and Joseph was 39 when they reunited. We also see that Joseph was born after 14 years with Laban. So 130 - 39 - 14 = 77.
  • 5: Jacob worked 14 years for his two wives and Joseph was born at the end. So Jacob arrived at Laban's house 14 years prior to Joseph's birth.

Advanced Rashi: Rashi uses the above spreadsheet to show the 14 year gap between year 63 of Jacob's life and year 77 of Jacob's life. Jacob left his father's house at age 63 but didn't arrive at Laban's house till 77. Apparently Jacob spent 14 years doing something different, spiritual endeavors. We aren't sure which endeavors. Rashi gives a good example, study. However the verses justify asserting any spiritual endeavor.

Verse Gn28-12a presenting the dream Jacob had states And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. We interpret this simply as meaning that there are two manifestations of God. In Temples and Halls of Study man ascends to God while in profane places God descends to man. Jacob had erroneouslly thought that God may only be found in situations of ascent. His dream taught him that God can be found in situations of descent also. This ascent-descent theme manifests itself in a variety of domains including immanence-transcendence, scholar approaches to God (through learning) vs. Chasidic approaches to God (through living a simple daily life), Holy approaches to God vs profane approaches to God.

Rashi literally says The angels of Israel were ascending to heaven while the angels of non-Israel lands came down to escort Jacob on his trip to Laban (who was not holy. We have chosen to interpret this Rashi as using a good example of the holy-profane dichotomy presented in the last paragraph. Israel-non-Israel is simply one good example of Holy approaches to God vs non-Holy approaches to God. Rashi did not intend to exhaust the meaning of the verse in this particular holy-non-holy approach but rather intended to illustate the underlying meaning with a good example.

The botton line is as follows: In rule #9, spreadsheets we see there is a 14 year gap between Jacob's departure from Beer Sheva and his arrival in Charan. Jacob camps in the middle of nowhere but sees God in a dream and concludes that God is here even though he didn't expect it. In rules 5, 10 - contradiction and symbolism we see that Jacob learns that God manifests himself in two ways: 1) In Temples and Houses of Study man ascends to God; 2) In camping grounds and profane places God descends to man to help him out. This second manifestation of God surprises Jacob who hadn't been aware of it. Finally in rule #8, databases we discover the unusual reference to Jacob making a bed in this place suggesting that prior to this he had slept haphazardly creating connotations of a prior life of a student who sleeps haphazardly. In rule #2 we see a further emphasis that Jacob made a bed and slept in this place (but not in others). Combining the above we arrive at the conclusion that Jacob's former life was a life of prayer and study - he erroneously thought God was only found there. But Jacob now finds God in the profane. Jacob sees God manifesting in two ways - man ascends to God in Temples and houses of study but God descends to help man in the profane.