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Their presence in Rashis on Parshat Emor Volume 14, Number 12 Used in the monthly Rashi-is-Simple and the Daily Rashi. Visit the RashiYomi website: http://www.Rashiyomi.com/ (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, Apr. 30, 2010 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 Lv24-02 discussing the Temple Candellabrah states Command the children of Israel, that they bring unto thee pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually. Rashi clarifies the underlined words oil, and lamp by referencing verse Ex27-20:21 which states And you shall command the people of Israel, that they bring you pure beaten oil olive for the light, for the lamp to burn always. In the Tent of Meeting outside the veil, which is before the Testimony, Aaron and his sons shall order it from evening to morning before the Lord; it shall be a statute forever to their generations on behalf of the people of Israel. Hence the Rashi comment: This chapter (Lv24-02) has the same content as Ex27-20:21. In fact Ex states Moses, tell the Jewish people about the Candellabrah... and Lv is where Moses actually told the Jews about it.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi does not explain why the Chapter is repeated here. After all if the content is the same as the Ex chapter this chapter might be in better placed in Exodus. I think the answer is clear. Chapters are placed out of sequence to connote causal connection. The previous chapter is the holiday chapter including the Sabbath. This chapter is the oil-bread chapter. The implication is clear: The purpose of the holidays is to give the Jews a model 70 days a year (20% vacation time) during which they have adequate food prepared (Temple bread) and during which they don't have to work. They can then devote their days to study which is the primary Jewish commandment. In other words the Jewish holidays is a 20% vacation retreat during which Jews can taste intensive learning. The intent, is that hopefully this will carry over to the rest of the year.
The FFF principle is a special case of the literary techniques of synechdoche-metonomy. These literary principles, universal to all languages, state that items can be named by related items, by parts of those items, or by good examples of those items. For example honey refers to anything sweet since honey is a good example of something sweet. Similarly hot refers to matters of love since the two are related. Todays Rashi can best be understood by applying these principles. It immediately follows that a Succah with its thatched roof resembles in form a cloud. A cloud in turn is symbolic of prophecy as indicated in several verses (for example, Ex19-09, Jb40-06.). The idea here is that prophecy is not always transparent to the receiver. The vision appears murky like the vision through a cloud. Hence using the FFF principle the verselet I sat the Jews in clouds when I took them out of Egypt means I gave prophetic visions to the Jews when I took them out of Egypt. In fact Ex19-09 is a literal confirmation of this fact since God appeared in a cloud. Advanced Rashi: There are Talmudic sources presenting controversy whether Succah means literally Succoth or whether it means prophecy. But as just seen no one disputes that the Jews received prophecy when they left Egypt and that prophecy is compared to a cloud! Similarly no one disputes that the Jews sat in Succoth. It would seem therefore that the controversy between the two sides is not as great as it appears. I am not going to explain what the controversy is today but I am pointing out that because of explicit biblical verses both sides believe that a) the Jews sat in Succoth and b) the Jews received prophecy. Note also that Rashi literally says The Jews sat in clouds of glory. However clouds mean prophecy as I showed above citing Ex19-09. So I believe tbat Rashi uses clouds of glory to refer to prophecy.
Today Hebrew grammar is well understood and there are many books on it. Rashi, however, lived before the age of grammar books. A major Rashi method is therefore the teaching of basic grammar. Many students belittle this aspect of Rashi. They erroneously think that because of modern methods we know more. However Rashi will frequently focus on rare grammatical points not covered in conventional textbooks.
Today we deal with the topic of gender agreement Verse Lv23-09 talking about the weekly bread has a strange shift from female to male pronouns. The verse states And she [the Minchah offering] will belong to Aaron and his children and they will eat him [the bread, but only] in a holy place. A first attempt to appreciate Rashi would focus on the fact that in biblical Hebrew the pronoun referent need not be near the pronoun. So Rashi's job is to identify what the pronoun refers to. There are several possible antecedent nouns such as bread, frankincense, etc. Rashi identifies the object of consumption to be the bread. But on a deeper level Rashi ingeniouslly sees the the feminine pronoun She will belong as referring to the Minchah offering. The remarkable thing about this insight of Rashi is that the word Minchah is not even mentioned in the Chapter. Thus Rashi introduces a new principle of grammar: Pronouns can refer to implicit nouns; nouns referring to objects that are understood to be spoken about even though they are not explicitly mentioned!! Supporting this remarkable principle of gramamr Rashi observes ...Any offering made of plant material is classified as a Minchah.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Lv23-24, Nu29-01. Both verses/verselets discuss Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year. The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: There are two aspects to Rosh Hashana. 1) There is a requirement to blow blow the Shofar. 2) There is a requirement to remember the Shofar of the Ram that replaced Isaac. This explains the Prayers citing verses with citations of Shofar rememberances.
Certain Biblical paragraphs are stated in a example form. In other words an example of a law is stated rather than the full general rule. The reader's task is to generalize the example. The idea that all Biblical laws should be perceived as examples (unless otherwise indicated) is explicitly stated by Rashi (Pesachim 6.). This is a rule of style since the rule requires that a text be perceived as an example rather than interpreted literally. The Rabbi Ishmael style rules govern the interpretation of style. Todays example shows a generalization from two verses. Verse Lv24-11e discussing the act of blasphemy committed in the desert states and the name of his mother was Shlomith, the daughter of Divri, from the tribe of Dan. Verse Ex31-06 discussing the craftmanship of Bezalel, the Temple architect, states and with him Ahaliav....from the tribe of Dan. The Rabbi Ishmael example rule requires generalization of these passages. In this case we simply generalize from blasphemers and Temple architects to all people with distinguishing deeds: any person with a distinguishing deed - whether good or bad - brings reflection - whether honor or disgrace - to his tribe.
The Formatting principle includes exegetical Rashi comments focusing on paragraph structure. That is, the parts of a paragraph when properly sequenced naturally suggest commentary. This type of commentary, emanating from structure, is different from commentary from word meaning, grammatical function or verse comparison. Todays example nicely illustrates this.
The table below presents the 3 commandments as well as their symbolic interpretation. We also include a non-commandment example of leaning. It follows that this Rashi combines the database and symbolism methods.
Sermonic points: The idea of symbolically affirming a serious moment such as transfer of responsibility occurs in many cultures with many diverse symbols. All cultures recognize the need to symbolically affirm serious moments and values. The symbolism here identifes support in the physical realm with moral support in the social realm. It is a symbol based on function.
Verse Lv24-11e presenting the blasphemer mentions the name of her mother and tribe. Similarly verse Ex31-06 mentioning the craftmanship of Bezalel mentions his father and tribe. Rashi comments From this we can infer that generally good and bad people bring honor and disgrace respectively on their family and tribe. Here Rashi infers real-world consequences from the verse and therefore we classified this Rashi as a non-verse method. We could have alternatively perceived this Rashi as generalizing two cases - one bad and one good. As such it would be classified under the rule 6, style the Rabbi Ishmael rules. In this email newsletter we have frequently emphasized that the generalization rule applies to non-legal domains. This verse would be one example of such an application.
The table below presents the 3 commandments as well as their symbolic interpretation. We also include a non-commandment example of leaning. It follows that this Rashi combines the database and symbolism methods.
Sermonic points: The idea of symbolically affirming a serious moment such as transfer of responsibility occurs in many cultures with many diverse symbols. All cultures recognize the need to symbolically affirm serious moments and values. The symbolism here identifes support in the physical realm with moral support in the social realm. It is a symbol based on function.
Conclusion
This week's parshah contains examples of all Rashi method. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com and http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule.htm for further details and examples. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||