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Their presence in Rashis on Parshat VaYayRaH Volume 15, Number 8 This weeks Weekly Rashi with Hebrew/English source tables Is accessible at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1508.htm (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, October 21 th, 2010 Visit the Rashi website http://www.Rashiyomi.com 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. Although I frequently use my own English translations of biblical verses and Rashi comments, the Hebrew and English translations in the source tables are derived from online parshah files at chabad.org who in turn acknowledges the Judaica Press Complete Tanach, copyright by Judaica Press.
Verse Gn19-17 discussing the prohibition, during the destruction of Sedom and Amorah, of Lot staying in the plain states And it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, Escape for your life; look not behind you, nor stay in the plain; escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed. Rashi notes The underlined word, plain, references verse Gn13-10 which states that Lot was attracted to Sedom because of the fertile Jordan plain.
Rashi had ten methods to explain biblical meaning. Rashi would sometimes derive the meaning of a word from the meaning of its underlying Biblical root. Today's example illustrates this. Verse Gn18-12b discussing Sarah's skepticism at having a child states ....after my menopause I will have periods. An literal translation of the same verselet would be ....after my withering I will have delights. The Hebrew word Ayin-Daleth-Nun-Hey meaning female youth, (pre-menopause) grammatically comes either from the root Ayin-Daleth-Nun, meaning delight, pleasure, or from the root Yud-Ayin-Daleth meaning date, time. In other words Rashi advances the idea that Youth / pre-menopause is the time of delight, pleasure. Similarly, Rashi advances the idea that Pre-menopause is the time of periods,dates, and times. Advanced Rashi: Very often etymologies come in pairs. The idea is that even if a word had a primary etymology it very often by puns and inuendos achieves secondary etymologies. After a while both derivations become equally important.
Rashi lived before the era of Grammatical textbooks. Hence one of his functions was to teach the rules of grammar similar to modern textbooks. One aspect of grammar deals with the proper use of connectives. A classical approach to connectives is to list the multiple meanings they can take. Todays example illustrates this. The Hebrew connective Hey-Nun-Hey, Hinnay has one basic meaning. These basic meaning is unexpectedly. Several examples are presented in the table below.
It is always a special treat to defend, as simple and spontaneous, a Rashi which appears as homiletic, exegetical and forced. Today we present a peachy example illustrating this technique.
Advanced Rashi: The Rashi clarifies the miracle of why Lot who willfully chose Sedom and Amorah was saved. He kept quiet about Sarah's true identity. He participated in the expulsion from Egypt and commemorated him and Abraham being saved. The Angels came to him while he was perfoming this commemoration. They thereby emphasized to Lot his inner spiritual qualities which were masked by his material desires. These spiritual qualities merited him to be saved. The above Rashi - that Lot was observing Passover - may have initially appeared homiletic. Yet we have put it on a sound foundation. We have shown an underlying unity between the beginning of the 400 years - The Abrahamitic expulsion from Egypt - and the end of the 400 years - The Jewish expulsion from Egypt. The Rashi now appears plausible expressing a deep underlyling unity between our founding Patriarch and his children. Praise be him who chose them and their learning.
The table below presents two contradictory verses / verse phrases. Both verses / verse phrases talk about Sarah's relationship with Abraham. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse / verse phrase says Sarah was a sister, daughter of a father while the other verse / verse phrase says Sarah was a niece, daughter of a son of a father. Which is it? Was Sarah Abraham's sister or niece? Rashi simply resolves this using the broad-literal method: Sarah was Abraham's niece. But people colloquially identify generations. Grandfathers are fathers and neices are sisters.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi's point becomes stronger when other verses are brought in. For example a comparison of Ex02-18, Nu10-29 shows that grandparents are called parents. Here also we have two generations identified. This makes Rashi's identification of sister and niece (daugther of father vs daughter of son of father) more palatable.
Certain Biblical paragraphs are stated in a Theme-Development form. In other words a broad general idea is stated first followed by the development of this broad general theme in specific details. The Theme-Detail form creates a unified paragraph and consequently the law or narrative statement only applies to the enumerated details but not to other cases. Today's example illustrates this as shown below.
When a modern author wishes to deemphasize a concept they will strike it out. When the Biblical author wishes to deemphasize a concept He places dots over it. The dots in the Biblical version, or the strikeout in the modern version, indicate deemphasis.
We ask the following database query: What Biblical items are said to happen from heaven. 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: Heaven is the symbolic source for reward, punishment and prophecy. The list below presents the results of the database query and shows examples.
When Avimelech sought a treaty from Abraham he said Gn21-23 Now therefore swear unto me here by G-d that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son's son; but according to the kindness that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned.' Rashi clarifies that People feel close to their children and grandchildren but do not feel especially close to great-grandchildren. Here Rashi brings in real-world facts - the degree of closeness people feel to descendants - and uses this real-world fact to clarify the verse: The verse mentions children and grandchildren but not descendants in general and not great-grandchildren. Since Rashi uses real-world facts to clarify the verse we classify this Rashi as a non-verse method.
In this email list we can only touch on basic symbolic ideas. Full proofs of these ideas may be found elsewhere. In my article on symbolism cited above I show that the sacrificial procedures with their rich fire and animal symbolism had as their goal the inspiration of prophetic visions such as the prophetic fire visions described in Isiah 6 and Ezekiel 1. The primary purpose of the sacrifices were lofty, mature and sophisticated procedures designed to help man reach his highest goals, prophecy. A prophecy has at its root a fire-vision such as those of Ezekiel Ez01 and those of Isiah Is06. A ceremony with fire facilitates triggering prophetic fire-visions in those people with proper moral and ethical preparation. Thus a primary purpose of animal sacrifices was inspiration of prophetic fire visions. The sacrifice of the ram in place of Isaac refers to the idea that the ram sacrifice with its rich fire-symbolism was done for (or in place of) Isaac, in order, to enable him to achieve prophecy.
Conclusion
This week's parshah contains examples of all the Rashi methods. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||