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Their presence in Rashis on Parshath VaYiGaSh Volume 15, Number 15 This weeks Weekly Rashi with Hebrew/English source tables Is accessible at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1515.htm (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, December 9 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 Gn44-19a discussing Judah's account of Joseph's interrogation states My lord asked his servants, saying: Have ye a father, or a brother? Rashi notes The underlined words, My lord asked his servants references verse Gn42-07 which explicitly states that Joseph's interrogation was not routine, but intended to harass.
When Rashi uses the synonym method he does not explain the meaning of a word but rather the distinction between two similar words both of whose meanings we already know.
In our article Peshat and Derash: A New Intuitive and Logical Approach, which can be found on the world-wide-web at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rashi.pdf we have advocated punchy translations of Biblical verses as a means of presenting Rashi comments. The following translation of verse Gn47-25c:26 embeds the Rashi translation Chok means an absolute law. And they said, You have saved our lives; let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s servants [to pay an annual 20% tax under all circumstances] And Joseph made it an absolute / statutory law over the land of Egypt to this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part; except the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh’s. Advanced Rashi: The difference between an ordinary law and an absolute law is that ordinary laws can be situational. For example, if the 20% tax was an ordinary law then it could be waived under circumstances of poverty or expensive illness. By making the law absolute Joseph assured the monarchy a 20% cut of all profit in Egypt. Many people erroneously interpret Chok to mean a law without reason. Rabbi Hirsch shows this is an incorrect approach. His best proof is the verse Pr30-08 Remove far from me falsehood and lies; do not give me poverty nor riches; hunt for me my absolutely needed food supply. Rav Hirsch points out The word Chok in this verse does not refer to an irrationally decreed food amount but rather to the person's minimal absolutely needed food amount. Chok in general refers to a law that addresses a deep seated need that does not change. I have often explained Rav Hirsch by using an analogy of poison vs. salt. If you consume poison you die immediately. But if you consume excess salt you will not see deleterious effects for a long while. Thus the prohibition of salt is a statutory prohibition, whose reason is not apparent now but becomes apparent over a long period of time. Using this analogy I explain the Talmudic statement:A Chok is law that the non-Jewish nations make fun of us and ask Why do you observe these laws? The point of this Talmudic statement, cited by Rashi, is not that Chok is without reason but rather that its reason is not immediately apparent and only manifests itself over time. In fact this Talmudic dictum rather than questioning the rationality of the chukim is instead questioning the ability of non-Jewish mockers for long-term goals. The bottom line is that Chok refers to an absolute law based on a reason that is not apparent and will manifest only after a long period. The Chok unlike other laws is less subject to exceptional circumstances.
Most people know that the Biblical meaning of a word is determined by its underlying three-letter root. The Biblical root can be conjugated in different a) persons, b) tenses, c) pluralities, d) genders, e) constructions and f) modalities. For example I watched Shamarti has a different conjugation then I will be watched EShaMer even though both phrases will use the same 3 letter Hebrew root. Rashi will generally give rules of grammatical conjugation when the conjugation involves a rare form. Verse Gn47-19b has the word Tauv-Shin-Mem, TaySham which Rashi translates as become desolate; when a land lies fallow without being worked on it becomes desolate. Here Rashi views Taysham as the passive future form of the root Shin-Mem-Mem, Shamam which means to desolate. Shin-Mem-Mem is a double verb of the form, X-Y-Y and its conjugations are covered in table 10 of the appendices of the Ibn Shoshan dictionary. This table gives the form Tisham while the verse uses the actual form TaySham. Moshe Silverman's grammatical konkordance lists this verse in form #3444#13 and points out that Is51-06 gives the form Taychath for a future passive because the Cheth is a guttural letter. Moshe points out that The application of this form to the root Shin Mem Mem - Taysham/ Taychath - is peculiar since the shin is not a guttural letter.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses in Gn44-20a, Gn42-12 Both verses discuss Joseph's status. The alignment justifies the Rashi assertion that It was unknown what happened to Joseph. But Judah lied and said he was dead because he was afraid if he said he was not to be found that they would demand Joseph be found.
Advanced Rashi: We could perhaps also classify this Rashi as using the contradiction rule. Both approaches yield the same result.
The table below presents two contradictory verses. Both verses speak about the length of the famine The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says there were 5 more years of the 7 years of famine left while the other verse states the famine ended and in fact people were doing agriculture. We see the contradiction---which is it? Were there 2 or 7 famine years? Rashi simply resolves this using the broad literal method: The famine was suppose to last 7 years. But because of the merit of Jacob's family reuniting the famine terminated early after 2 years.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi literally says In Jacob's merit the famine stopped early when he came to Egypt. I however said In the merit of Jacob reuniting with his family the famine terminated early. I was not trying to contradict Rashi but rather to supplement his comments. The point here is that through Jacob's merit - for example, the merit that he mourned Joseph 22 years and stuck to his belief (till they reunited) that Joseph was going to become a leader in accordance with his dreams - the famine was stopped early. There is another subtle point here. Joseph was a prophet and predicted the years of plenty and famine. But Jacob surpassed Joseph in prophetic insight and authority and therefore had the right to curtail the 7 years to 2 years since all bad prophecies may be ameliorated by repentance.
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.
Advanced Rashi: There are several interesting points to be made on this Rashi. First: The Bible explicitly connects depression with lack of prophecy as we find with Elishah (2Ki03-15) who, while in a state of anger, needed music therapy before he could prophecy. So indeed Jacob's spirit lived could more generally refer to removal of depression but depression has many symptoms and the Bible both here and at Gn37-34:35 solely connects the depression with hell and prophecy. In other words of all symptoms of depression (e.g. lack of appetite, lack of interest in standard things) it was prophecy that Jacob loss upon hearing about Joseph's probable death and prophecy which Jacob regained when he heard he was alive. (Notice that Gn37-34:35 identifies lack of prophecy with hell.
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. Today's verse illustrates this principle.
The bulleted structure indicated by the repeating keyword heard creates a parallel structure. Rashi explains: Egypt menotomycally refers to the Egyptian people. Similarly Pharoh's household refers, not only to his family, but to his staff. In presenting this Rashi we have used the universal metonomy principle which states that an item can refer to things closely related to it. A classical example of metonomy is using a national land, like Egypt to refer to its people, the Egyptians. Advanced Rashi: Rashi has a subtle emotional point. It wasn't just Pharoh and his family that took a liking to Joseph. Even Pharoh's staff, the maids, butlers and other personel, who do their work, pick up their paycheck and go home, they also were genuinely happy that the slave boy who made it good was finally reunited with his family whom he hadn't seen in ages. We tend to think of Egypt as a structured society, people without emotions, where everyone fit into a slot. Here we see the emotional aspect of the Egyptians. They were ordinary people who had empathy for family-type events in other nationals. (The actual degradation and slavery that developed happened several 100 years later and then too, as related in the Bible, the individual Egyptians empathically felt for the Jews).
We ask the following database query: How is Benjamin relationally referred to? 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: Benjamin had 10 children. He was an adult. The brothers refer to him as the youngest and sometimes as our younger brother. However Judah refers to him as the kid. Judah was trying to belittle Benjamin so as to get Joseph to accept him, Judah, as a replacement and let Benjamin go back to his father. The list below presents the results of the database query.
This is typical of the database method.
Joseph purchased the land of the Egyptian people in exchange for food and then, to emphasize their lack of ownership, rotated the residence of the inhabitants from city to city. This is stated in Gn47-20:21 And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them; so the land became Pharaoh’s. And [Rashi: Therefore to emphasize their lack of ownership] he moved them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt to the other end of it. Rashi in this comment uses real world values to explain why Joseph rotated the residences of the people. Since Rashi uses real-world values to explain the causal relationship between the acquisition of the cities and the rotating of residences we classify this Rashi as NonVerse. Advanced Rashi: Rashi makes additional real-world comments. The rotation of the residences was not an important detail. The Biblical text hilights this detail [right after the chapter relating how Joseph's family, the Jews, come to Egypt and find they are sojourners] to show how Joseph made his family comfortable, by treating the Egyptians like sojourners since they also no longer owned their own land.
Conclusion
This week's issue contains no examples of the Rashi symbolism method. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||