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Their presence in Rashis on Parshath EyQueV Volume 16, Number 25 This weeks Weekly Rashi with Hebrew/English source tables Is accessible at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1625.htm (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, August 18 th , 2011 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(s) Dt11-22b discussing the obligation to walk in God's ways states For if you shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to hold fast to him. Rashi clarifies the underlined words to walk in all his ways by referencing verse(s) Ex34-06:07 discussing God's 13 attributes of mercy, which states And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, to the third and to the fourth generation. Hence the Rashi comment: The ways of God, in which we were commanded to walk, are the 13 personality traits of God shown to Moses in response to his request to know God's way.
When Rashi uses, what we may losely call, the hononym method, Rashi does not explain new meaning but rather shows an underlying unity in disparate meanings. Rashi will frequently do this by showing an underlying unity in the varied meanings of a Biblical root. In my article Peshat and Derash found on the world wide web at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rashi.pdf. I advocate enriching the Rashi explanation using a technique of parallel nifty translations in modern English. Today's examples show this. Rashi explains in about a dozen places, that the the Hebrew root Yud-Daleth-Ayin does not mean, as usually translated, to know, but rather means to appreciate, be familiar with. The list below supports this point. In this list, as indicated by the undelined words, we have embeded the suggested Rashi translation into the verse. Note especially the effortless elegance with which the words flow.
Today only basic 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 study a rule common in many languages, the use of articles. In English the articles are a, the. In Hebrew a prefix letter hey indicates the article the. The article when used can indicate a proper noun.
We therefore translate Dt11-12c as follows: A land which the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from The Jewish New Year to the end of the year. Here Rashi translates the phrase with the article the as as proper noun, Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, but translates the phrase without the article as meaning the year end. From this translation we obtain in a straightforward manner the Rashi Israel is judged for rain each Rosh Hashanah for the entire year.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Dt11-21b, (Gn17-08 Gn26-03 Gn28-13. Both verses/verselets discuss the inheritance of Israel. The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: All three Patriarchs were promised the land of Israel would be given to them and to their descendants. But in Dt11-21 God refers to the land promised to them. Hence the emphasis that not only will the Jewish people inherit Israel but the Patriarchs themselves will also so inherit (upon resurrection).
Advanced Rashi: Another approach to this Rashi is through the format rule. If you inspect all three promises to the Patriarchs you will see a repetition of the repeating keyword to. The repetition of to in to you and to your descendants creates a bullet like effect emphasizing that both the Patriarchs themselves as well as their descendants will inherit Israel. Note, traditional Rashi=ists would learn this Rashi from the emphasized phrase to you. But you by itself could mean the plural you and refer to your nation. However, Rashi is preferably learned by the emphasis indicated by the bullets or by the aligned contrast which emphasizes both you and your descendants.
The table below presents presents two contradictory verses. Both verses speak about the relative importance of Jews among the nations. The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says the Jews are small while the other verse implies that the Jews are big. Which is it? Are the Jews a small or big nation?
By using the table structure with underlines we are able to participate and empathize with Rashi in construction of the Rashi comment.
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 underlined phrases tell the story. Israel is not a foot watered land but rather a rain dependent land. In other words God controls the economic prosperity of the land by controlling the rain flow. This is a special case of a more general statement of Divine providence that God oversees Israel continually. The well-being (or non well being) of the land is governed by God's continuous decrees. Rashi's exact lanaguage is as follows: God's eyes are always on Israel to see what it needs and to decree providence-decrees on Israsel; sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. As can be seen, the detail example - the control of rain - is a paradigmatic example of how God control's the prosperity of Israel We think this Rashi particularly illustrative of the use of the detail-general style.
Both the Biblical and modern author use the paragraph as a vehicle for indicating commonality of theme. Hence if two ideas are in a paragraph they may be assumed to have a similar context. The reader will no doubt recognize this formatting rule as none other than the most intuitive of the Rabbi Ishmael style rules which orthodox Jews recite every day as part of their daily prayer: the rule of inference from context. Today's example illustrates this.
The point is that we are free to use the sequence #1,#2 or #2,#1 corresponding to reward,punishment vs. punishment, reward, respectively. By using the reward punishment sequence there is a suggestion of sharing the punishment paragraph, #2, with both paragraphs #1 and #3 so that the sequence will read as follows:
So the gist of Rashi is using the proximity of paragraph #2 twice: If you sin you will be punished but nevertheless you will be able to do commemorative commandments and mention long life. The use of a terminal element in one sequence to simultaneously be an initial element in another sequence is called syncopation in music. It is a powerful technique which gives cohesive unity to works.
Today we ask the database query: When God decrees a punishment how much lag time does God give in order to give people time to repent? The query uncovers three major examples. An examination of these examples justifies the Rashi assertion that (a) The generation of the flood and Ninveh did not have leaders to learn moral behavior from; hence they were given extra time to repent (b) The Jews had great leaders to learn from and hence their punishment is immediate (Since no further time is needed to learn and repent) The table below presents results of the query along with illustrations of Rashi's comment.
Advanced Rashi: I have brought Ninveh as a supplementary example to Rashi. I would argue that Jonah's job was both to rebuke them that they would be destroyed as well as teach them proper behavior. Since Jonah was a temporary prophet-scholar (unlike Moses who was a permanant prophet-scholar) 40 days were given. By contrast the generation of the flood had no prophet to teach them - it is well known that Noah did not preach to his generation and the prophetic orders from God to him were personal not communal.
It is a well known Rashi that there wer 3 ascents of Moses on the mount, for 40 days each, resulting in forgiveness on the Day of Atonement. This is literally a spreadsheet listing a chronology. It is presented below with the source verses and the events that happened.
Conclusion
This week's parshah does not contain examples of the symbolism Rashi method. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||