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Their presence in Rashis on Parshath BeHar BeChuKoThaI Volume 18, Number 9 This weeks Weekly Rashi with Hebrew/English source tables will be accessible, on Sunday, at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rule1809.htm (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, May 17 2012 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 Lv25-10d discussing the freedom obtained during the Jubilee year states And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants of it; it shall be a jubilee to you; and you shall return every man to his possession, and you shall return every man to his family. Rashi clarifies the underlined words you shall return every man to his possession by referencing verse(s) Lv25-28 which states But if he is not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him who has bought it until the year of jubilee; and in the jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his possession. Hence the Rashi comment: As the underlined words show the statement that you shall return every man to his possession refers to the redemption process and return-of-land rights that all landowners who sell their land have. These rights are mentioned later in the chapter such as at Lv25-28.
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.
A nifty way of appreciating Rashi comments is to directly embed them in verses. Rashi would translate Lv25-09:10 as Then shall you announce by trumpet(shofar) on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the Day of Atonement shall you announce by trumpet(shofar) throughout your country that: 'you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants of it; it shall be a jubilee to you; and you shall return every man to his possession, and you shall return every man to his family'.
We should emphasize that the great 19th century commentator, Malbim, introduced the powerful grammatical observation that the same root can change meaning solely based on the prepositional connectives used with it. From time to time we present intriguing examples illustrating this rule.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Lv27-31a Both verses/verselets discuss that plant tithe is holy (that is, it can't be eaten like ordinary food but must be eaten in holiness in Jerusalem) The alignment justifies the Rashi assertion that The fifth rule only applies to your tithe that is to tithe of the owner. In other words if the owner redeems his tithe he must pay its value and 25% more while if a non-owner redeems a friends tithe he only pays value without any addition. By contrast the tithe-holiness rule applies to tithe whether of the owner or any other person. In other words tithe is holy (forbidden to be eaten except in a holy state in Jerusalem) whether it is the tithe of the owner or a friend.
Note: Today's example of the contradiction method is unusual in that the contradiction is between a read and written text. We have explained the read-written method in rule #3, grammar and urge the reader, if (s)he hasn't read it yet, to read it first. The table below presents presents two contradictory verses. Both verses talk about redemption rights on houses sold in a walled city The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says these redemption rights apply to a walled city while the other verse says these redemption rights apply to a non-walled city. Which is it? Do the laws in question apply to walled or non-walled city. Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 Stages method: (1) The laws apply to houses sold in cities that initially had a wall around it (2) The laws apply even if currently that wall no longer surrounds the city.
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. The detailed section of this paragraph is seen as an modifying and explaining the general theme sentences. Today's example illustrates this as shown immediately below.
Rashi interprets the general-detail form as forming a Biblical paragraph with the detail clause explaining the general clause. That is the Bible informs us that the land is given a sabbatical by not working the fields and vineyards Advanced Rashi: A typical Rashi-ist would approach these verses by emphasizing redundancy and exploring alternate interpretations. The requirement of letting the land have a sabbath could e.g. mean that it is prohibited to build Therefore the verse specifies that only field and vineyard work are prohibited However other forms of land work are permissable. This is the essence of the theme-development method. We have, in this newsletter, added, the nuance that this Rashi content can be neatly and naturally understood if we perceive the Biblical text as a paragraph with a theme-development form. It is not necessary to employ the traditional exploration of alternate methods. It is sufficient to focus on the paragraph form.
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 indicates bold, italics, underline by using repetition. In other words if a modern author wanted to emphasize a word they would either underline, bold or italicize it. However when the Biblical author wishes to emphasize a word He repeats it. The effect - whether thru repetition or using underline - is the same. It is only the means of conveying this emphasis that is different. With this in mind let us read verse Lv25-14:15, which discusses apostasy. The discussion develops in three pairs of bulleted texts. The bullets are indicated by the underlined repeating keywords. With each verselet we present the Rashi comment. After the citation we explain how the bullet rule gives rise to the comments, not language and grammar. Many serious students of Rashi have errored by misunderstanding Rashi as emanating only from language and Grammar.
We now explain what Rashi did, and did not, do. In the first set of bullets Rashi interprets the Biblical word pair, listen-do as referring to learning-perform. Rashi did not do this because of requirements of language. Indeed, listen can equally mean study or performance. Similarly do can easily mean study-performance together. Rather because the repeating underlined keyword do not create a bullet atmosphere, therefore, Rashi was justified in reading into the listen-do sequence the interpretation of learning-perform. In the second set of bullets we use the grammar-word-order rule. Hebrew is a verb-object language. A reversal of this order (e.g. civil laws despised vs. despise my civil laws) indicates unpsecified emphasis. When we couple this emphasis with the repeating underlined keyword, if, we see that Rashi choses to emphasize the specific nuances of statute and civil law, which very roughly refer to religious vs. civil law. Hence Rashi interprets that the person first attacks the religious laws which are not rational, followed by an attack on the civil laws, which although rational can be criticized. Again it was not the word meaning which drove Rashi to this. Indeed, in many verses, the word statute by itself can refer to all laws just as the word civil law by itself can refer to all Jewish laws. Because of the third set of bullets, indicated by the underlined keyword, until, Rashi contrasts the words in the two verselets, commandments vs. treaty, as indicating specific non-performance vs. general apostasy / denial. Rashi also sees nuances in use of the repeating keyword, until in the last two bullets vs. the repeating keyword if in the first four bullets. Rashi interprets the repeating keyword until in the last two bullets to indicate a general development of non-performance and treaty violation over time. The emphasis on non-performance and treaty violation is interpreted broadly to refer to being annoyed by community performance of commandments and outright denial of God.
We ask the following database query: Which commandments mention that they should be observed becauase 'you are to remember that God took you out of Egypt'? 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: Commemoration of the salvation from Egypt is emphasized as a reason for commandment observance in laws prohibiting a) social inequality b) ritual impurity c) anxiety-business practices and d) acknowledgement of salvation from Egypt by God. The list below presents the results of the database query and shows examples
To understand this list we take a simple example: Dt05-14a:15. discussing the obligation to treat slaves and orphans nicely. This verse states but the seventh day is a sabbath unto HaShem thy G-d, in it thou shalt not do any manner of work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. And thou shalt remember that thou was a slave in the land of Egypt, and HaShem thy G-d brought thee out thence by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore HaShem thy G-d commanded thee to keep the sabbath day. As can be seen by the underlined words, the Biblical obligation to let slaves/servants rest on the Sabbath is linked to remembering the Exodus. This linkage between the commandment and the exodus, does not occur at all commandments. However this linkage occurs here because the essence of Egypt consisted of a class society in which certain people were free and certain people were slaves. Consequently any commandment attacking class distinctions - such as the requirement to equally let owners and slaves rest on the Sabbath - will explicitly mention the Exodus. The other examples are interpreted similarly. For example the linkage of commemorating the exodus from Egypt to the prohibition of taking interest is explained by the observation that causing anxiety was a hallmark of Egypt and encouraged destruction of the personality which enabled slavery. Two popular methods of causing anxiety were 1) using inaccurate weights and 2) charging interest in excess of expected profits thus nullifying the efficacy of small business loans (Because a person trying to loan for business purposes would find the interest they pay out more than the profit they take in)
Verse Lv27-18b discussing the redemption of a field dedicated to the Temple states But if he sanctify his field after the jubilee, then the priest shall reckon unto him the money according to the years that remain unto the year of jubilee, and an abatement shall be made from thy valuation. Rashi explains the arithmetic of this redemption process using a proportionate method with rounding. In presenting the Rashi we supplement his example with extra illustrations to clarify each component of his comment. Example 1: Suppose the field I dedicated was evaluated as worth $20. Suppose further there are 10 years left to the Jubilee. Then each year is assigned a worth of $20/10=$2. If I wish to redeem the field next year I must pay $18. If I wish to redeem the field in two years I must pay $16. And so forth. We can summarize this by saying that we use a proportionate method in redeeming the field. Example 2: (Rashi)Suppose I dedicate my field right after the jubilee for $50. So the $50 spans 49 years. Suppose further (true in Talmudic times) that each $1 is worth 48 cents. Then the proportionate method requires that each year be assigned a worth of $50/49 = $49/49 + $1/49 = $1 + 48/49 cents. Rashi explains that this is rounded to $1 + 1 cent. So if the field is redeemed after 10 years the person pays $50 less $10 and 10 cents. We can summarize this by stating that redemption uses a proportionate method with rounding. Because this Rashi clarified biblical content with arithmetic-spreadsheet methods we classified this Rashi as using the non-verse method.
Conclusion
This week's parshah does not contain examples of the Symbolism Rashi method(s). Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||