The 10 RashiYomi Rules
Their presence in Rashis on Parshat VaYishLach
Vol 19#11 - Adapted from Rashi-is-Simple 
(c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel President, Dec. 7th, 2012
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GOALS
The goal of the Weekly Rashi Digest is to use the weekly Torah portion to expose students at all levels to the ten major methods of Rashi's commentary. Continual weekly exposure to these ten major methods facilitate the acquisition, familiarity, and facility with the major exegetical methods. This year, 2012-2013, we are concentrating on the grammar rule. We acknowledge benefitting from Dr. Isseroff's book, An Introduction to Rashi's Grammatical Explanations in the Book of Genesis, 1985, Published by the Torah Education Department of World Zionist Organization, MP Press Inc, ISBN 965-222-049-3. For a full  lightning statement of all Rashi rules see the Appendix.

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Position and Sequence - Daily Rashi: Sunday Dec 9, 2012

All languages have rules of position and sequence, that is, rules governing where certain words should occur. One frequent source of reading confusion is when related groups of words are excessively distant. Let us examine a simple example in English.

•	(1) The two of them, (they)-dreamed a dream
•	(2) (They)-dreamed a dream (of) the two of them.

Before proceeding, note that in English we had to insert some extra words in parenthesis; however, these words are not necessary in Hebrew. That is, 
•	If you say dreamed in Hebrew, it is heard and understood as they-dreamed.  That is, you don't need to explicitly include the word they.
•	Similarly if a phrase such as the two of them occurs after a noun, it is understood (in Hebrew) that the phrase the two of them is connected to the previous noun.

Let us now return to the two sentences. They
•	Both have the underlined phrase, the two of them.
•	They however differ on the position of this phrase in the sentence.

It is clear how the two sentences differ in meaning:
•	In sentence (1), the two of them, is the subject of the sentence: two people were dreaming.
•	In sentence (2), however, the two of them modifies and describes the content of the dream. Sentence (2) means that each of them dreamt about the two of them, what would happen to the two of them. Rashi infers this nuance from the position of the phrase.

Verbs - Active and Passive Voice - Daily Rashi: Monday Dec 10, 2012
 
All languages have the capacity to express concepts in the active or passive voice. Here are some simple examples in English.
•	Active: I ate the apple
•	Passive: The apple was eaten by me.
Both these sentences describe identical scenes. They however differ in style. 

Style conveys extra nuances of meaning. A skilled author can use style to indicate things not explictly stated in the text  There is no one set of rules for style. As we go through the year we will tune our ears to the various nuance implicit in use of active and passive. We present below a Rashi on today's Parshah.

Example: Gn40-20
Biblical text: On the 3rd day [after the wine butler's dream], Pharoh's birthday, he [Pharoh] made a party for all his staff, he restored the wine butler to his position.

English and Hebrew differ in how they name birthday
•	English names birthday using the active style: The day the person's mother gave birth
•	Hebrew names birthday using the passive style: The day the person was delivered.

Rashi explains that the Hebrew hrase used to indicate birthday uses a very rare biblical conjugation, the hafal, the passive causative. because someone else (the mother or midwife) delivers the child causing the infant to be born; therefore the infant is passive not active.

Notice however, that we have translated the verse above using the English birthday. This is proper translation technique; we use the English word meaning birthday vs. a literal Hebrew translation.
 
Verbs - Conjugation - Daily Rashi: Tueday Dec 11, 2012

Although this Rashi is a bit technical, addressing Hebrew conjugations, I will follow my usual custom of finding English equivalents. Additionally, even those fluent in Hebrew will find something new here.

Hebrew 
•	Consists of three-letter-roots. 
•	The roots are conjugated by adding letters before (prefixes) and after (suffixes) the root. 
•	Each conjugation is referred to as a Binyan (a construction). 
•	Each Binyan has its own characteristic meanings.

The hitpael construction adds a hey and tauv before the root letters. The hitpael construction is used to indicate interactive activity. Here are some examples:
•	Gn34-09 [Chamor, negotiating a deal with Jacob to unit with him] And we will (interactively) marry: your daughters we will take for ourselves, and our daughters you can take for yourselves
•	Ex08-04 [Moses bragging about God's power to Pharoh] Moses said to Pharoh: Interactively glorify [God] by me: Name the time when I should pray for you your servants and maids, to remove the frogs from you and your house...and he[Pharoh] said, 'Tomorrow'; and Moses said 'As you stated [so shall it be] in order that you know that there is none like our God
•	Gn37-18 [Background: Joseph was coming to his brothers who happened to hate him because of his dreams] They [Joseph's brothers] saw him from afar and interactively plotted against him in order to kill him [Here the intent is that when Joseph came to them they started an interrogation (presumably about his dreams); the interrogation was not investigative but provocative in order for them to justify (in their minds) executing him.]

Rashi makes a further point about the prepositional phrase used with the interactive hitpael mode
•	If the interactive activity is shared, one would use prepositional connectives meaning with
•	If the interacative activity is one-sided, one uses a prepositional connective connoting objects.

Examples: 
Gn34-09 (Above)
•	Chamor speaks about marrying of them (hithchatnu othanu) instead of the more shared 
•	marrying with them (hithchatnu emanu)

Gn37-18 (Above)
Similarly, since Joseph's brothers were not interested in the truth, the verse uses the objective case 
•	They plotted on him (Vayithnaclu otho) instead of the shared 
•	They plotted with him (Vayithnaclue ito) which e.g. would be appropriate if they really wanted to find out what his views were (instead of making up their minds before hand (In such a case another verb would have been used)
 
Connective words - Prefix Caph - When, like
Daily Rashi: Wednesday Dec 12, 2012

Every language has connective words which can connect two sentences or connect nouns with the adjectival phrases modifying them. Some common examples of connective words in English are because, and, or, if-then, from, when, ....

A beautiful discovery by Rashi, following the researchers of the Midrash, is that in biblical Hebrew, each connective word has multiple meanings, sometimes as many as half a dozen meanings. The most famous example points out that the biblical Hebrew word ki, can have any of the following six meanings! rather, perhaps, because, when, if-then, that. As several Rashi researchers have pointed out, this  principle of multiple meanings applies not only to ki, but generally applies to all connective words and prefixes. 

So biblical Hebrew is unlike English:
•	English is user friendly; the speaker explicitly by choice of words tells the listener exactlly what the speaker intends to say
•	Contrastively, in Hebrew, the speaker and listener share the discovery of meaning: The speaker says something, but the listener has a choice of meanings.

Perhaps the reason for biblical Hebrew in doing this is that by the listener participating with the speaker in identifying meaning the listening experience is intensified, facilitating retention of communication.

Today we study the biblical Hebrew prefix letter caph which can mean
•	like
•	when 

A rough rule of thumb is that
When the Caph letter is prefixed to a verb it usually means when
•	Gn19-17 When they [the angels] took them [Lot and his family] outside [the city] they said: 'Flee for your life'...
•	Gn12-14 When Abraham came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very attractive
•	Gn39-19 When his [Joseph's] master heard his wife's statement which she stated to him as follows: Like these words (so) your slave did to me, he blew up...

When the Caph letter is prefixed to a noun it usually means like
•	Gn09-03 [God speaking to Noah]  All living creatures may be eaten by you like vegetation I have given you everything
•	Gn13-10 Lot looked and saw the entire Jordan valley that it was well-watered (before God destroyed Sedom and Amorah), like a Garden of God, like Egypt, until Tzoar.

Rashi's simple point is that there are exceptions to the above rule of thumb. 

If the context requires it, a prefix letter caph before a verb can also mean like.
•	Gn40-10 And in the vine were three branches;they were like budding, its blossoms shot forth; and its clusters brought forth ripe grapes;
•	Ecc 3:19 The happenings to man and the happenings to animal: There is only one type of happening: Like this one dying, so is the other dying; and therefore the excess of man over the animal is nought for all is transient.
•	
Rashi's Near-Miss Method Daily Rashi: Thursday Dec 13, 2012

Rashi lived before Grammar Textbooks, as we know them today, were available. 
•	Today you can purchase many types of Grammar books. Using these books you can learn all about verbs, their conjugations, plurality, gender and pronouns.
•	In Rashi’s time such books were rare. Furthermore, the few grammar books that did exist were not written in a student friendly manner that facilitated learning.
Hence, one of Rashi’s primary jobs in his commentary was to teach grammar. 

Rashi used an ingenious pedagogic technique, the method of near misses, to teach grammar. Basically the near-miss method requires the teacher to teach grammar, not using tables, as is currently done in modern grammar textbooks, but rather, using grammatical pairs which are identical in almost all features except one or two. Rashi then teaches the difference in meaning between these two items. I call this method the near miss method since the two forms almost equal each other and nearly miss equality. The term near miss is borrowed from the computer science artificial intelligence literature. The near miss method is a powerful method and I am surprised it is not used in more textbooks.

Consider the following verse:
Gn37-21: 
•	They [Joseph's brothers] slaughtered a goat
•	They took the coat of Joseph
•	and dipped the coat in blood.

The word Kaph-Tauv-Nun-Tauv, meaning coat, occurs twice  in this verse.
However, while the consonants of the two words are identical, their syllables differ.

To understand the difference in meaning between these two occurrences of coat,we review the following list:
•	the red coat
•	the big coat
•	the coat left on the hanger
•	the torn coat
•	the coat of Joseph

The five examples all are noun phrases, that is, a noun (coat) with a word or phrase modifying and describing the coat. The modifiers differ in their method of description of coat
•	red and big are adjective words, describing physical attributes
•	on the hanger and of Joseph are adjectival phrases (the adjectival phrase, in English, is positioned after the noun while the adjective words are positioned prior to the noun)
•	torn describes an activity (verb) done to the coat
•	red, big, on the hanger and torn all describe physical attributed, things you can physically check 
•	of Joseph however, describes a possessive attribute. So while you can look and inspect the coat and find it is red, big, torn, or left on the hanger, you cannot, by simply looking at the coat see that it belongs to someone. We call this special type of adjective, the possessive.

In
•	English, we indicate the possessive with the word of (coat of Joseph)
•	Hebrew, we indicate thep possessive with a special punctuation.

This is what Rashi points out: The two words meaning coat are identically spelled but differ in punctuation to emphasize that one occurrence of coat is in the possessive.
•	koo-to-neth, refers to coat
•	ke-to-neth, refers to coat with a possessive.

  
APPENDIX
THE 10 RASHI RULE CATEGORIES / THE 30 RASHI RULES
Copyright 2001, Rashiyomi Inc., Dr Hendel President, www.Rashiyomi.com/rules-01.htm
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I-REFERENCE: Dt26-05d We went down to Egypt with a few people explained by Gn46-27: with 70 people
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II-MEANING / Lexicography / Dictionary:  EXAMPLE (Connectives) KI means IF,PERHAPS,RATHER,BECAUSE,WHEN,THAT (Rashi on Gn18-15a Gn24-33a  ) EXAMPLE (Nuances): YDA means FAMILIAR, not KNOW (eg Dt34-10a) eg Gn04-01 Adam was FAMILIAR with his wife EXAMPLE (Idioms) ON THE FACE OF means DURING THE LIFETIME (Rashi on Nu03-04a Gn11-28a Ex20-03c Dt05-07a) EXAMPLE (Synonyms) Marchesheth means  pot; Machavath means frying pan (Lv02-05a, 07a) EXAMPLE (Hononyms) SHAMAH can mean listen, hear, understand: (Gn42-23a) They didn't appreciate that Joseph understood them (Note: They knew he was listening) EXAMPLE (Metonomy) (Lv02-11a) Don't offer ...any honey as sacrifices RASHI: honey includes any sweet fruit juice
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III-GRAMMAR:  EXAMPLE: BA-ah means CAME;ba-AH means COMING(Gn46-26a) 
EXAMPLE: Hitpael conjugation has different rules if 1st root letter is Tzade (Gn44-16a) 
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IV-PARALLELISM: (Ex20-04) Dont POSSESS the gods of others Dont MAKE idols RASHI: So both POSSESSion & MAKING of idols are prohibited
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V-CONTRADICTION: (Nu04-03, Nu08-24a)Levites start Temple work at 25;  Levites start temple work at 30. RASHI: They apprentice at 25 but start actual service at 30.
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VI-STYLE: RABBI ISHMAEL RULES: EXAMPLE: (Simple verses should be generalized): (Rashi Pesachim 6) (Dt25-04a) Dont MUZZLE an OX while THRESHING RASHI: Dont STOP any WORKING ANIMAL from eating  
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VII-FORMATTING:  EXAMPLE (BOLD indicated by Repetition): Ex12-09c) COOK COOK it in water (So COOKED-COOKED is understood the same way bold is understood by modern reader) RASHI: Prefered to COOK it in water; But COOK it at all costs(Even if you dont have water) EXAMPLE: (BULLETS indicated by Repeating keywords) (Ex03-11a) Who am I - THAT I should go to Pharaoh - THAT I should take the Jews out of Egypt  RASHI: Repeated word THAT creates BULLET effect - Pharoh was a difficult king (Bullet one) - Jews were not yet ready for freedom (Bullet two) EXAMPLE (Climax assumed in any Biblical list): (Dt19-11a) If a man HATES, SPIES, CONFRONTS & KILLS. RASHI: Bible identifies 4 stages to murder(indicated by capped words
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VIII-DATABASE: EXAMPLE: God spoke to Moses to say over introduces about 7 dozen biblical commandments; God spoke to Aaron to say over only introduces 2 commandments. RASHI: (Lv10-03b) Aaron was silent when his sons died because they served in the Temple drunk; hence he merited that the commandment prohibiting priests to work in the Temple drunk, was given to him
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IX-NON VERSE: EXAMPLE: (Use of Algebra)(Ex38-26b) Temple donations of silver were 100 Kikar and 1775 Shekel from 630,550 half-shekels RASHI: So one Kikar of silver = 3000 Shekel.
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X: SYMBOLISM: EXAMPLE: (Use of puns) (NuXX-XX) Moses made a copper snake for people to look up to when bitten by snakes (so they should pray and recover) RASHI: (Nu21-09a) The Hebrew root for copper and snake are identical (Cf. The English copperhead) Moses  made the metal snake copper colored to symbolize the snake