The 10 RashiYomi Rules
Their presence in Rashis on Parshat VaYiGash-VaYeChi
Vol 19#13 - Adapted from Rashi-is-Simple 
(c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel President, Dec. 20th, 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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Denominatives Daily Rashi - Sunday Dec 23, 2012

All languages have the capacity to change a noun, naming an object, into a verb naming an activity. Grammarians call this a denominative. Here are some common examples from English as well as two Rashis.

Example 1:
To dust means to remove dust. Here the verb to dust comes from the noun dust.

Example 2:
To hammer means to use the hammer in its typical way. Here the verb to hammer comes from the noun, hammer.

Example 3: 
To flower means to produce flowers. Here the verb to flower comes from the noun, flower.

Example 4:
To right means to go to the right. Here the verb to right comes from the noun right. A similar analysis applies to the meaning of to left. This is a Rashi comment on Gn13-09 which should be translated as follows: [Abraham to Lot, when Abraham asked him to part from him] If [you go] to the left, I will right; if [you go] to the right, I will left.
Notice how all English translations avoid this punchy denominative which adds flavor to the verse.

Example 5 Gn01-22b (from parshat Breishith) 
To be fruitful means to have many children like a tree producing many fruit.Here the verb to be fruitful comes from the noun fruit and indicates an important attribute of fruit, the large number of fruit produced by each tree (Rashi: Gn01-22b)

Example 6 Gn05-28a:
From the noun, children, we derive the verb, to build a household (Rashi: Gn05-28a). Rashi's perspective is interesting here. We might erroneously translate the Hebrew word Bayit as meaning house. Rashi actually translates it meaning household. Rashi's translation is extremely precise: Compare the use of Bayit in Gn 45-02: "And word was heard in Pharoh's household that Joseph's brother's had come." As Rashi observes, "The house did not hear; rather the household heard."
 
Example 7: Gn48-16c (from parshat Vaychi)
From the nouns insects and fish we derive the verbs to insectify (in English, to swarm), and to fishify; both these verbs refer to producing many children since both insects and fish tend to reproduce alot. Contrastively, fruits on trees, appear in clusters of 3 or 4 at a time. Hence the denominatives
•	to be fruitful - indicates the verb for normal reproduction
•	to swarm or to fishify - indicates the verb for excessive reproduction (large families).

This denominative illustrates a major literary method of figures of speech, common in all languages. The method is called synechdoche. Synechdoche refers to naming something by a good example of it. Some common examples of synechdoche are
•	naming sweets, honey (honey is a good example of sweets)
•	naming the 24 hour day, day (day, the 12-hour period, is a good example of the 24 hour period)
•	referring to food, using the term bread (bread is a good example of food).

Synechdoche, like other figures of speech, is a method common to all languages and is used extensively by Rashi.

Verbs  Daily Rashi - Monday Dec 24, 2012

 What is the difference between the following English sentences.
•	Simple present: I am eating the apple.
•	Habitual present: I eat apples
•	Verbal noun: I am an apple eater.

The above sentences show a difference in both
•	Form and
•	Meaning. 

The differences in form, actually the form of the verb, is indicated by the underline. The sentences differ in how frequently the apple is eaten:.
•	Simple Present: I am eating the apple, possibly refers to a one-time activity.
•	Habitual Present: I eat apples - refers to a periodically recurring activity, for example, eating an apple for breakfast every day.
•	Verbal noun: I am an apple eater, refers to someone who eats apples frequently.  

Both the habitual present and verbal noun refer to activities that are done more than once. Both the habitual present and verbal noun do not commit themselves to any particular time for doing the activity of eating; for example, you could use the habitual present - I eat apples - to refer to a person who usually, though not always, eats apples for breakfast. Similarly the apple eater can still be called an apple eater even if (s)he abstains from apple for a week. The apple eater is known for eating apples and eats them more frequently than indicated by the habitual present.

With this background we can review the standard tenses in biblical Hebrew:
The past, for example, gaalti, means I redeemed him
The future, for example, egal means I will redeem him
The present participle, goel. This is erroneously translated as present, I am redeeming him. However a truer  translation is a verbal noun, redeemer.

Several times in his commentary, Rashi makes the point that the present conjugation refers to a verbal noun, for example, an eater, rather than a present activity like eating. One such example occurs in parshat vayechi.

Example Gn48-16:
Background: Jacob is about to bless Joseph's children, Ephraim and Menasheh.
Biblical text:  My guardian angel will bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.

Rashi comment: The Rashi comment is indicated by the underlined translation, my guardian angel.  This corrects the erroneous translation which occurs in several standard English translation: The angel who redeemed me...will bless the lads. As Rashi correctly points out, there is no reason to translate the verb in this sentence as a past conjugation.

Rashi further supports this grammatical point by referring to verses where an angel appeared to Jacob in a dream, giving him advice or support to save him from job harassment (cf. Gn31-10 for one such instance).

It is interesting that this subtle grammatical point is the source for the Jewish folklore that every person has a guardian angel whose task is to look over the person.

One Character Suffixes Daily Rashi - Tuesday Dec 25, 2012

In our weekly Rashi on Bereishith we saw that the addition of one character at the end of a sentence changes the meaning of that sentence from a statement to a question. Here is an example. 
•	"You walked to the store in the rain."
•	"You walked to the store in the rain?"

A very important exegetical point is being made here: Skeptics tend to ridicule inference of meaning from one letter or character as being far fetched and homiletic. But we see in the just-mentioned English example that certain rules of grammar naturally motivate meaning differences based on one-character. The important issue therefore, is not how many characters drive the exegesis but rather the grammaticity of the inference.

Several other examples of grammatical change in meaning based on one character were also presented in the Bereishith digest:
•	The difference between a proper and improper noun is indicated in English by the word the, but is indicated in Hebrew by the prefix letter hey.
•	The difference between plural and singular in both English and Hebrew is indicated by a one character suffix, s, in English (in Hebrew it is indicated by a two-character suffix).

As indicated in a past issue, in biblical Hebrew, the question is indicated not by a character - a question mark - at the end of the sentence, but rather by a letter - hey - at the beginning of the sentence. By prefixing the hey to the first word in the sentence the sentennce becomes a question rather than a statement.

Today we have a similar one-character rule which however has no parallel in English. Rashi:  Suffix hey at the end of a word meaning a place, indicates a motion towards that place.

Example 1 Gn14-10b:
Thus Gn14-10b:
•	they fled to the mountain would use the Hebrew word har for mountain; 
•	they fled towards the mountain would use the Hebrew word herah, har with a suffix hey.

Example 2a Gn28-02b (parshat toledoth):
Rashi makes a similar point at Gn28-02b: Go towards Paden-Aram (Padenah-Aram), towards uncle Bethuel's household (baythah).

Example 3 Gn34-02b:
Rashi makes a similar point at Gn34-02b: Jacob sent angels before him to Esauv his brother, towards Seir land (artzah Seir) in the Edomite fields.

Example 4 Gn46-01 (parshat vayigash)
Rashi makes a similar point at Gn46-01: Israel (Jacob) and all that is with him journeyed; he came to Beer Shava (beerah shavah)

Rashi does not comment on every suffix hey meaning place. Rather, every place Rashi comments, he introduces some new aspect of the rule. He commented on 
•	Gn14-10b to introduce the rule.
•	Gn28-02b to extend the rule to cases when the place is indicated by a hyphenated word.  Rashi in his comment on Gn28-02b extends this suffix hey rule to hyphenated words by indicating that 
•	The suffix hey is placed on the first, word: padenAH aram.
•	But not on the second, word: The following is incorrect: paden aramAH.
•	Gn34-02b to extend this suffix hey rule to Adj-Noun pairs even if they are not a hyphenated word pair. Thus the verse speaks about going to Seir land. Althought the word pair is not hyphenated, the adjective-noun forms a natural unit. The suffix hey rule states that a prefix hey is placed on the first word not the second word to indicate motion towards a place.
•	Gn46-01, to indicate that the suffix hey can mean either
•	towards, or
•	to (Gn46-01 states that Jacob actually came to and arrived in Beer Shava)

Rashi's Near-Miss Method - Daily Rashi - Wednesday Dec 26, 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.

The first four examples below focus on the difference between 
•	the Hebrew ba-AH, with an accent on its last syllable, and meaning had come
•	the Hebrew BA-ah, with an accent on its first syllable, meaning coming.

Example 1:
Hence, Rashi translates Gn15-17 as And after the sun had already come (that is set) and it was dark there was  oven-smoke and torch fire which had passed through these cuts.

Example 2: Gn46-26b (VaYiGash)
Rashi makes a similar point on Gn46-26b which is translated All the people coming with Jacob to Egypt..., since here the word BA-ah is accented on its first syllable.

Rashi uses this present test to point out that Jacob's family grew as they travelled to Egypt. Initially they were less than 70, but several births along the way increased their numbers. This is a recurrent theme in the bible: Despite their tragedies and persecution, Jews always cheerfully engaged in reproduction looking optimistically towards the future.

Examples 3-4: Gn26-6:9
Rashi makes a similar point on Gn26-6:9 where both forms - BA-ah and ba-AH - occur: And the shepards told Jacob, ...and here is Rachel his daughter coming with the sheep....while Jacob was still speaking to them Rachel had already come

The next example is similar.

 Rashi's Near-Miss Method Continued- 
Daily Rashi - Thursday Dec 27, 2012

Example 5: Gn34-29
And they (the sons of Jacob who declared war on the city that raped its sister), took captive and plundered their wealth, infants and women.

Rashi's translation of the underlined word is based on the following near miss.
•	Shin-beth-hey is conjugated sha-VOO, they took captive, to indicate the plural, masculine past
•	Shin-Vav-Beth is conjugated SHA-voo, they returned, to indicate the plural masculine past.
As can be seen the difference between sha-VOO and SHA-voo is a near miss; the two words are identical in everything but accent. 

There is a punchy way to formulate the above more generally. In modern Hebrew we refer to three letter radicals using the symbol 1-2-3. A 1-2-Hey verb would indicate a biblical root whose 3rd letter is hey but whose other two letters are arbitrary (1,2); a 1-vav-2 verb would indicate a biblical root whose 2nd letter is vav but whose other two letters are arbitrary. The general rule is
•	1-2-Hey roots are conjugated on the last syllable
•	1-Vav-2 roots are conjugated on the next to last syllable.

Example 6: Gn46-21

Background: The brothers are imprisoned by Joseph on suspicion of being spies. The brother's reflect on their guilt mentioning their mistreatment of Joseph.
Biblical text: But we are guildty on our brother [that we kidnapped and sold] ....therefore this [our imprisonment] has come upon us.

Rashi points out that the Hebrew word for come, BA-ah, is accented on the first syllable indicating a past tense (while an accent on last syllable would indicate a calamity in the present. The use of the past tense indicates a tragedy that has already happened.
  
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.
================================================================= 
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