Bible Notes
At the end of Parshat Eqev, it says “to walk in all of His ways and to cling to Him.” Rashi writes that walking in his ways means to act in the way Hashem acts, just like he is merciful, so too you should be merciful. Rashi explains “and to cling to him” by first asking how could this be understood literally? We would get burned. Rather, its by staying close to the talmidei chachamim. One could ask, but we have this phrase in other places in Devarim- why does Rashi only write this here? Moreover, in Re’eh, Rashi comments on “uvo tidbak” with the explanation given for “walking in His way” in Eqev. We could answer that in Parshat Eqev, the Torah is clearly distinguishing between “to walk in all of His ways” and “to cling to Him,” whereas in Re’eh only one term is used, dibuk, and that is more broad. The next step to be taken is hashgafically, what does this mean? However, that requires a lot more work and we will not get into that now.
9/8
Quotation from beginning of Vayeshev. Q: Is there an obvious pshat problem (even if we know the meaning of all the words)?
A: The following is example of narrow scope vs. wide scope: The pshat problem is does the phrase that yosef reported the bad doings of his brothers- does that refer to all his brothers or does it refer to only the children of Bilha. “ הָיָה רֹעֶה אֶת-אֶחָיו בַּצֹּאן, וְהוּא נַעַר אֶת-בְּנֵי בִלְהָה וְאֶת-בְּנֵי זִלְפָּה, נְשֵׁי אָבִיו; וַיָּבֵא יוֹסֵף אֶת-דִּבָּתָם רָעָה, אֶל-אֲבִיהֶם.”
Fine, so there is an ambiguity here. To add another complication, one could say that its referring to the wide scope, namely “brothers,” but its possible that the reference is to a sub-group within the brothers.
Another question here is, “What exactly was going on? What was reported?” If we look at Bereishit Rabbah, there are three views among the Tannaim: 1) That his brothers ate ever min hachai 2) They were acting inappropriately with the non-Jewish women 3) They were mistreating the
9/8
Quotation from beginning of Vayeshev. Q: Is there an obvious pshat problem (even if we know the meaning of all the words)?
A: The following is example of narrow scope vs. wide scope: The pshat problem is does the phrase that yosef reported the bad doings of his brothers- does that refer to all his brothers or does it refer to only the children of Bilha. “ הָיָה רֹעֶה אֶת-אֶחָיו בַּצֹּאן, וְהוּא נַעַר אֶת-בְּנֵי בִלְהָה וְאֶת-בְּנֵי זִלְפָּה, נְשֵׁי אָבִיו; וַיָּבֵא יוֹסֵף אֶת-דִּבָּתָם רָעָה, אֶל-אֲבִיהֶם.”
Fine, so there is an ambiguity here. To add another complication, one could say that its referring to the wide scope, namely “brothers,” but its possible that the reference is to a sub-group within the brothers.
Another question here is, “What exactly was going on? What was reported?” If we look at Bereishit Rabbah, there are three views among the Tannaim: 1) That his brothers ate ever min hachai 2) They were acting inappropriately with the non-Jewish women 3) They were mistreating the