Living Like a Rock


Rashi tells us that after the Torah described the life of Aysav in an abbreviated manner, it then told over the events in the life of Yaakov in full detail. The reason for this is that Yaakov and what occurred to him are important in the eyes of HASHEM, whereas Aysav and his life aren’t. So too, Rashi explains, we find with the ten generations from Adom to Noach. Each individual gets a mere mention until we get to the life of Noach. Then the Torah elaborates in full detail. The same pattern is repeated with the ten generations from Noach till Avrohom. We are told in condensed form – “so and so gave birth to so and so” – until we get to the life of Avrohom. Then the Torah again goes into great detail because the life and activities of Tzadikim are important in the eyes of HASHEM, whereas those of Rashiim aren’t significant.


The purpose of a Moshol

This Rashi becomes difficult to understand when we focus on the purpose of a Moshol. Chazal use parables to help bridge a gap. When we are dealing with concepts that are outside our frame of reference, our sages often use examples and metaphors to bring difficult ideas into terms that we can understand. For instance, if you were given the task to describe the color purple to a color blind person, how would you portray it? Well, it isn’t blue and it’s not red… The problem is that since this person sees all colors in the grey spectrum, neither point of reference has any meaning. So you might revert to a moshol. Imagine that sounds have color. Then a cello would be a woody brown, and a flute would be a light yellow. In the mid-range would be a saxophone,  and that’s purple. The purpose of the moshol is to capture the essence of a distant concept and bring it closer.

Why does Rashi feel we need a Moshol to understand this concept? It seems rather straightforward. Aysav wasn’t important, so the Torah told over his life quickly, whereas Yaakov and what he accomplished are significant, so the Torah went into the details. That seems like an elementary concept, not one that needs repeating or a Moshol to help clarify it.

The value of a person



Living like a Rock




This is an excerpt from the Shmuz on the Parsha book.

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