LEARNING WITH COMMENTATORS · 1 OF 5
Whose words are these?
Separate the verse, its English rendering and Rashi’s explanation before making a claim of your own.
In this lesson
Learn to hear each voice
A commentary explains an earlier text. Our commentators help us notice a word, ask a sharper question and connect one passage with another. Studying with them lets us learn Torah with generations of teachers. To follow a teacher’s reasoning, begin by asking: Which words is this teacher explaining?
The Torah is the five books of Moses. Its first book, Genesis, is called Bereshit in Hebrew. We will work with a few verses about our ancestor Avram, later called Avraham, or Abraham. A verse is a numbered unit of the biblical text. Genesis 12:1 means chapter 12, verse 1.
If you have read Begin with a call, the passage will be familiar. Here the new task is to keep the verse and its explanations distinct, so that we can compare commentators carefully. Our books supplies a wider map of Jewish literature; everything needed for this lesson appears below.
1. What would you open to find Rashi on Genesis 12:1?
Find Genesis, chapter 12, verse 1, then Rashi’s commentary attached to that verse. The reference identifies both the base text, the passage being explained, and the teacher whose explanation you want to read. A different teacher may comment on the same verse.
Keep the verse in view
Avram’s family has traveled toward Canaan and settled in Haran. Genesis 12 opens with God’s call. “The LORD” represents God’s name in our English rendering. We also say Hashem, “the Name,” when referring to God.
1. The LORD said to Avram: “Go from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
2. I will make you into a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great. Be a blessing.
3. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
2. Find one command and one promise. How do their words differ?
“Go” in verse 1 directs Avram to act. “I will make you into a great nation” in verse 2 tells what God will do. “Be a blessing” is another command. Identifying who acts helps us read the passage before adding an explanation.
לך לך מארצך וממולדתך ומבית אביך אל הארץ אשר אראך
Go from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
A translation renders a text in another language. The English helps us read the Torah’s Hebrew; it is not a second ancient account of the journey. Translators make choices about how to convey words and sentences. A commentary can draw our attention to something an ordinary English sentence does not display.
Find where the comment begins
Rashi, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, comments on the opening words לך לך, lech lecha. A commentator often quotes a few words before explaining them. Those identifying words are called the dibbur hamatchil, the quoted opening words that show what the comment explains.
On לך לך · Lech lecha
להנאתך ולטובתך
For your benefit and for your good.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Rashi reads the journey as for Avram’s benefit. His fuller comment connects the departure with God’s promise to make him a great nation. The short phrase above belongs to Rashi’s explanation, while the command and the promise remain in the Torah passage.
3. Which words identify Rashi’s starting point, and which give his explanation?
לך לך, lech lecha, is the quoted Torah wording that identifies the comment. להנאתך ולטובתך, “For your benefit and for your good,” is Rashi’s explanation. Finding the dibbur hamatchil connects the teacher’s words to a precise place in the verse.
Name the kind of statement
Classify these four lines as Hebrew source text, English rendering, named commentary or personal application. Say what tells you, rather than relying only on the language.
- The command’s opening in Genesis 12:1: לך לך.
- Our rendering of the command begins: “Go from your land.”
- Rashi explains the journey as “For your benefit and for your good.”
- “I want to respond faithfully when a good responsibility requires a difficult change.”
4. How do the four statements relate to one another?
The first quotes the Torah’s Hebrew source text. The second is an English rendering of part of that text. The third gives Rashi’s commentary, also in English. The fourth is a learner’s personal application.
English alone does not identify the role: both a verse and a commentary can be translated. The reference and attribution tell us who is speaking and what kind of claim is being made. Each role can contribute to learning when we name it accurately.
Ask a question the comment can answer
The two opening words are pronounced lech lecha: “go” and “to/for you.” A useful question grows from that wording. Compare these possible questions:
- What does “for you” draw out about the call to leave?
- What color was Avram’s tent?
5. Which question does Rashi’s selected explanation help answer?
The first. Rashi draws out the journey’s benefit to Avram. The selected explanation supplies no tent color.
We can say, “A question this comment helps answer is: what does ‘for you’ draw out about the call?” That is our way of framing the issue. It is not a quotation of a question Rashi explicitly wrote here.
Now inspect this invented study note: “Genesis 12:1 says in our English rendering, ‘Go for your benefit and for your good from your land.’” Compare it with the actual verse card, then repair the attribution.
6. How would you separate the verse from the explanation?
Write: “Our rendering of Genesis 12:1 begins, ‘Go from your land.’ Rashi explains lech lecha as ‘For your benefit and for your good.’” The original note silently moved Rashi’s wording into a quotation of the verse rendering. Keeping the attribution lets us hear the teaching without changing the quoted source.
Write a four-line account
With the sources available, write four short lines before opening the model:
- Quote the Hebrew phrase Rashi explains and give its verse reference.
- Quote the beginning of our English rendering of the command.
- Name Rashi and state his explanation.
- Write one personal response to the learning, beginning “I…”
7. What makes a four-line account clear?
One possible account:
- Genesis 12:1 begins its command with לך לך.
- Our English rendering begins, “Go from your land.”
- Rashi explains lech lecha as “For your benefit and for your good.”
- I want to give a new responsibility careful attention rather than judging it only by its difficulty.
The fourth line is a possible personal response, not a prediction that every difficult change will benefit us. Revisit your own last line: can you point to what prompted it while still identifying it as your response? The source, rendering and teacher should remain visible beside it.
Return next session
Without reopening the models, quote one phrase from Genesis 12:1, name Rashi’s explanation, and separate both from your own application. Explain how a dibbur hamatchil helps you find a comment’s starting point.
8. What should your account preserve?
Keep the verse’s לך לך, Rashi’s benefit-and-good explanation, and your own response separately attributed. The dibbur hamatchil quotes words from the text to identify what the commentary explains. An English rendering makes a source accessible; it does not erase the difference between a verse, a teacher’s explanation and a learner’s application.
Read in context
Read Genesis 11:31–32 for the family’s journey, Genesis 12:1–3 for the call and promises, and Rashi on Genesis 12:1 for his full explanation. English renderings and activities are our own.
Continue with What does lecha add? to compare two teachers on the same words.