[Avodah] esav

[Eli Turkel]

<<I learned that today - listening to a CD of a Parsha Shiur which was given
nightly by Reb Yankele zt'l, the Pshevorsker rebbe in Antwerp.
He expresses great astonishment at this Rashbam.
1) Because the Rashbam usually goes for posheter pshat, and
2) What is the Rashbam's source for this?>>

In terms of (2) why assume Rashbam had a source? His usual approach
is to assume that chazal's approach was not pshat but was still Halacha.
The most famous example being his explanation that according to Bereshit
the day comes before the night which has no source in Chazal.

Obviously Rashbam here assumes that Esav being a good guy is pshat.
As Micha points out the phrase "ish" usually does not mean soldiers
but rather important people. Furthermore, he did kiss Yaakov.

Admittedly this is not the strongest of cases, but that seems to be the
approach of Rashbam.

As our rabbi said it is important to distinguish between the pesukim and
Rashi's interpretaion. Rashi has become so accepted that frequently
we assume that what Rashi says is explicit in the Torah

-- 
Eli Turkel