[Avodah] neged pshat?: maiseh reuvein v. Gm Shabbas

[harveybenton at yahoo.com]

RShachter: Thus, what Genesis 35:22 might be saying is that
Reuven lowered

Bilhah, and that is exactly what he did, according to our traditional

explanation of the verse, which is thus seen not to depart from its

straightforward meaning.  If he moved his father's bed out of Bilhah's

tent, then he certainly lowered Bilhah, in the sense that he degraded

her, and the actual means used to degrade her might have been

deliberately left unspecified.  Although not the literal meaning, this

could very well be "pshat".
HB: 
>The proposed explanation from Hakkthav V'Haqqabala, as you say, might in fact be true, but i believe it is a stretch.  One would have to prove 1. that the use of the verb "vayishkav"  in other places in chumash also means "lowering" to the exclusion of the literal meaning. and/or 2: that this use of the verb in the chumash, is an exception to the common usage. 
> Any thoughts why the chumash uses the phrase vyk ET Bilhah (and not vyk IM Bilaha)>Any thoughts re: roundabout usage of Gm Loshon (Shabbat 55) in not coming straight out and saying "Dovid didn't sin"; "Reuven didn't sin", etc., if that is what they held???

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20090518/bc24005e/attachment-0001.htm>