Vayishlach - Rishon (Metaphors)

When does a metaphor become a metaphor?  All must agree that a moshol can have no meaning until it has entered the common experience.  That's why I find a couple of Rashis in this aliyah so perplexing.  According to Rashi, "Eisav" is already now a standing metaphor for "Rasha".  See these two Rashis from the first aliya:

באנו אל אחיך אל עשו: שהיית אומר אחי הוא, אבל הוא נוהג עמך כעשו הרשע, עודנו בשנאתו:
We came to your brother, to Esau: Concerning whom you said,“He is my brother,” but he still behaves toward you like the wicked Esau. He still has hatred.

מיד אחי מיד עשו: מיד אחי שאין נוהג עמי כאח אלא כעשו הרשע:
from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: From the hand of my brother, who does not behave toward me like a brother, but like the wicked Esau.
 

Rashi did the same thing in Parshas Vayeira, where he attaches to the phrase "Anshei Sedom" the active metaphorical meaning
"Evil Men". 

See here, from the third aliya in Vayeira:

טרם ישכבו ואנשי העיר אנשי סדום: כך נדרש בבראשית רבה (נ ה) טרם ישכבו ואנשי העיר היו בפיהם של מלאכים, שהיו שואלים ללוט מה טיבם ומעשיהם, והוא אומר להם רובם רשעים. עודם מדברים בהם ואנשי סדום וגו'. ופשוטו של מקרא ואנשי העיר, אנשי רשע, נסבו על הבית. על שהיו רשעים נקראים אנשי סדום, כמו שאמר הכתוב (יג יג) ואנשי סדום רעים וחטאים:

When they had not yet retired, the people of the city, the people of Sodom: It is interpreted in Gen. Rabbah (50:5) as follows: When they had not yet retired, the people of the city were the topic of conversation of the angels, for they were asking Lot about their character and their deeds, and he told them that most of them were wicked. While they were still speaking about them, “And the people of the city,” etc. The simple meaning of the verse, however, is: “and the people of the city, people of wickedness, surrounded the house.” Because they were wicked, they are called people of Sodom, as Scripture states (above 13:13): “And the people of Sodom were very evil and sinful…”

I must of course grant that Eisav is known to us from Parshas Toldos just as the city of Sedom was known to us from Parshas Lech-Lecha, as Rashi himself points out.  Yet were the terms fully identified? Evidently!

Vayeitzei - Shishi and Shvi'i

Geneiva- The word is usually translated as "theft".  Yet this week's parsha demonstrates that the word actually means deception.   Even when it means theft, it is the deceptive aspect of theft.  This is related to the Gemara that explains the distinction between Geneiva and Gezeila, the former defined as stealing at night.  The distinction always seemed like an arbitrary one: Who cares when a theft takes place?! Theft is theft!  Yet Halacha makes a very big deal of it.  There are two distinct verses, two distinct penalties, geneiva seen as worse evidenced by the requirement to pay double.  The Rambam has "Hilchos Gezeila V'Aveida" and also "Hilchos Geneiva". So he clearly sees them as two different concepts.

I have given this matter a lot of thought.  Here is a summary of my conclusions:

Man relates to this world by possessing things.  The first possession that takes place is from a state of legal ownerlessness. AKA Hefker.  Once possession is taken by one person, the relationship between that person and that thing can only be sundered by that person's will. So the act of possession is an act of will.  Taking possession of something from another with that person's will is a gift, or trade.  Taking possession without that person's will is impossible to tolerate in society.  

That act manifests itself in two distinct forms or crime:
1) The physical taking of possession with no will, or
2) A falsely caused act of will.

The first, gezeila, is the more primitive form of taking, which animals possess as well.
The second is more refined, and can only by done by human beings.  It uses the accepted forms of society living to take that which is not yours.  It is therefore a greater sign of corruption of the human spirit.

More later...

Terumos Chapter One

In the evenings after Maariv, we try to learn one perek of Mishnayos. Yesterday we began Masechta Terumos.

Some immediate stray thoughts I had:
The first chapter is telling us that the actual act of hafrasha, separating the terumah from the rest of the produce, is a mitzvah all on its own. I might have thought that giving the food to the Cohen was the meaningful act and that separating the food was merely something that obviously needs to be done before giving the gift. But that is not the case. Terumah means "lifting", hence the awkward archaic English rendering of the word as "Heave Offering". Heave nowadays is a colloquialism for vomiting, but it means to lift upward. Terumah is the act of making something "Ram", elevated.

If Terumah is the act of lifting, then the verb should be "Leharim". Yet it seems that the verb in Mishnaic Hebrew is "Litrom", an invented word. This is one of my sources for the concept that Loshon Kodesh evolved from Biblical times to Talmudic times.