Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Does Rashi's citation of the Yerushalmi parallel mean he endorses it?

On that gemara just mentioned in the previous post on Kimchis, Rashi cites the Yerushalmi parallel:
לא ראו קורות ביתי ... ראיתי בהש״ס ירושלמי כל כבודה בת מלך פנימה
ממשבצות זהב לבושה אשה צנועה ראויה לצאת ממנה כהן גדול הלבוש משבצות זהב:
Some are apparently taking this to mean that Rashi is endorsing the Yerushalmi's narrative, or somehow interpreting the gemara to be in harmony with this. It certainly does not seem so to me.

Rather, Rashi is in the business of making sense of the gemara. And the dibbur hamatchil is on Kimchis' explanation, rather than on the Sages' response. It seems to me that Rashi here wishes to explain the reasoning of the hava amina, and fleshes it out by citing the Yerushalmi, which makes the reasoning clearer and even cites a prooftext.

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