Parshas Va'eira
1. On the pasuk "ויקח עמרם את יוכבד דדתו" ("And Amram took Yocheved, his aunt [dodaso]"),1 Rashi pauses on the words "יוכבד דדתו" ("Yocheved, his aunt"),2 and explains: "אחת אבוהי, בת לוי אחות קהת" ("His father's sister, daughter of Levi, sister of Kehos").
The commentators3 say that since the meaning of "dodaso" everywhere is not his father's sister but his father's brother's wife [as we find in the section of forbidden relations, that regarding "ערות אחי אביך גו׳ אל אשתו לא תקרב" ("The nakedness of your father's brother… you shall not approach his wife") it says "דודתך היא" ("She is your aunt"),4 whereas regarding "ערות אחות אביך" ("The nakedness of your father's sister")5 it does not say "your aunt"], one could have thought that here too it means his father's brother's wife. Rashi therefore introduces the point that the meaning of "dodaso" in our pasuk is "his father's sister."
And Rashi brings a proof for this — "daughter of Levi, sister of Kehos": since Yocheved was a daughter of Levi [as it says, "ושם אשת עמרם יוכבד בת לוי" ("And the name of Amram's wife was Yocheved, daughter of Levi")6], it follows automatically that she was "the sister of Kehos" [as we learned several pesukim earlier,7 "בני לוי גו׳ קהת" ("The sons of Levi… Kehos")] — and this is proof that the meaning of "dodaso" here is "his father's sister."
Based on this it is also understood why Rashi copies from the pasuk (in addition to "dodaso") also the word "Yocheved": because what compels him to explain that "dodaso" here means "his father's sister" — unlike the meaning of the word everywhere else — is the fact that Yocheved was the sister of Kehos, as above.8
2. According to this, one could also explain why Rashi writes "achas avuhi" (in the language of the Targum — from Targum Onkelos) and not "achos aviv": since the meaning of the word "dodaso" everywhere is his father's brother's wife, and here he is introducing the point that in our pasuk it means his father's sister, he brings a proof for his explanation, that Targum Onkelos too explains it so — "his father's sister."
This, however, needs to be understood: when Rashi makes use of Targum Onkelos, he says explicitly "כתרגומו" ("As its Targum renders it")9 (or the like). So here too he should have said "as its Targum renders it" or similar, and not have sufficed with merely writing his explanation in the language of the Targum.
3. In addition to the above, the following is also not understood:
a) What does Rashi accomplish here with his explanation? It is, as above, only the meaning of the word "dodaso," that here it means his father's sister. And his concluding words, "daughter of Levi, sister of Kehos," are merely a proof of the fact that she was his father's sister. But seemingly the student knows this (the fact itself) even if Rashi had not written it, since he has already learned earlier10 that Yocheved was "the daughter of Levi," and thus she is "the sister of Kehos" (the father of Amram).
As for Rashi writing "daughter of Levi," one could still somehow answer (with difficulty, at any rate): since the student learned this matter in an earlier book (Bereishis), Rashi therefore mentions it here again.11 But12 that Kehos was Levi's son is stated in this very parsha, and thus, when Rashi says "daughter of Levi," the student himself already understands that she was "his father's sister." Why, then, does Rashi add also "sister of Kehos"?13
b) Since the meaning of the word everywhere is his father's brother's wife, Rashi could have explained that here too "dodaso" means his father's brother's wife. The fact that Yocheved was (the daughter of Levi and) his father's sister is no proof that she was not also his father's brother's wife; for it could be that Levi had two wives, and one of Kehos's brothers — who was Yocheved's brother only through the father — married her, and later divorced her,14 and Amram married her.
And although even according to this one must introduce something novel, that Levi had two wives,15 and that Yocheved had been married once before (prior to her marriage to Amram), it is nonetheless easier to say this than to introduce a new meaning for the word "dodaso" — for (as in the above-mentioned commentators) such a meaning, that dodaso should mean his father's sister, is not found in Tanach. Why does Rashi not explain it this way?
c) According to another version,16 Rashi, before his explanation, copies from the pasuk (not only the words "Yocheved, his aunt" but) "את (יוכבד דודתו)" ("Es [Yocheved, his aunt]"). It is not understood: why does Rashi copy the word "es" as well?
d) In the pasuk itself it is not understood: why does the pasuk here use the description "dodaso" (and with a meaning different from everywhere else)? After all, it had just described her (in Parshas Shemos17) as "daughter of Levi"!
4. The explanation of all this:
By the words "Yocheved, his aunt," the pasuk plainly intends to bring out a virtue of Yocheved, that she was of distinguished lineage. Rashi is therefore faced with the question: according to the way one learns it in the plain sense (as everywhere), the meaning of "dodaso" is his father's brother's wife, that is, that she had previously been the wife of one of Kehos's brothers. It is not understood: what distinguished lineage is there in this (on the contrary: according to this it comes out that she was a divorcee)?
Therefore Rashi says that the meaning of "dodaso" here is "his father's sister" — and according to this explanation the distinguished lineage of "dodaso" is understood, from Amram: a woman of lineage like Amram, as Rashi concludes, that she was "the sister of Kehos,"18 for among the sons of Levi themselves Kehos was more distinguished19 than the other brothers.20
And the matter of lineage is the main point of these very pesukim, as Rashi says.21 That is why it describes her here as "dodaso": he took her because she was of his lineage, just as we find the emphasis with Avraham: "אל בית אבי תלך ואל משפחתי גו׳" ("To my father's house you shall go, and to my family…"), "ממשפחתי ומבית אבי" ("From my family and from my father's house").22
And although the word "dodaso" is used in Tanach only for his father's brother's wife, this is not a case of "לא מצאתי לו חבר" ("I have not found its like"). For since the term "dod" is found for a father's brother,23 it is understood from this that a father's sister is called (in the feminine) dodah — as it says,24 "לזאת יקרא אשה כי מאיש לוקחה זאת" ("This one shall be called woman, for from man was this one taken").
Nevertheless, since the term dodah is still not found explicitly for a father's sister, Rashi therefore says "achas avuhi" in the language of the Targum, intending thereby (for added force) to bring a proof for this from Targum Onkelos. He does not, however, need to add (as usual) "as its Targum renders it," because also from the plain sense of the matter it is understood that a father's sister can be called dodaso — just as a father's brother is called dodo.
Based on this it is also understood why Rashi pauses (according to another version) on the words "Es Yocheved, his aunt." For through the word "es" it is more emphasized that "Yocheved, his aunt" continues the preceding words "And Amram took," and in the matter of "and he took…" what is relevant is a woman of distinguished lineage, from his family, as above.
5. But it is still not understood:
a) Yocheved's main lineage is, after all, that she was "daughter of Levi," for lineage through the father is more relevant25 than lineage through a brother. How is it, then, that the pasuk says only "dodaso — sister of Kehos" and does not say (the main point) "daughter of Levi"?
b) The question is even stronger: everywhere it is related about someone that he married a woman, the pasuk says "the daughter of so-and-so,"26 that is, who her father was (and especially regarding Yocheved herself, in the previous parsha, where it says "ויקח את בת לוי" ("And he took the daughter of Levi")). Why does our pasuk say only "dodaso" (sister of Kehos), with no mention at all that she was "daughter of Levi"?
Rashi addresses this matter with the words "daughter of Levi," intending thereby to divide the words of the pasuk:27 Yocheved (daughter of Levi28 — and not from a different father than "his father," Kehos), sister of Kehos (from the same mother).
This also explains why the pasuk says both things: "Yocheved," which contains the virtue of "daughter of Levi," and "dodaso" — the virtue of "sister of Kehos."
(From the sicha of Shabbos Parshas Va'eira 5728)
Notes
1) Our parsha, 6:20.
2) In the first printing: "Es Yocheved, his aunt." See below, end of section 3 and end of section 4.
3) Re'em, Gur Aryeh, etc.
4) Acharei 18:14.
5) Ibid., 12.
6) Pinchas 26:59.
7) Our parsha, 6:15.
8) But see below, note 12.
9) See Rashi below, 7:1, and in many places.
10) Rashi, Vayigash 46:15.
11) One cannot say that Rashi's intent in "daughter of Levi" is to prove that she was not the wife of Amram's father's brother, since a Noachide too is forbidden his sister. For [besides the fact that according to this Rashi's conclusion, "sister of Kehos," is not understood] the prohibition of one's sister for a Noachide applies only to his sister from his mother, as below in the second question.
12) Also: that the mother of Moshe was a daughter of Levi is stated in this very book (Shemos 2:1).
It should be noted that according to this, it is also not smooth why Rashi copies the word "Yocheved" (see above, end of section 1). For even if the pasuk had not stated the name of Amram's wife, since it says "ותלד לו גו׳ את משה" ("And she bore him… Moshe"), we would know that she (the daughter of Levi) was his father's sister.
13) And if Rashi wishes to write in detail how Yocheved was his father's sister, he should have added (after the words "sister of Kehos") also "the father of Amram."
14) For even before the Giving of the Torah there was the matter of divorce (or at least something like it), as is evident from the fact that Amram had to make a second marriage (Rashi, Shemos ibid.).
15) According to R. Eliezer (Sanhedrin 58a), that a father's sister from the mother is forbidden to a Noachide, also according to the explanation "his father's sister" one must say that Levi had two wives and that Yocheved was the sister of Kehos from the father only, and not from the mother (ibid., 58b). But according to the plain sense, since [with regard to the laws of forbidden relations*] "אין אבות לב"נ" ("A Noachide has no paternity") (Rashi, Vayeira 20:12), a father's sister is permitted.
*) Unlike with regard to other laws (see Likkutei Sichos, vol. 5, p. 141, note 5). But one cannot say that Rashi's intent in Parshas Vayeira there is only with regard to one's sister who is his father's daughter, which is the subject there (and not with regard to other forbidden relations). For from the fact that Rashi writes in a general style, "for a Noachide has no paternity," as the reason that "a father's daughter is permitted to a Noachide," it is evident that this is a rule in several laws (at least in the laws of forbidden relations).
16) First printing.
17) 2:1.
18) As for what Rashi writes below (pasuk 23), "מכאן* למדנו הנושא אשה צריך לבדוק באחי׳" ("From here* we learn that one who marries a woman must look into her brothers") — this is because from "Yocheved, his aunt," since this parsha comes to teach us "האיך נולדו משה ואהרן ובמי נתייחסו" ("How Moshe and Aharon were born and through whom they derive their lineage") (Rashi above, 6:13), it is reasonable to say that "And he took… Yocheved, his aunt" is stated (not with regard to "and he took,"** but) in order to establish the lineage of Moshe and Aharon also from their mother's side, who was a daughter of Levi and sister of Kehos. Further, and mainly: the description "dodaso" emphasizes the connection to Amram (through his father), and not to Yocheved's brothers.
But from what is written, "ויקח אהרן גו׳ בת עמינדב אחות נחשון" ("And Aharon took… the daughter of Aminadav, sister of Nachshon"), since the intent of the pesukim here is not to establish the lineage of Aharon's sons, we must say that this is relevant to "and he took." And from the fact that the pasuk adds (emphasizes) "sister of Nachshon," we learn that "one who marries a woman must look into her brothers."
*) See Likkutei Sichos, vol. 5, p. 215 and note 14, that wherever Rashi writes "from here," his intent is to exclude another pasuk before it (or also a pasuk after it in this section, when the derivation in the Midrash, etc., is from that pasuk), from which it would seemingly have been possible to learn this matter.
**) Even according to the version in the first printing, that Rashi copies before his explanation also the word "es" — by which he hints that his explanation of "Yocheved, his aunt" too relates to "and he took" (as below at the end of the section) — this is because also from "Yocheved, his aunt" it is understood that there is a virtue in taking a wife who is the sister of a tzaddik, but this does not compel that one must look into her brothers.
19) And the reason it says "dodaso," whose meaning (here) is his father's sister, is that the virtue of Kehos, in that he was the father of Amram, the leader of the generation (Sotah 12a), and the father of Moshe and Aharon, is the greatest. Further (in the plain sense), "dodaso" is a shorter expression.
The reason it says "dodaso" (and not "sister of Kehos") in the "wine of Torah": it may be said that this is in order to emphasize the virtue of Moshe also in the fact that he was born from the marriage of Amram to his aunt, which before the Giving of the Torah is a virtue, as explained in Likkutei Sichos, vol. 5, pp. 273–4.
20) As understood from the fact that the service of Kehos was with "קודש הקדשים — המקודש שבכולן" ("The Holy of Holies — the most sacred of all") (Bamidbar 4:4 and Rashi there).
21) 6:14.
22) Chayei Sarah 24:38; 24:40.
23) Shemini 10:4; Kedoshim 20:20.
24) Bereishis 2:23.
25) See Rashi, Vayigash 46:15.
26) Noach 11:29; Toldos 25:20; 26:34; and elsewhere.
27) For:
a) (As above in the text) women mentioned in Scripture (when speaking of marriage) are called (which indicates the connection) by the father's name (and to such an extent that we find only the father mentioned (Vayishlach 38:2)).
b) In general, when a woman's name is mentioned in Scripture and there is room to ask what it teaches us, the simple reasoning is: a matter connected to her father (according to what is written, "Dinah his daughter" (Vayigash 46:15 and Rashi there)).
c) Since our parsha comes to establish lineage, and two descriptions are written of Amram's wife, it is reasonable to say that it thereby informs us of two lineages: from 1) the father, 2) the mother.
28) Rashi, Vayigash there: as it says, "for to Levi."
Key Lesson
The Torah describes Yocheved in two ways — "Yocheved," daughter of Levi, and "dodaso," sister of Kehos — to show both sides of the lineage from which Moshe and Aharon came. This Sicha teaches that when marriage is at issue, the distinction of both the father's house and the wider family matters, and that a single word in the pasuk, read as Rashi reads it, can carry that whole message.