Q&A: An Apparent Contradiction in Rashi
An Apparent Contradiction in Rashi
Question
On verse 21, Rashi says, “And the man gazed at her in astonishment,” meaning that he did not know whether or not she was from Abraham’s family. But on verse 23, “And he said, ‘Whose daughter are you?’” — after he had already given her gifts — Rashi says that he was confident, because of Abraham’s merit, that the Holy One, blessed be He, had made his mission successful.
So was he confident, or did he not know?
(What bothered Rashi is understandable: he gave her gifts before he knew that she was the intended bride. But that is not such a big difficulty. He simply asked her for a drink, and she didn’t brush him off; rather, she gave him plenty to drink, and all the camels too, until they had finished drinking. He gave her gifts first of all just to be a mensch, and besides, maybe she was the bride… But in fact he still didn’t know, as he said in verse 21. And from here preachers can derive a lesson that even the servants of the Patriarchs were menschs, all the more so their descendants should give nice and respectable gifts… surely good material for preachers… and more, according to the preacher’s fertile imagination…)
Answer
First, it is possible that these are conflicting midrashim. Second, there is not necessarily any contradiction here. He gazed at her in astonishment, and after some time he realized that God had made his mission successful in Abraham’s merit, so he gave her gifts and then asked, “Whose daughter are you?”
As for drawing conclusions, my well-known practice in matters of sanctity is not to learn anything at all from midrashim and from commentators on the Torah. Not because I have anything against them, but because it is impossible to learn anything from them.