The Peshat or literal interpretation is necessarily the “face value,” id est, apparent significance, of the Hebrew word. Yet the “face value” of the Torah is multi-faceted just like a fine gemstone. Indeed, our wise Sages teach us that the Holy Sepher-Torah has “seventy faces” (Midrash Bamidbar Rabba 13:15). Do you suppose that the Franco-English word “facet” has a phonetic allusion to the Hebrew word “peshat”? Moreover this would point to why what one calls “peshat” another calls “derash”. Thus when a Master and Talmid Hakham derash at the same level they are said to be communicating “panim el panim” this is bare-naked intercourse. Nu?
I thought you might have concentrated more on the relationship between "stretch out" and "strip"... You didn't even mention the expression "פושט יד".
It's a good question - and most of the sources don't really explain why undress and strech out would be related.
The best I found was Ben Yehuda, who says that the original meaning of the root was not removal and undressing, but rather the spreading out of the clothes that were once wrapped around the body.
I didn't mention פושט יד. I think the connection between "begging" and "extending one's hand" is pretty clear.
But I have previously discussed the phrase פושט את הרגל:
http://www.balashon.com/2007/06/...et-
haregel.html
The Gemara describes the shofar of a yael as being pashut. The problem is that all evidence indicates that the yael is an ibex, and its horn is curved. Meiri explains that it is "relatively" straight, vis-a-vis the tightly twisted horn of a ram. In any case, it would make more sense if pashut does not exactly mean straight in the conventional sense.
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