Rashi, a Missing Yud, and R. Moses Isserles
This morning I started working on a blog post and saved it with the intention of finishing it tonight or tomorrow. I now see that R. Josh Waxman at Parshablog has posted on the same topic, adding more than I ever intended to write. I wanted to mention a few different things so read Josh’s post and here’s mine.
In this week’s Torah reading we read the following verse, (Deut. 1:13)
הבו לכם אנשים חכמים ונבנים וידעים לשבטיכם ואשימם בראשיכם
“Pick from each of your tribes men who are wise, discerning, and experienced, and I will appoint them as your heads.”
On this verse Rashi wrote the following on the word ואשימם,
חסר יו”ד, למד שאשמותיהם של ישראל תלויות בראשי דייניהם, שהיה להם למחות ולכוון אותם לדרך הישרה
“The word ואשימם lacks the letter yud. This teaches that the guilt of Bnei Yisroel is placed on the heads of their judges for it is their duty to admonish and direct them onto the right path.”
The source for Rashi’s comment can be found in the midrash Sifrei on Deuteronomy, piska 13. (See Josh’s post on this point.) This rabbinic interpretation is based upon the the “defective” spelling of the word ואשימם, yet if one looks in just about every single humash or Tanakh the word is written “full/plena” with a yud. See here for the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Not surprisingly, in some editions of Rashi a comment was added saying that in most Tikkunim and Sifrei Torah the word is written with a yud.
First of all, this just shows how ridiculous it is to try and find hidden messages in the Torah by counting letters, numbers, etc. See this article by Jeffrey Tigay which I have linked to before. Secondly, whether a word is written “full” or “defective” may have halakhic implications when determining if a Sefer Torah contains a mistake which will invalidate it or not. In the Shulhan Aruch, OH 143:4 the Rama wrote that even if a mistake was found in a Sefer Torah, we only take out a different one if it is a “real mistake” and not one of full vs. defective spelling.
תורה שלנו מדוייקים כל כך שנאמר שהאחרת יהיה יותר כשר
The Mishnah Berurah amplifies the Rama’s comment.
Moses Isserles was also a scribe and in Alei Sefer, no. 19, there are a number of articles on his Sefer Torah.
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:49 am
i have the earlier volumes of alei sefer. are the later ones online anywhere?
July 22nd, 2009 at 6:09 am
I don’t think so. They have just started republishing it with volume 20.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:11 am
Doesn’t it almost seem that there was an existing interpretation of the verse, but the commentators did not understand the original logic behind it? As a consequence, they resorted to developing a somewhat questionable justification for the interpretation.
If one knows koine Greek, one hears asimam as a sound anagram of miasma to wit taint of guilt.
We may here have an example of a homiletic interpretation that passed from Greek-speaking Hellenistic Jewish traditions of Biblical hermeneutics to Aramaic-speaking Jewish interpretative traditions while the underlying logic was lost.
Examples are actually fairly common, but today’s Jews not familiar with koine or Hellenistic thinking often miss key aspects of texts or concepts dating to the Greco-Roman period.
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:25 am
I elaborated my comment on my blog in http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2009/07/modern-jews-misinterpreting-jewish.html .
BTW, I am not the only person that looks at RASHI in this way. See http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2009/07/modern-jews-misinterpreting-jewish.html .
I believe Banitt and I came to similar conclusions around 1973-4. I was searching for a link between Greek-speaking and Aramaic-speaking Judaism while Banitt was looking at RASHI carefully within the Old French context.
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:28 am
Oops wrong URL: http://openlibrary.org/b/OL2289405M/Rashi%2C-interpreter-of-the-biblical-letter
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:38 am
The Greek aspect sounds very interesting and I wonder if Saul Lieberman in his Greek in Jewish Palestine or a similar work discusses this question.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Mr. Martillo’s suggestion is intriguing, but probably doesn’t work in this case. The Septuagint (which you expect the Greek-speaking Jews to use) offers a straightforward translation of the word into Greek: katasteso.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Actually, there were several Greek translations of the Hebrew bible, but I was not really looking to explain the exegesis via translation but through paretymology and perhaps paronomasia because in this way the recourse to a hypothetical scroll with defective spelling is not required.
I try to explain in my blog entry at: http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2009/07/modern-jews-misinterpreting-jewish.html .
Pagan Greeks of the Greco-Roman period loved this sort of analysis, and we have every reason to believe that Greek-speaking Judeans did as well.