Modern Jews Misinterpreting Jewish Texts

Rashi, a Missing Yud, and R. Moses Isserles from the Menachem Mendel blog provides an excellent example why it is so important to have a thorough understanding at least of common (koine) Greek before trying to interpret Jewish texts whose origins like the Talmud or the Mishna belong to the Greco-Roman period.

In the blog entry, which I fully reproduce below, various commentators (including RASHI) and commentaries use all sorts of dubious reasoning and assumptions to explain a homiletic interpretation probably originally based in a sound anagram that Hellenistic sages familiar with both Hebrew and Greek would have heard from Biblical Hebrew asimam (I will place/appoint them) to Greek miasma (taint of guilt).

Once a Hellenistic Torah scholar (a hakham, who is a sophos), trying to explain why asimam is used instead of the equivalent asim otam, connected asimam with miasma, he can propose without actually having a scroll with a defective spelling that the sound anagram of miasma and asimam suggests rethinking asimam as ashmam, which would be a heteronym (same spelling, different meaning, different pronunciation) under a defective transcription, and the midrash Sifrei on Deuteronomy, piska 13 is explained.

RASHI inherits many such traditions from his teachers apparently without always fully understanding the underlying reasoning. In this particular case the compositors of Sifrei lacked a key step in the logic and probably invented an alternative explanation.

Here is the original blog article.

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.

והא דמוציאין אחר, דוקא שנמצא טעות גמור, אבל משום חסירות ויתרות אין להוציא אחר, שאין ספרתורה שלנו מדוייקים כל כך שנאמר שהאחרת יהיה יותר כשר

The Mishnah Berurah amplifies the Rama’s comment.

כגון ווי”ן או יודי”ן מלאים או חסרים שלא נשתנה בהם הענין והמבטא כגון במקום שהיה צריך לכתוב אבותינו מלא וי”ו ונמצא חסר או להיפוך וכן במקום שהיה צריך לכתוב מלא ביו”ד שימושית ונמצא חסר או להיפוך אבל טעות שנשתנה במבטא אף שלא נשתנה הענין כגון כבש שהיה כתוב במקום כשב או שלמה שמלה צריך להוציא אחרת וכן ה”ה אם כתב מגרשיהן במקום מגרשיהם דהא איכא שינוי לשון וכן אם כתב רחבה במקום רחבו צריך להוציא אחרת אע”ג דנוכל לקרות בחולם כמו אהלה וכן בפסוק והנה תומים בבטנה אם כתב תומים מלא באלף תאומים אע”ג שהענין אחד צריך להוציא אחרת שהרי נרגש במבטא וכן בתיבת ונחנו מה אם כתב ואנחנו מה וה”ה אם נשתנה הענין עי”ז אע”ג שלא נשתנה במבטא כגון בתיבת ונמצה דמו כתב ונמצא דמו או בתיבת מאן יבמי שהוא שרש מיאון כתב מאין ביו”ד וכן כל כיוצא בזה צריך להוציא אחרת ועיין בדה”ח ובשערי אפרים שהאריכו בפרטים אלו

Moses Isserles was also a scribe and in Alei Sefer, no. 19, there are a number of articles on his Sefer Torah.

BTW, I am not the only person that looks at RASHI in this way. See Rashi, interpreter of the biblical letter by Menahem Banitt.

I believe Banitt and I came to similar conclusions simultaneously with me 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.

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