Onkelos

by R. Gidon Rothstein In this space, I have spent the past year reviewing examples of where Onkelos strays from a literal reading of the text. It was a topic I came to when I one year chose to fulfill the requirement of shnayim mikra ve-ehad targum, reading the weekly portion twice in the original and once in translation, with the translation ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein The last parsha of the Torah introduces itself as the berakhah Moshe conferred upon the Jewish people before his passing. Already there, Onkelos gives us more than we expect. Blessings of a Prophet Onkelos writes asher berakh Moshe neviya, that Moshe the prophet blessed, inserting the fact of his prophecy where the text did not. Similarly, Shemot 14;31 tells us the people believed ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Most of Ha’azinu is a song, a situation where Onkelos tends to stray from literal more than usual, I assume because poetry itself does not intend to be as literal as prose. Nonetheless, more than a few of his choices jumped out at me. The Comparison to Rain and Dew After calling heaven and earth to hear his ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Lessons of NonLiteral Onkelos: Nitzavim Nitzavim-Vayelekh are, together, still a very short parsha (and the last one before Rosh HaShanah). In the name of completeness, I wanted five comments of Okelos on each, so it was catch as catch can. Once More on Anthropomorphism Early on in our journey through Onkelos, I pointed out his determined rejection of the literal meaning ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein No Wandering Aramean Here An early part of Parashat Ki Tavo is more familiar than many parts of the Torah, because we also say it on Seder night. When the Mishnah sought a place where the Torah itself summarizes the Exodus for us to delve into Seder night, it noticed the Torah requires us to include such a summary in ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Discipline of Words or of Blows Early in the parsha, we meet parents’ worst nightmare, the ben sorer u-moreh, the son who rejects their parenting and embarks on a life of hedonistic pleasures, illicitly gained. In the process of verifying the boy is beyond reach, 21;18 tells us ve-yiseru oto, they will discipline him, and he will not listen to ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Tzedek in Process as Well as Verdict The first verse of the parsha, 16;18, tells us the judges we appoint are to judge the people mishpat tzedek. As we noted in Kedoshim, Onkelos writes din de-keshot, true justice, an interesting assumption about the necessity of truth in justice. Here, the next verse rules out bribery because it blinds the eyes of the discerning ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein The Torah informs the Jews there will eventually be a central place of worship, the only proper place to bring sacrifices. It calls it the place Gd will choose la-sum et Shemo sham, to place His Name there, le-Shikhno tidreshu, you shall seek His Presence (the English translations render this differently, but not in a way that makes ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Their False Gods The Torah frequently refers to gods other nations worshipped as eloheihem, a word the Torah also uses for the Creator, similar to adonai, a word whose secular version means my masters but can refer to the Master of the Universe. Biblical Hebrew has no problem with a word being related to the divine in some contexts, the ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Parshat Va-Ethanan is always Shabbat Nahamu, when we begin to turn away from the experience of destruction on Tish’a B’Av and read of Gd’s first promises for redemption. [full disclosure: for most of my life, I have assumed we were on the path of athalta de-ge’ula, the beginnings of that redemption; the current et tzarah, time of distress, and magefah, plague, has shaken ...