Translation, Midrash, and Commentary Through the Eyes of Onkelos
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12 Torah Pesukim & Maamorei Chazal
Here are many of Judaism’s fundamental beliefs brought forth through 12 Torah Pesukim and Maamorei Chazal (teachings of the Sages) which are impor- For tant for every child to know and recite each day. Torah LevI Please check off each box when memorized. 1. TORAH TZIVAH LONU MOSHE MOROSHOH KEHILAS YAAKOV “The Torah that Moshe commanded us is the heritage of the congregation of Yaakov.” (Deuteronomy 33:4) 2. SHEMA YISROEL, AD-DO-NOI ELO-HAI-NOO, AH-DO-NOI ECHOD “Hear O Israel, G-d is our L-rd, G-d is One.” (Deuteronomy 6:4) 3. B’CHOL DOR VODOR CHAYOV ODOM LEEROS ES ATZMO KI-EELOO HOO YOTZO MEE-MITZROYIM “In every generation one must look upon himself as if he personally had gone out of Egypt .” (Pesachim 116b) 4. KOL YIS-RO-EL YEISH LO-HEM CHEI-LEK L-O-LAM HA-BOH SHE-NE- E-MAR V-AMEICH KOO-LAM TZADIKIM, L-O-LAM YIR-SHOO O-RETZ, NEIT-ZER MA-TO-AIY MA’A-SEI YO-DYE LE-HIS-PO-EIR “All Israel have a share in the World To Come, as it is stated (Isaiah 60:21): ‘And Your people are tzadikkim (righteous).’ They shall inherit the land for- ever. They are the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, in which I take pride.” (Sanhedrin 90a) 5. KEE KOROV AILECHO HADOVOR ME’OD B’FEECHO U’VIL’VOVCHO LA’ASOSO “It is within your close reach to follow the Torah in speech, feeling and deed.” (Deuteronomy. 30:14). 6. -
Philo Ng.Pdf
PHILO AND THE NAMES OF GOD By A. MARMORSTEIN,Jews College, London IN A recent work on the allegorical exegesis of Philo of Alexandria' Philo's views and teachings as to the Hebrew names of God are once more discussed and analyzed. The author repeats and shares the old opinion, elaborated and propagated by Zacharias Frankel and others that Philo was more or less ignorant of the Hebrew tongue. Philo's treat- ment of the divine names is put in the first line of witnesses to corroborate this literary verdict. This question touches wider and more important problems than the narrow ques- tion whether Philo knew Hebrew, or not,2 and if the former is the case how far his knowledge, and if the latter is true how far his ignorance went. For the theologians generally some important historical and theological problems, for Jewish theology especially, besides these, literary and relig- ious questions as to the date and origin of religious concep- tions, and the antiquity and value of our sources are involved. Philo is criticized for having no idea2 of the equivalent names used by the LXX for the Tetragrammaton and Elohim respectively. The former is translated KVptOS, the latter 4hos. This omission is the more serious since the distinction between these two names is one of Philo's chief doctrines. We are referred to a remark made by Z. Frankel about ' Edmund Stein, Die allegorische Exegese des Philo aus Alexandreia; Giessen, 1929. (Beihefte Zur ZAW. No. 51.) 2 Ibid., p. 20, for earlier observations see G. Dalman, Adonaj, 59.1, Daehne, Geschichtliche Darstellung, I 231, II 51; Freiidenthal, Alexander Polyhistor, p. -
Humor in Torah and Talmud, Part 5
Sat 18 Aug 2018 – 7 Elul 5778 B”H Dr Maurice M. Mizrahi Congregation Adat Reyim Lunch and Learn Humor in Torah and Talmud, Part 5 Torah (Theme: God is angry at us) 1-God loses it [The Israelites repeatedly ask Moses for meat in the desert. God tells Moses:] And say to the people... you shall eat meat. You shall not eat it for one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days; but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and you become disgusted by it. [Numbers 11:18-20] 2-This, too, shall happen to you! The most dreaded Torah portion is Ki Tavo, where God lists all the curses that will befall those who do not follow His commandments: But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the voice of the Lord your God, to take care to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you this day, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. [Deut. 28:15] Follows a long string of dreaded curses, beginning with: Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field… [Deut. 28:16] And ending with: Also, every illness and every plague, that is not written in this Book of the Torah, the Lord will bring it upon you, until you are destroyed. [Deut 28:61] It’s not even exclusive: Whatever you dread most, whatever it is, shall happen to you! 3-Moses’ masterful plea The Israelites revert to idolatry by building and worshiping the Golden Calf. -
Nomos and Narrative Before Nomos and Narrative
Nomos and Narrative Before Nomos and Narrative Steven D. Fraade* I imagine that when Robert Cover's Nomos and Narrative essay' first reached the editors of the Harvard Law Review, their befuddlement derived not so much from Cover's framing of his review of the 1982 Supreme Court term with a philosophically opaque discussion of the interdependence of law and narrative, but from the illustrations that he drew from biblical and rabbinic texts of ancient and medieval times. For Cover, both intellectually and as a matter of personal commitment, these ancient texts evoke a "nomian world," rooted more in communally shared stories of legal origins and utopian ends than in the brutalities of institutional enforcement, one from which modem legal theory and practice have much to learn and to emulate. Since my own head is buried most often in such ancient texts, rather than in modem courts, I thought it appropriate to reflect, by way of offering more such texts for our consideration, on the long-standing preoccupation with the intersection and interdependency of the discursive modes of law and narrative in Hebrew biblical and rabbinic literature, without, I hope, romanticizing them. Indeed, I wish to demonstrate that what we might think of as a particularly modem tendency to separate law from narrative, has itself an ancient history, and to show how that tendency, while recurrent, was as recurrently resisted from within Jewish tradition. In particular, at those cultural turning points in which laws are extracted or codified from previous narrative settings, I hope to show that they are also renarrativized (or remythologized) so as to address, both ideologically and rhetorically, changed socio-historical settings.2 I will do so through admittedly * Steven D. -
Shavuot Daf Hashavua
בס״ד ׁשָ בֻ עוֹת SHAVUOT In loving memory of Harav Yitzchak Yoel ben Shlomo Halevi Volume 32 | #35 Welcome to a special, expanded Daf Hashavua 30 May 2020 for Shavuot at home this year, to help bring its 7 Sivan 5780 messages and study into your home. Chag Sameach from the Daf team Shabbat ends: London 10.09pm Sheffield 10.40pm “And on the day of the first fruits…” Edinburgh 11.05pm Birmingham 10.22pm (Bemidbar 28:26) Jerusalem 8.21pm Shavuot starts on Thursday evening 28 May and ends after Shabbat on 30 May. An Eruv Tavshilin should be made before Shavuot starts. INSIDE: Shavuot message Please look regularly at the social media and websites by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis of the US, Tribe and your community for ongoing updates relating to Coronavirus as well as educational programming Megillat Rut and community support. You do not need to sign by Pnina Savery into Facebook to access the US Facebook page. The US Coronavirus Helpline is on 020 8343 5696. Mount Sinai to Jerusalem to… May God bless us and the whole world. the future Daf Hashavua by Harry and Leora Salter ׁשָ בֻ עוֹת Shavuot Shavuot message by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis It was the most New York, commented that from stunning, awe- here we learn that the Divine inspiring event revelation was intended to send a that the world has message of truth to everyone on ever known. Some earth - because the Torah is both three and a half a blueprint for how we as Jews millennia ago, we should live our lives and also the gathered as a fledgling nation at the foundational document of morality foot of Mount Sinai and experienced for the whole world. -
Parables in the Mekilta De-Rabbi Ishmael
Parables in the Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael Nada Chandler 6622 Belmont Houston, TX 77005-3806 [email protected] Introduction Parables are an ancient form of teaching; in a written form, the use of parables dates back to the Greek story tellers. Their presence in written, homiletic material is a part of both the Jewish and Greek cultures; their simplicity makes them useful teaching tools for a wide audience. It is the intent of this paper to show how parables are used in one Midrash collection, the Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, and to suggest that their presence in a halakhic work indicates that sages used them to illustrate their explications to one another. Their structure is simple, they state a condition that can easily be understood and then create a parallel that is specifically applicable to the audience to whom they are being addressed. They are present in all forms of rabbinic literature, including the Mishnah, as well as in a variety of Midrashim. Perhaps because of their simplicity, the sages themselves were attached to this genre. Do not let the parable appear of little worth to you. Through a parable, a man can fathom words of Torah. Consider the king who had lost a gold coin or a precious pearl in his house. May he not find it by the light of a wick worth little more than an issar? Likewise, do not let the parable appear of little worth to you. By its light, a man may fathom words of Torah. (Song of Songs Rabbah 1:1)1 1 The Book of Legends, Sefer Ha-Aggadah, Hayim Nathan Bialik and Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky; Braude, William G. -
The Eye in the Torah: Ocular Desire in Midrashic Hermeneutic Author(S): Daniel Boyarin Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol
The Eye in the Torah: Ocular Desire in Midrashic Hermeneutic Author(s): Daniel Boyarin Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Spring, 1990), pp. 532-550 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343638 Accessed: 09/02/2010 04:26 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Critical Inquiry. http://www.jstor.org The Eye in the Torah: Ocular Desire in Midrashic Hermeneutic Daniel Boyarin It seems to have become a commonplace of critical discourse that Juda- ism is the religion in which God is heard but not seen. -
Shavuot in Talmud and Midrash (Mostly Soncino Translation and Commentary; Emphasis Mine; Some Language Tweaks)
22 May 2007 [Shavuot 5767] Dr Maurice M. Mizrahi Congregation Adat Reyim Tikkun Lel Shavuot Shavuot in Talmud and Midrash (Mostly Soncino translation and commentary; emphasis mine; some language tweaks) Only Israel accepted the Torah Mechilta de Rabbi Ishmael, Exodus 20:2 It was for the following reason that the ancient nations of the world were asked to accept the Torah, in order that they should have no excuse for saying, 'Had we been asked we would have accepted it'. For, behold, they were asked and they refused to accept it, for it is said, "He said, the Lord came from Sinai...) (Deut. 33:2). He appeared to the children of Esau, the wicked, and said to them, "Will you accept the Torah?" They said to Him, "What is written in it?" He said to them, "You shall not murder" (Deut. 5:17) They then said to Him, "The very heritage which our father left us was 'By the sword you shall live' (Gen. 27:40). He then appeared to the children of Ammon and Moab. He said to them, "Will you accept the Torah?" They said to Him, "What is written in it?" He said to them, "You shall not commit adultery" (Deut. 5:17) They, however, said to Him that they were, all of them, the children of adulterers, as it is said, "Thus the two daughters of Lot came to be with child by their father" (Gen. 19:36) He then appeared to the children of Ishmael. He said to them, "Will you accept the Torah?" They said to Him, "What is written in it?" He said to them, "You shall not steal" (Deut. -
On the Status of the Tannaitic Midrashim Author(S): Daniel Boyarin Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol
Review: On the Status of the Tannaitic Midrashim Author(s): Daniel Boyarin Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 112, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1992), pp. 455- 465 Published by: American Oriental Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/603081 Accessed: 19/08/2010 19:11 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aos. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Oriental Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the American Oriental Society. http://www.jstor.org REVIEW ARTICLES ON THE STATUS OF THE TANNAITIC MIDRASHIM* DANIEL BOYARIN UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY A critique of Jacob Neusner's latest contribution to Midrashic studies. -
Be Read, but Not Translated (M
CHAPTER FIFTEEN לא מתרגם בציבורא—NOT TO BE TRANSLATED IN PUBLIC Introduction The subject of “forbidden targumim” has been discussed periodically in papers devoted to the specific topic, as well as in more general studies of the relationship between the targumim and other rabbinic literature.1 The point of departure of these studies has understandably been the lists contained in the Tannaitic sources and the discussion of those lists in the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds. Much effort has been expended in trying to establish a “correct version” of the lists, in identifying the passages in question, and in search of a rationale for each of the particular forbidden items. As readily observed, there is almost complete unanimity among the rabbinic lists regarding the passages in the Pentateuch that “may The Mishnah .נקראין ואינן מתרגמין ”,be read, but not translated (m. Megillah 4:10), Tosefta (t. Megillah 4:35 ff ), and the later Talmudic sources2 all agree that the “Story of Reuben” (Gen 35:22) and the “sec- ond account of the [golden] calf” (Exod 32:21–35) fall into this cat- egory. The only other Pentateuchal passage assigned to this group is “the priestly blessing” (Num 6:24–26), according to the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds (b. Megillah 25b; y. Megillah 75c). But this seems to be based upon a compounded error. J. Heinemann has argued rather convincingly that the statement regarding the “priestly blessing” was not originally related to the weekly Torah reading or its rendition 1 E.g., A. Geiger, Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel (Breslau, 1857), pp. -
Chazal's Metaphoric Approach by Rav Elchan
PARASHAT KEDOSHIM "You Shall Not Place a Stumbling Block Before the Blind": Chazal's Metaphoric Approach by Rav Elchanan Samet 1. Four Interpretations of the Prohibition "You shall not curse the deaf, and you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear your God; I am the Lord." These two prohibitions, of cursing the deaf and leading the blind to stumble, both involve the protection of those particularly vulnerable due to physical disability. Indeed, these two crimes are linked by the single admonition towards the end of the verse: "You shall fear your God." Nevertheless, we will devote our discussion entirely to the second prohibition, addressing the first half of the verse only insofar as it affects our understanding of the second. We present here the four interpretations that have been offered to this verse, in the sequence of their deviation from the simple, straightforward meaning, from closest to furthest: 1. "Blind" refers to an individual who cannot see, and "stumbling block" denotes a physical object, such as a stone or beam, that physically endangers the unsuspecting blind person as he walks. This is the interpretation of the Kuttim, who rejected the Oral Law's extrapolation of Biblical verses. (See Nida 57a, Chulin 3a.) The prohibition according to this approach involves taking unfair advantage of the handicap of another. The earlier prohibition against cursing the deaf would presumably be explained in a similar manner. 2. "Blind" here means anyone, even without any handicap, who does not see the stumbling block placed before him. With respect to this specific danger, he may be considered figuratively "blind." "Stumbling block" refers to a physical trap lying innocuously in one's path, such as a pit with an indiscernible covering. -
Eliezer-Ben-Horkanos.Pdf
Self, Identity, & Choice Rabbi Dr.Bradley Shavit Artson 1 העמש רב ' לא י ע ז ר ןב נקרוה סו הש י ו אלב י ו ישרוח ן הברה יהו ו ישרוח ן לע יבג עמה נ ה וכו ,' כעש י ו רה י התא שרוח מע נ ו לע יבג עמה נ ה . What were the beginnings of R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus? At the age of twenty-two, he had not yet studied Torah. His father was very rich and had many plowmen working for him. One day R. Eliezer's brothers were plowing arable ground [in a valley] while he was plowing a stony plot [on a hill]. שיב ול לע יבג עמה נ ה וכו ,' מא ' ול בא י ו פמ נ י המ התא ] הכוב [ אמש רעטצמ וכו ,' לע יבג עמה נ ה , רמא ול אל ו , רמא ול לוהמ התא הכוב , רמא ול יא נ י הכוב אלא אש נ י שקבמ וללמ ד הרות , רמא ול הור י ןב מש נ ה םיעורש הנש התא אוהת שקבמ וללמ ד הרות , אלא חק ךל השא והול די נב םי אוהת לומ ןכי בל תי רפסה . Presently he sat down and wept. His father asked, "Why are you weeping? Are you distressed because you have to plow a stony plot? From now on, you will plow arable land." But he sat down on the arable land and wept again. The father asked, "Why are you weeping? Are you distressed because you are plowing arable land [in the heat of the valley]?" R. Eliezer: "No." The father: "Then why are you weeping?" R.