Let's Study Onkelos

LET’S STUDY ONKELOS A Guide for Rabbis, Teachers and Torah Students to Study and Teach the Parashat Hashavua through the Eyes of its Most Important Translator By Stanley M. Wagner and Israel Drazin Based on the five volume, Onkelos on the Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy), Understanding the Bible Text, by Israel Drazin and Stanley M. Wagner, published by Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem/New York, 2006-2010. STUDY GUIDE TZAV (CHAPTER 6:1–8:36) SUMMARY OF THE TORAH PORTION Moses is commanded to tell Aaron and his sons the laws of the burnt offering, the fires that must continuously burn on the altar, and the removal of ashes accumulated on the altar from the previous day’s offerings as the first service of the day; priests wore different clothes for some of their duties; a number of laws pertaining to the meal and other offerings are presented; the balance of the Torah portion pertains to: gifts that the priest receives; the thanksgiving sacrifice; the loaves of unleavened and leavened bread that were part of offerings; the disqualified sacrifice; the laws of fat and blood; the allocation of parts of the sacrifices and rituals associated with them; and the inauguration of the priests. TARGUM ONKELOS AND THE HALAKHAH: ANOTHER LOOK Much to the credit of the rabbinic sages who wanted to assure that the Torah would be a “Torah of life,” and not a sacred document that would be irrelevant to the day in and day out lives of the Jewish people in every age, the expansion of the Oral Law over the centuries provided structure, meaning, and direction for Jews. The biblical authority to extract such guidance from the Torah, through the application of hermeneutical rules of interpretation, is based on Deuteronomy 17:8-13, which mandates that “In accordance with the word of the Torah that they will teach you and the ruling that they will tell you, you must do” (verse 11). 1 Often, however, the passages in the Torah from which the sages derived many laws do not state the laws explicitly and there is seemingly no connection between the literal meaning of the verses and what the rabbis read into it. At times, the verses seem to indicate something quite opposite from the rules the rabbis derived from them. Now, our targumist’s challenge, as translator of the Torah, was to determine whether to include the sages’ halakhic rulings that are based on their readings of the verses into his translation if he felt that their understanding is not based on what is literally in the biblical passage. He certainly had no intention to dispute these rulings or the authority of the sages. The rabbis knew this. That is why they selected his translation as the most authoritative one, and “required reading” for every Jew. He simply felt that his responsibility was to translate and not interpret the Torah. The attempts by many commentators to read into the Targum’s words halakhic opinion are misplaced. These misreadings are exactly opposite what the translator intended. This becomes clear by looking at a few samplings from this parashah. In 6:2 (pages 36 and 37)1 we read concerning the burnt offering (olah), “This is the law of the burnt offering . that is burned upon the altar all night until morning.” Our commentary, “THAT IS BURNED” (page 37), explains: Scripture’s “mokdah” is spelled with a reduced-sized “mem.” All of the Targums, as well as the Septuagint, the Samaritan bible, Sifra, and other commentaries, handle the word as if the “mem” were normal sized, as they do the “aleph” in “va’yikra” in 1:1 (see that commentary). We noted in our introduction that Onkelos attaches the letter “daled,” usually meaning “of” or “that,” to 465 words in Leviticus. We also mentioned that we will usually not point out all of these additions. However, it is worth noting here that our targumist attaches a “daled” to the Aramaic version of “mokdah” and thereby converts it from the noun “firewood”—as it is understood by Saadiah and ibn Ezra—to a verb, “that is burned” (see page 292). Our appendix (pages 292-293) comments on this word and makes the case for our view that commentators see halakhah in Onkelos that is not there: S. B. Schefftel (Biure Onkelos) argues that the targumist attached a “daled” to the Aramaic version of “mokdah”, and turned it into “that is burned,” to reflect the halakhah (Mishnah Zevachim 3:1) that objects burned on the altar are not removed even after they become unfit. Onkelos never uses the “daled” elsewhere to teach a halakhah: the targumist inserts the letter 465 times in Leviticus to enhance the clarity of the plain meaning of the text and does so here as well. As we have repeated frequently, this translation was not composed to teach halakhah and, indeed, has many non-halakhic interpretations. 1 All page numbers refer to the Onkelos on the Torah volume. 2 In 6:3 (pages 36 and 37), Scripture states, “The priest should dress in garments of linen with pants of linen next to his body.” In our commentary, “GARMENTS” (page 36), we see that, again, the targumist ignores a rabbinic halakhah: Scripture’s “mido” means “his measurement,” which is a figure of speech. Our targumist captures its intent by pluralizing it to “garments,” since the priest wore more than one garment. He also drops the pronoun “his” and uses the terminology in the next passage and in Exodus 28:42. The singular form “mido” appears only once more in Hebrew Scripture, in II Samuel 20:8, where it is also a collective term implying the plural “garments,” and it is interpreted in this way by “Targum Jonathan to the Prophets.” It occurs a third time as “k’mido” in Psalms 109:18, in a context that requires the singular, and it is therefore left in the singular by the Psalms targumist. In contrast, Sifra, the Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 23b, Saadiah, Rashi, and ibn Ezra state that Scripture’s literal singular “his measurement” signifies the priest’s shirt, mentioned in Exodus 28:40, which must be fitted to “his measurement.” Our appendix (page 293) supports our view, which is contrary to Nachmanides: Nachmanides, the originator of the practice of reading halakhah, derash, and mysticism into Onkelos, argues that the targumist’s “the priest should dress in garments of linen” reflects R. Dosa’s opinion (in the Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 12b, and Sifra) that the common priest’s belt was made of linen and was unlike the high priest’s belt, which was of blue, purple, and scarlet wool, and twined linen. All the targumist did was interpret “his measurement” as a figure of speech for a garment. The word “linen” was already in Scripture, and he left it unchanged, other than to prefix it with the implied “daled,” “of,” a very frequent targumic practice. Neither the biblical text nor Onkelos’s rendering of it suggests that every single garment worn by the priest was made exclusively of linen. In 7:16 (pages 45 and 45), the Torah instructs, “However, if the sacrifice that he offers is a vow or free will offering, it must be eaten on the same day that he will offer his sacrifice, but what remains may be eaten on the next day.” Here, we have a controversy on a vav used by the Torah in the word v’hanotar, “what remains,” as our commentary (page 44) points out: WHAT REMAINS. Rashi contends that the introductory “vav” of “v’hanotar” here is superfluous. He explains that there are many examples of superfluous “vavs” in Scripture, such as Genesis 36:24 and Daniel 8:13. Saadiah translates the word as if it lacked the “vav”. However, ibn Ezra argues that the “vav” is necessary here, and this is how Onkelos renders the word. In our appendix to this verse (pages 293 and 294), we make our case again: Adler (Netina LaGer), whose Targum commentary is replete with halakhic interpretations of Onkelos, argues that our targumist retains the Bible’s “vav” in “v’hanotar” to teach the halakhah (found in Sifra) that the flesh of the votive or freewill sacrifice may be eaten on the second day after it is offered only if it is left by 3 chance. His interpretation is unlikely. First, our targumist is literal and nothing should be read from a literal rendering that does not differ from the verse. Second, he also preserves the “vav” in the Genesis verse cited by Rashi without this or any other halakhic implication. Third, he does not retain a “vav” or any other letter elsewhere for this or a similar purpose. Fourth, it is difficult to see how the single letter could imply the Sifra teaching; Nachmanides, who mentions the teaching, does not base it on the “vav”. Finally it is possible that our targumist simply felt, like ibn Ezra, S.R. Hirsch (The Pentateuch: Leviticus, page 205), and others that the “vav” was not superfluous. The next example will show how the targumist differs from almost all translators who base their translation on the rabbinical halakhic understanding of passages, but not the literal meaning of the words. It shows how the targumist does not place halakhah in his translation. In 7:30 (pages 48 and 49), the Torah informs us concerning the shelamim, “in his own hands he shall bring the sacrifice . that the breast l’hanif otah tenufah (may be waved for a wave offering) before the Lord.” That is the way almost all translators translate the verb lehanif and the noun tenufah.

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