In today’s page of Talmud we learn that a number of important communal and religious tasks were paid for by Temple funds. These included wages for teachers and kashrut inspectors, and those who were tasked with keeping all the Torah scrolls intact.
שקלים י, ב (4:2)
רִבִּי אָחָא רִבִּי תַנְחוּם בַּר חִייָה בְשֵׁם רִבִּי שִׂמְלַאי. מַגִּיהֵי סֵפֶר הֶעֲזָרָה נוֹטְלִין שְׂכָרָן מִתְּרוּמַת הַלִּשְׁכָּה
Rabbi Acha said that Rabbi Tanchum bar Chiyya said in the name of Rabbi Simlai: The proofreaders of the Torah scroll that was kept in the Temple courtyard collect their wages from the collection of the chamber.
According to the medieval commentator Rashi, there was a single Sefer Torah that dated from the time of Ezra the Scribe, and it was against this editio princeps that all others were compared, and when needed, corrected. (Rashi’s comment depends on whether the reading in the Shekalim is “The Torah in the Azarah” (Courtyard of the Temple) or “The Torah of Ezra.”)
רשי מועד קטן יח,ב
אפילו בספר עזרא. ס"ת של עזרא ואני שמעתי עזרה בה' ופי' ספר מוגה היה בעזרה שממנו היו מגיהים כל ספרי גולה
In another tradition, the Sefer Torah in question dated not from Ezra the Scribe, but from Moses himself.
רשי בבא בתרא, יד, ב
ספר עזרה.ספר שכתב משה ובו קורין בעזרה פרשת המלך בהקהל וכהן גדול ביה"כ
The immutability of the text of the Torah has long been a cherished principle of Judaism. It is nice to think that all of our Torah scrolls are identical. But they’re not. In fact, you could not read from the very Sefer Torah used by Rashi himself in a synagogue today, for it is possul (legally invalid). Want to know why? Read on…
The Hardest Rashi in the Torah
It all begins with a rather innocuous comment made by Rashi in explaining a verse in Exodus that describes how God and Moses communicated.
שמות פרק כה פסוק כב
וְנוֹעַדְתִּי לְךָ שָׁם וְדִבַּרְתִּי אִתְּךָ מֵעַל הַכַּפּרֶת מִבֵּין שְׁנֵי הַכְּרֻבִים אֲשֶׁר עַל אֲרן הָעֵדֻת אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר אֲצַוֶּה אוֹתְךָ אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
There I will meet with you, and I will impart to you—from above the cover, from between the two cherubim that are on top of the Ark of the Testimony—all that I will command you concerning the Israelite people.
רש"י שמות פרק כה פסוק כב
ואת כל אשר אצוה אותך אל בני ישראל - הרי וי"ו זו יתירה וטפלה, וכמוהו הרבה במקרא, וכה תפתר ואת אשר אדבר עמך שם, את כל אשר אצוה אותך אל בני ישראל הוא
This ו of the word ואת is redundant and without import; there are many sentences similar to this in Scripture. However if you wish to explain this ו the verse must be interpreted as follows: [I shall speak with thee from above the cover] and that which (ואת) I shall speak to you will be everything I shall command thee concerning the children of Israel.
So according to Rashi, the letter vav (ו) of the word and (ואת) is redundant. The problem is, none of our Torah scrolls today have the redundant vav. They all spell the word as את, plain and simple, two letters, not three. This means that the Torah scroll Rashi was using (and presumably all of those in the area where he lived) had a different text, at least in so far as this word is concerned, and would be considered invalid for use, until that extra letter was carefully scraped off. To repeat: Rashi was using a possul Sefer Torah.
This was made clear by Berliner in his 1860 commentary on Rashi:
רשי על התורה. הערות ובאורים ע"י אברהם ברלינר (1866), ירושלום: פלדהיים תש"ל (1970)
It would seem that according to Rashi, the word את is written ואת. And this is found in the explanations of the Ibn Ezra and Chizkuni.
The Editio Princeps of Rashi 1475
Perhaps though, this is an error? Perhaps Rashi never said anything of the sort, and the comment we have of “Rashi” is corrupted? This is the explanation given by Chavel, in his own critical edition of Rashi on the Torah, published in 1982:
1982 פירוש רשי על התורה, שוול ירושלים
At the end of footnote 35 Chavel concludes that “in the manuscripts [of Rashi] this reading is absent.”
Chavel may have been onto something. Here is the editio princeps of Rashi, the 1475 Regio di Calabria edition of Rashi, which was (fun fact) the very first Hebrew book ever printed. It now lives in a library in Parma: Note that it lacks all this business of an extra vav.
פירוש רשי על התורה דפוס ראשון רגי"ו די קלבריה רל"ה (1475) הספר העברי הראשון שהופיע בדפוס, שנת הדפסתו צויינה צילום העותק היחיד בעולם מספרית פארמה
Unfortunately, Chavel’s explanation is rather problematic. First, Ibn Ezra and Chizkuni both read ואת, and second, according to Prof. Shnayer Leiman, there are at least 27 Bible manuscripts that read ואת.
Prof. Shnayer Leiman and the Manuscript Evidence
In a booklet publication that addresses this very problematic Rashi, Prof. Leiman (Professor Emeritus of Jewish History and Literature in the Department of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College) examined nearly thirty manuscripts. Some of them removed from Rashi anything that conflicts with the accepted text of the Torah. Others (like the Regensburg manuscript) removed the entire problematic Rashi, while still others added a marginal note to try and explain what was going on. Here are Leiman’s findings:
All the evidence uncovered By Leiman points to Rashi’s Torah scroll reading ואת (and so being invalid). “Based on this assumption,” he wrote, “all other readings in the manuscripts and the early printed editions can be accounted for without sophistry and hair-splitting.”
Why we do not make a blessing when writing a Sefer Torah
For some readers this is rather shocking, while others may shrug their shoulders and say, “well of course texts gets corrupted over time.” But according to Rabbi J. David Bleich of Yeshiva University, (With Perfect Faith, Ktav 1983 p365) the Eighth Principle of Maimonides affirms
not simply the validity of the mesorah, or tradition, which postulates that the Torah was transmitted by Moses, but also the belief that the Torah which is in our possession was handed down by Moses in its entirety and that no additions or changes were made at any subsequent time. The Talmud, Sanhedrin 99a, declares that denial of the divine origin of a single word or letter of the Torah is tantamount to rejection of the Torah in its entirety.
Which puts the believing Jew into rather an awkward position, since clearly the text of Rashi’s Torah was not entirely the same as ours.
Why we Cannot make a Blessing over the Writing of a new Sefer torah
The question of the authenticity of the Torah texts was raised by no less a defender of Jewish tradition than Rabbi Moses Schreiber (1762–1839) known as the Chatam Sofer. He was asked why we do not make a blessing when writing a Sefer Torah, since doing so is itself a mitzvah. His answer was simple: since the text is corrupted, we cannot be certain what it being written today conforms to the original text. Here is the original:
שו"ת חתם סופר חלק א (אורח חיים) סימן נב
שלום לתלמידי הותיק האברך מו"ה וואלף כהן נ"י
ועל דברי מכתבך פלפול ארוך שאינו נוגע לדינא הלכה למעשה לשעתו לא אוכל ליקח מועד לעיין ולהשיב מפני טרדות רבות להשיב לנצרכים הלכה למעשה, אך מ"ש מ"ט לא מברכים על מ"ע של כתיבת ס"ת לרמב"ם [ה' ס"ת פ"ז ה"א] ולרוב הפוסקים... יפה הרגשת:
ומה שהשיב לך רב א' הטעם שלא תקנו ברכה משום דעשיית המצוה נמשך זמן רב...
אבל לע"ד אין קושי' זו צריכה לפנים כי אילו היו חז"ל בקיאין בחסרות ויתירות היו מתקנים ברכה לס"ת אבל יען שהם עצמם לא היו בקיאין כמבואר בקידושין למ"ד ע"א דאפילו בפסוקי לא בקיאין, ועוד איכא כמה פעמים דהמסורה פליג אהש"ס וכותבים כהמסורות ולהש"ס פסול הס"ת, ותימא איכא במסכת נדה ל"ג ע"א ובתוס' ד"ה והנושא כתיב חסר וי"ו יע"ש דלדינא קיי"ל כהש"ס ולענין כתיבת ס"ת כתבינן מלא בוי"ו, ואף על גב דמהר"ם לונזאני בספר אור תורה [פ' מצורע ט"ו - י'] נדחק ליישב מ"מ דוחק הוא, ועוד ממעבירם לא תי' שלום וכהאי גונא טובא, וכיון שכן וקיי"ל ס"ת שחסר אות א' לא נקרא ס"ת כמבואר מלשון הש"ס פ' הקומץ [ל' ע"א] אפשר ס"ת חסר אות א' וכו' א"כ ממילא א"א לברך בשום אופן כנלע"ד
…there are many times when the traditional Torah text is not identical with the text cited in the Talmud…and since the rule is that a Sefer Torah that is missing even a single letter cannot be called a Sefer Torah…it is impossible to make a blessing over writing it under any circumstances.
Today’s page of Talmud demonstrates that correcting a Torah scroll with a corrupted text is not a new problem. It goes back to Rashi and a millennium before him. It was a problem that needed fixing even when the Temple in Jerusalem stood.
Want More? You may also like this post: How Many Letters are There in a Sefer Torah?
