The author: When it comes down to it, do you not see (in Pesachim 117) that they were divided about Halleluyah and kesyah, and Yedidyah and Merchavyah, if they were a single word of two; and is this not something dependent upon the writing? And even so they were divided! If so, there is no escape from admitting that the sefarim were mangled by them.
The guest: Chalila to say so, that the sefarim developed errors. Rather, without the sefarim being spoiled, it is easy for a scribe to bring close or bring distant a single letter from her fellow, until it is not distinguishable if it is a single word or two; which therefore, according to my opinion, the tzofim {=prophets} needed to establish menatzpach {=the final letters, mem nun tzaddi peh chaf sofit}, so that it would be recognizable that the place was one of the end of a word -- for they saw that the scribes were not careful with distancing a one word from another, or with keeping the letters of a single word close, one to the other, as was fitting (*).
(*) From this also came about that which is written in Hoshea 6:5:
umishpatay kaOr yetzei {as per the JPS translation, and as they translate in Targum Yonatan, in the Greek translation {LXX=the Septuagint}, and the Syriac translation {=the Peshitta}.
{Note: Judaica Press follows Rashi's explanation of it as a question, based on the word division we do have, and translates "now will your verdicts come out to the light?"}
And also that which is written in Micha 7:4:
yesharam, "the most upright of them is as a mesucha {thorn hedge}", just as טוֹבָם כְּחֵדֶק.
{Both JPS and Judaica Press write the word "than," thus considering the first mem of mimesucha to be part of the word, and write "the most upright" rather than "their most upright."}
However, besides this, and besides for the plene and deficient spellings, there was not found a dispute in Israel in the matter of the writing of the Holy Books.
And besides all of this, if Ezra instituted the nikkud {orthography}, behold all that Chazal said in the matter of the vowels and the trup without dispute, there is no doubt that such was written in their sefarim from the days of Ezra, and that no error or mangling fell into their sefarim at all; and if so, when the Chachmei Teveria came afterwards, how did they send forth their hands to change also that which was accepted by our Sages?
Do you not see that in Kiddushin 30, they say: The Sages learnt {in a brayta}: 5,888 pesukim is how a sefer Torah is divided into pesukim. And with all this, the Sages of Teveria only placed in the Torah 5,845. Behold they are missing 43 from what our Sages said. And are Sages stated this plainly, without dispute amongst them.
And so our Sages say (Shabbat 30b): And what is meant that it {Kohelet} is internally contradictory? It is written {Kohelet 7:3}
ג טוֹב כַּעַס, מִשְּׂחוֹק: כִּי-בְרֹעַ פָּנִים, יִיטַב לֵב. | 3 Vexation is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the countenance the heart may be gladdened. |
ב לִשְׂחוֹק, אָמַרְתִּי מְהוֹלָל; וּלְשִׂמְחָה, מַה-זֹּה עֹשָׂה. | 2 I said of laughter: 'It is mad'; and of mirth: 'What doth it accomplish?' |
And so too in Pesachim (31), and in other places, it would seem that they read {in Bemidbar 5:7} וְנָתַן לַאֲשֶׁר אָשָׁם לוֹ with a kametz under the shin, such that they made it a noun, "to he to whom the guilt is," and the Sages of Teveria made it a verb.
{putting a patach under the shin:
And so too upon {Shemot 30:23, in Ki Tisa}:
Netivot haShalom.
Behold that there is no doubt that the Sages of Teveriah did not believe that the reading which was to our Rabbis, of blessed memory, was in their hands in written form from Ezra, for if so, they would not have argued upon it in a place where there was not to Razal any dispute in it {J: unless they did so from ignorance, or felt they could argue on Ezra and Chazal}; However, the believed, and they know, just as is the truth, that the reading did not reach out Sages except Orally, and because of this, it was possible that it was corrupted over a length of time. Therefore, they did not heed it in every place that it appeared to them that it did not rest well, according to the simple meaning of the Scriptures.
No comments:
Post a Comment