Multivalence in Asher's Blessing

Summary: An interesting example of multi-valence in the Sifrei's interpretation of Asher's bracha, in parashat veZos haBeracha. Does the mi mean "more than" or "with"? Or does it mean both simultaneously? Also, why I believe Rashi's girsa of the Sifrei is better than Ramban's variant.

Post: In parashat zot haBrachah, we read the following pasuk, about Asher's blessing in Judaica Press:

24. And of Asher he said: "May Asher be blessed with sons. He will be pleasing to his brothers, and immerse his foot in oil.

כד. וּלְאָשֵׁר אָמַר בָּרוּךְ מִבָּנִים אָשֵׁר יְהִי רְצוּי אֶחָיו וְטֹבֵל בַּשֶּׁמֶן רַגְלוֹ:

Judaica Press, as I understand it, tries to translate in accordance with Rashi, but here I think they missed the ball slightly. Here is Rashi's explanation:

May Asher be blessed with sons: I saw in Sifrei the following (33:24): “Among all of the tribes, you will not find one that is blessed with sons as Asher was.” But I do not know in which regard.

ברוך מבנים אשר: ראיתי בספרי אין לך בכל השבטים שנתברך בבנים כאשר, ואיני יודע כיצד:

Thus, he cites the Sifrei. Before we deal with attempting to answer Rashi's difficulty -- what Rashi does not know -- let us consider the Sifrei on this.

There are three straightforward ways of translating this pasuk, and specifically the phrase בָּרוּךְ מִבָּנִים אָשֵׁר. In Targum Onkelos, we have:

לג,כד וּלְאָשֵׁר אָמַר, בָּרוּךְ מִבָּנִים אָשֵׁר; יְהִי רְצוּי אֶחָיו, וְטֹבֵל בַּשֶּׁמֶן רַגְלוֹ.

וּלְאָשֵׁר אֲמַר, בְּרִיךְ מִבִּרְכַת בְּנַיָּא אָשֵׁר; יְהֵי רַעֲוָא לְאַחוֹהִי, וְיִתְרַבַּא בְּתַפְנוּקֵי מַלְכִין.

This is מִבִּרְכַת בְּנַיָּא, "of the blessing of sons". Thus, Asher's blessing is that of sons. This is echoed by the Septuagint:
24 καὶ τῷ ᾿Ασὴρ εἶπεν· εὐλογημένος ἀπὸ τέκνων ᾿Ασὴρ καὶ ἔσται δεκτὸς τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς αὐτοῦ. βάψει ἐν ἐλαίῳ τὸν πόδα αὐτοῦ·
24 And to Aser he said, Aser [is] blessed with children; and he shall be acceptable to his brethren: he shall dip his foot in oil.

A second possibility is that given by Targum Pseudo-Yonatan. He writes:
בריך הוא מִבניא דיעקב

That is, "he is blessed more than the other sons of Yaakov."

A third possibility is given in Targum Yerushalmi:
בריך הוא מִבניא

This is a literal translation which, in maintaining simply the mem without elaboration, sustains the ambiguity of the original Hebrew in the Aramaic translation.

Now consider Rashi, again:

May Asher be blessed with sons: I saw in Sifrei the following (33:24): “Among all of the tribes, you will not find one that is blessed with sons as Asher was.” But I do not know in which regard.

ברוך מבנים אשר: ראיתי בספרי אין לך בכל השבטים שנתברך בבנים כאשר, ואיני יודע כיצד:

Rashi (and the Sifrei) is selecting both possible interpretations. The blessing is one of the aspect of having (good, many) children. But in this blessing, he is better than all the tribes. Rashi is not just noting the demonstrated fulfillment of this blessing. Rather, he is noting the ambiguity, and of the two choices, is selecting both. If so, Judaica Press should have offered a translation which brings to the fore both translations simultaneously, such as "May Asher be blessed, of all the sons, with sons."

As Rashi has the Sifrei, so do we have it. And the Gra does not emend the text.

Turning to consider Ramban, we see that he has a different take on this:

כד): ברוך מבנים אשר -אם המ"ם תבוא ליתרון, כמ"ם תבורך מנשים (שופטים ה כד), הנחמדים מזהב (תהלים יט יא): וחברותיה, יהיה תימה איך ימעט משה שאר השבטים לאמר שיבורך אשר יותר מכל בני יעקב?ועוד שלא תתקיים ברכתו, כי לא היה כן? ורש"י כתב: 

ראיתי בספרי (ברכה שנח): אין לך בכל השבטים שנתברך מבנים כאשר, ואיני יודע כיצד. 

והנה רבותינו נתכוונו לפרש "ברוך מבנים", שיהיה מבורך בבנים רבים שיוליד, כמ"ם מבורכת ה' ארצו ממגד שמים מטל (פסוק יג), ולכך אמרו שכל שאר השבטים ברך אותם בגבורה או בנחלתם ואשר לבדו נתברך בבנים. וגרסת הנוסחאות שלנו בספרי, אין לך שנתברך בבנים כאשר. אבל קיום הברכה הזאת לא נתבאר.
ואולי היא ממה שכתוב בדברי הימים (א ז מ), כל אלה בני אשר ראשי בית האבות ברורים גבורי חילים ראשי הנשיאים והתיחסם בצבא במלחמה מספרם אנשים עשרים וששה אלף, ולא נאמר שם בשאר השבטים כשבח הזה:

He thus gives both possibilities, and doesn't like the idea that this mem is one of degree. After all, why penalize the other shevatim that they won't have as much? And further, we see no evidence that it was fulfilled.

Ramban also has a different girsa of this Sifrei, which doesn't have the spin of "more than other brothers".

If I had to choose between Rashi's girsa and Ramban's girsa, purely on the merits of their respective contents, I would prefer that of Rashi. There is an ambiguity in the Biblical text, as we see in the various Targumim. And the midrash is all about undiscovered, unexpected, and yes, improbable, meaning. The peshat reading suggests one way, but reading it deeper, we see another possibility. If I had to rank the peshat value of each of these readings, I would say that Onkelos is closest to peshat, Targum Yonatan comes second, and Sifrei comes third. But both Targum Onkelos and Targum Yonatan are peshat-oriented, since mi often means either, and being most blessed is not outside the Biblical phrase-book. Ramban even gave an example from Sefer Shofetim -- מ"ם תבורך מנשים. The improbable, hidden meaning is one that plays on the ambiguity, and the one which is multi-valent. It is not that Chazal were idiots, and were incapable of learning simple peshat. Rather, they were finely attuned to the textual ambiguities. Rashi's Sifrei is much more of a midrash than Ramban's.

Now, Rashi did not see where it was fulfilled. In truth, I don't think we need to look for a fulfillment. Chazal did not necessarily think it through to that extent. Why should we need to look to an explicit pasuk for fulfillment? Their point was to exploit the ambiguity. And this is a blessing, from a navi. Presumably it was fulfilled, or will be fulfilled in the future. This fulfillment could be in number, at some point in Jewish history, or in quality of the children. Therefore, despite Ramban's objection that we never see it fulfilled, we should not reject this reading of the Sifrei.

We may even adopt the fulfillment suggested by Ramban himself. As he wrote,

ואולי היא ממה שכתוב בדברי הימים (א ז מ), כל אלה בני אשר ראשי בית האבות ברורים גבורי חילים ראשי הנשיאים והתיחסם בצבא במלחמה מספרם אנשים עשרים וששה אלף, ולא נאמר שם בשאר השבטים כשבח הזה

There is thus a praise of the children of Binyamin which is not found regarding any other shevet. Perhaps this is indeed what Chazal had in mind as fulfillment of the blessing, according to the Sifrei. But if not, the interpretation can still stand on its own.

I would also argue with the way Ramban interprets Onkelos, in a part of his commentary I did not quote above:

ועל דרך הפשט, ברוך מבנים אשר - כטעם יהי רצוי אחיו, יאמר שיהיה אשר מבורך מפי כל בני יעקב אביהם ורצוי לכל אחיו.
והטעם, כי ארצו שמנה ומשם יבואו כל מעדני מלך לכל השבטים, וכולם יאמרו תמיד יברך ה' הארץ הזאת אשר תוציא כפירות האלה, ויהיה מ"ם "מבנים" כמ"ם מה' יצא הדבר (בראשית כד נ), מאל אביך (שם מט כה). ואונקלוס תרגם בריך מברכת בניא אשר, נראה שרצה לומר כי יבואו מכל השבטים לאשר לקנות השמן, ויהיו יהודה וישראל רוכליו בחטי מנית ופנג ודבש וצרי וכל זמרת הארץ שיביאו הכל וימכרו לו ויקנו השמן, והנה הוא מבורך מכל הטוב הנמצא לכל השבטים, והוא טעם "רצוי אחיו" שימכרו לו ויקנו ממנו לרצון להם:

Certainly we can say that Onkelos' interpretation is in line with what Ramban regards as peshat. However, that would mean considering banim to mean shevatim, rather than (abundance of, quality of) children. This is more explicit in the translation of Targum Yonatan.

I really like my setup better, in which there are two parallel possibilities, and Sifrei chooses both.

I cannot prove that this is what Tg Onkelos and Tg Yonatan mean, but my sense is that it is so.