Whoever translates a [Biblical] verse literally is a liar, and one who adds to it is a blasphemer and a libeler. When then is translation? ‘Our Targum’ [that is, the oldest translation of the Torah, the targum by Onkeles some 2,000 years ago].”
Thus says Rabbi Judah in the Talmud (Kiddushin 49a).
Each of his three statements is baffling. A literal translation is a lie? An interpretation is blasphemy? There is only one valid translation of the Torah?
What did the Talmudic sage Rabbi Judah mean?
As a consequence of literal translations of the Torah, the integrity of the Torah — and the reputation of the Jewish people — have suffered for generations. There was actually someone named Noah? He made an Ark? There was a flood? Ha ha. The Torah is a silly book and its adherents are a silly people. Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai without eating or drinking? Absurd, no? But no, not absurd, says Rabbi Judah. Rather: a lie. Whoever translates a [Biblical] verse literally is a liar. Rabbi Judah says: If you want to understand the Torah, walk away from simplicities that are foolish only on their face. Perhaps it is a compliment to the Torah — an implicit act of reverence — to take the Torah literally when no similar literary tract is taken this way. Compliment or not, literal translation of the Torah is a lie. Rabbi Judah asks: What’s wrong with taking the sacred text at face value? He answers: Everything.
What, then, is the moral escape hatch, the alternative to a literal translation? Add to the Torah. As we might say today, “contextualize” it. Add some background or foreground. Or personalize it. Privatize it. Bring in other religions or other literatures. Add something, anything, to make the Torah “work.” Not so fast, says Rabbi Judah sharply. Such strategies are blasphemy and libel. The Divine word is qualitatively different from the human perspective. Know: the Torah is holy. It is the Divine word. By definition, it cannot be added to.
Rabbi Judah seems to have been the first to articulate a Catch 22. If I translate the Torah literally, I am a liar. OK. So I won’t translate it literally. But what’s the alternative? I add something to the literal translation. Woe! Now I am a blasphemer and a libeler. Catch 22. What can I do?
I can read the Targum Onkeles.
That is Rabbi Judah’s solution.
Really, now, how does that solution actually solve anything? First of all, Targum Onkeles is in Aramaic. Of much greater note, very often Onkeles does seem to translate literally. True enough, he will occasionally add a phrase or translate a word atypically in order to lend a different or a larger mean to a verse. This doesn’t happen often, and even when it does, it gives the reader a very localized insight into a single word or phrase. Doesn’t the Torah require much more than the translation of a word or phrase here and there? The Torah is deep. How can consultation with Targum Onkeles convey its depth? What does Rabbi Judah mean? How does his validation of Targum Onkeles enable me to avoid being a liar or a blasphemer?
I think Rabbi Judah is saying this: The Torah may be a masterful work of literature — my late teacher Rabbi Pesach Oratz, a scholar of literature, would say, “If G-d could create the world, He couldn’t be a master stylist?” — still, in essence, the Torah is more than literature. It is not comparable to any other book. If I take its words at face value, I’ve turned the Torah into something it isn’t. I’ve degraded the Torah. I am a liar. If I translate a verse literally and think that I have thereby understood it, I have missed the depths embedded in every word of the Torah. I’ve lied.
At the other extreme, if I add to the Torah, I’ve made it say what it doesn’t say, for the Torah is not me speaking. It is G-d speaking, and I cannot put words into G-d’s mouth, so to speak. If I do, I blaspheme and libel. I blaspheme by acting as if I am G-d, for I add to His word as I see fit. I pretend that my addition to the Torah and G-d’s word are on the same plane. I deny that they are qualitatively different. I blaspheme, and thereby commit libel, too, for the result of what I add to the Torah is not what the Torah says. I’ve libeled the Torah.
At this point, Rabbi Judah seems to have rendered the Torah irrelevant. I am not allowed to translate it literally, that is, to take it for what it seems to say. I am not allowed to add to the Torah, for that would be presumptuous. The only alternative seems to be: Ignore the Torah. Leave it aside. Whatever human faculty I bring to the Torah will apparently ruin it.
As for Rabbi Judah’s solution — consult the Onkeles translation — that only helps if I’m fluent in Aramaic, and even then, it only helps in very limited fashion, for a given word or phrase.
What now?
I think Rabbi Judah’s point is this: If you want to translate the Torah, turn to the authoritative translation. If you want to study the Torah, turn to other authoritative teachers. There are only a few such teachers in each generation. But there are a lot of generations. The number of authoritative teachers, while extremely rare compared to the overall size of the Jewish population across history, add up. In fact, it is impossible for any Jew today, no matter how brilliant and dedicated to Torah study, to consult all of Jewish history’s authoritative teachers.
What are authoritative teachers of Torah? They don’t “add” to the Torah; they unpack what it already says. They are responsible, principled, highly learned expositors of the Torah; they don’t use the Torah as a prooftext for values or policies they’ve acquired elsewhere. Creatively, they render explicit what is implicit in the Torah, or what is entangled in knotty texts of the Torah. Rabbi Judah’s instruction to turn to “our Targum” is a paradigm. Onkeles was not the only responsible, principled expositor of the Torah, but he remains the model.
Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein summed all this up, having in mind his teacher and father-in-law, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik:
“Interpret too literally, and you run the risk of ossification and obscurantism. Range too far afield, and you raise the specter of blasphemous deviation. Only ‘our Targum,’ traditional creative exposition, in the hands of a thoroughly responsible and richly innovative master, hits the mark.”
Here are two examples of Onkeles’ authoritative readings of verses in the Torah:
Genesis 2:7: “And the L-rd G-d created man from dust from the earth, and He blew into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a living being.”
What is a “living being?” What is man? Onkeles writes: “Man’s essence is the power of intelligent speech.” Man is a “speaking being.” In one deft phrase, Onkeles defined the human being and differentiated human from animal.
Exodus 23: 19: “You shall not cook a kid [of goats] in its mother’s milk.”
Onkeles renders, “you shall not cook meat with milk.” In one deft stroke, Onkeles serves as the basis for a law of kashrut. The prohibition is not limited to a kid and its mother. The Code of Jewish Law explains the reference to a kid and its mother as expressing the way meat was cooked with milk at the time the Torah was given. Onkeles renders explicit the Torah’s meaning: the prohibition against cooking (kosher) meat with milk generally.
© IJN 2024
