Post-Mosaic Additions to the Torah?

Marc B. Shapiro

In his post here, Ben Zion Katz deals with medieval rabbinic views regarding post-Mosaic additions to the Torah. Katz refers to The Limits of Orthodox Theology, and I have mentioned many additional sources in Seforim Blog posts. (A couple of people have commented that in a few recent publications on this topic it seems that the authors used my writings without any acknowledgment. I would only say that I don’t have a copyright on any sources. Once I discuss the sources publicly, then anyone is free to make use of them. It would, however, be appropriate for these authors to at least mention my book and posts if that is how they learned of these sources.)

In Limits, pp 109-110, I mention that the Tosafist R. Avigdor Katz cites interpretations found in R. Judah he-Hasid’s commentary to the Torah both with regard to post-Mosaic additions to the Torah and about material being removed from the Torah and placed in the book of Psalms. (While R. Avigdor only refers to one chapter [Psalm 136] being removed from the Torah, R. Judah he-Hasid speaks of this and all other anonymous Psalms written by Moses.) R. Avigdor does not mention R. Judah he-Hasid, and regarding the removal of the chapter from the Torah and placing it in the book of Psalms, before citing this interpretation he states, “I have heard.” Thus, I think it is fair to say that the “critical” interpretations he mentions were “in the air.”

H. J. Zimmels published the two passages from R. Avigdor just mentioned,[1] but there is another comment that appears as a note to R. Avigdor’s manuscript. It has recently been published by Miriam Weitman,[2] and states:

וישם את אפרים לפני מנשה פי‘ לא על יעקב אמ‘, אל‘ משה רבינ‘ שם ראש דגל אפרי‘ לפני מנשה בעבור שיעקב אמ‘ ואחיו הקטן יגדל ממנו, ויהושע או אנשי כנסת הגדול‘ כתבו, דאי משה כתבו אם היה לו [צ“ל היה לו לומר] אני שמתי כמו שאומ‘ אחרכ‘ ואני נתתי לך שכם אחד על אחיך

This interpretation, speaking of a post-Mosaic addition to the Torah, is also found in R. Judah he-Hasid’s commentary. 

In a previous post, available here, I mentioned R. Shlomo Fisher’s rejection of R. Moshe Feinstein’s view that R. Judah he-Hasid’s “biblical criticism” is a forgery. As R. Fisher put it, R. Moshe assumed that R. Judah he-Hasid has to accept Maimonides’ Principles, but that is not the case, and when it comes to the issue of complete Mosaic authorship, R. Judah he-Hasid disagrees with Maimonides. R. Uri Sherki has apparently also discussed this matter with R. Fisher, as he cites R. Fisher as stating that the issue of whether post-Mosaic additions are religiously objectionable is a dispute between the medieval Ashkenazic and Sephardic sages. See here.

What this means is that in medieval Ashkenaz it was not regarded as heretical to posit post-Mosaic additions, while the opposite was the case in the Sephardic world (and this would explain why Ibn Ezra could only hint to his view). I am skeptical of this point, particularly because Ibn Ezra’s secrets are, in fact, explained openly by people who lived in the Sephardic world.[3] Yet Haym Soloveitchik has also recently made same point, and pointed to differences between Jews living in the Christian and Muslim worlds. His argument is that since medieval Ashkenazic Jews were not confronted with a theological challenge of the sort Jews had to deal with in the Islamic world, where Jews were accused of altering the text of the Pentateuch, there was no assumption in medieval Ashkenazic Europe that belief in what we know as Maimonides’ Eighth Principle was a binding doctrine of faith.

Here is some of what Soloveitchik writes (the emphasis does not appear in the original):

One tanna had stated, simply and with no ado, that the last eight verses were of Divine origin but not of Mosaic authorship, and R. Yehudah he-Hasid added that there were several more verses that were not penned by Moses. Was such a position seen as being thoroughly mistaken? Most probably. Was it viewed as odd and non-conformist? Undoubtedly; though hardly more eccentric than R. Yehudah’s view that King David, to flesh out his book of Psalms, lifted from the text of the “original” Pentateuch many anonymous “psalms” that Moses had penned! Were these strange and misguided views, however, perceived as being in any way heretical or even dangerous? At that time and place, certainly not. They contained no concession to the surrounding culture, opened no Pandora’s Box of questions. Indeed, one can take the religious temperature of R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s explanation by the matter of fact way European medieval commentators (rishonim) treated the passages in Menahot and Bava Batra where the tannaitic dictum of Joshua’s authorship is brought.[4] In their world, these words did not abut any slippery slope of a “documentary hypothesis” or of “Jewish forgery”. No need, therefore, to reinterpret this passage or to forfend any untoward implications. What concerned R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s contemporaries, the Tosafists, in this statement were its practical halakhic implications for the Sabbath Torah readings, not its theological or dogmatic ones, for to them, as to R. Yehudah, there were none.[5] 

One of the biggest theological changes in Orthodoxy in the last decades—perhaps the sources collected in Limits were significant in this regard—is the acknowledgment that asserting limited post-Mosaic additions to the Torah is not to be regarded as heretical.[6] In Limits and subsequent blog posts I have recorded around thirty-five rishonim and aharonim who claim that Ibn Ezra believed in post-Mosaic additions. When you throw in R. Judah he-Hasid, R. Avigdor Katz, R. Menahem Tziyoni, and other sources I referred to in Limits, it is hard to convince people this is a heretical position, despite what Maimonides’ Eighth Principle states. It is also hard to convince them that this matter has been “decided” in accordance with Maimonides’ view. R. Mordechai Breuer states flatly that the legitimacy of Ibn Ezra’s opinion cannot be denied.[7] 

אין אני יודע, אם רוח חכמים נוחה מהדברים האלה. מכל מקום הם יצאו מפי אבן עזרא, ושוב לא נוכל לשלול את הלגיטימיות שלהם

Yet fifty years ago, speaking about these opinions would have been regarded as incredibly controversial, if not heretical in many eyes. Today, it seems like it is no big deal, and I have in mind not just Modern Orthodox circles but in the intellectual haredi world as well. It is significant that it its affirmation of Torah mi-Sinai, the Rabbinical Council of America did not deny the existence of views that speak of small additions to the Torah, but instead noted the great difference between these views and modern critical approaches. Here is the relevant paragraph (the entire statement can be seen here).

When critical approaches to the Torah’s authorship first arose, every Orthodox rabbinic figure recognized that they strike at the heart of the classical Jewish faith. Whatever weight one assigns to a small number of remarks by medieval figures regarding the later addition of a few scattered phrases, there is a chasm between them and the position that large swaths of the Torah were written later – all the more so when that position asserts that virtually the entire Torah was written by several authors who, in their ignorance, regularly provided erroneous information and generated genuine, irreconcilable contradictions. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, none of the above mentioned figures would have regarded such a position as falling within the framework of authentic Judaism

Without getting into the content of this statement which I believe is generally correct,[8] what is important for our purposes is that I do not believe such a statement would have been issued even fifty years ago, as it acknowledges the existence of “remarks by medieval figures” that are at odds with  Maimonides’ Eighth Principle.[9] 

What are we to make of the approach to Torah mi-Sinai in R. Judah he-Hasid’s “school”? Weitman suggests a few possibilities, one of which is that they believed in the existence of a “continuing revelation,” namely, that the Torah continued to be revealed even after the initial revelation to Moses. This would be an extension of the talmudic view that the last eight verses of the Torah were written by Joshua. While some might find this approach quite provocative, I think it is actually the meaning not just of R. Judah’s “school” but of Ibn Ezra and pretty much everyone who believed in intentional post-Mosaic additions. That is, they believed that these were added by prophets, as they would have regarded as completely unacceptable, indeed heretical, the notion that the Torah contains non-prophetic verses.

One of the most important sources in this matter is R. Judah he-Hasid, as he is a universally recognized rishon who pointed to post-Mosaic additions. Not surprisingly, his opinion is often quoted, and the censorship of his commentary has also been widely discussed. R. Judah he-Hasid’s words have been read in the exact same way by the greatest Torah scholars as well as the greatest academic scholars, and yet, what if everyone is mistaken? This is the claim of Eran Viezel, who in a recent article has argued that the passages in R. Judah he-Hasid’s commentary that point to post-Mosaic additions were actually written by R. Judah he-Hasid’s son, R. Moses Zaltman, a figure who does not have the religious authority of his famous father.[10] Since Viezel feels that he has removed the veil of “Bible critic” from R. Judah he-Hasid, he also wonders if R. Moses, and not R. Judah he-Hasid, should be identified as the source of the claim that texts were removed from the Pentateuch and placed in the Psalms. In this case, however, he acknowledges that there is no evidence to support his suggestion.

I have gone through Viezel’s arguments, and while I agree that it seems that R. Moses is the author of the “critical” comment to Leviticus 2:13, I don’t see this when it comes to the other passages. More importantly, none of the scholars I have consulted in this matter accept Viezel’s argument, so I don’t think we need to revise all the discussions about R. Judah he-Hasid and substitute his son, R. Moses. I would also add that it is precisely the other two passages in R. Judah he-Hasid’s commentary that speak of post-Mosaic additions, as well as the passage that speaks of Psalms being removed from the Torah, that appear as well in R. Avigdor Katz’s commentary (with the difference noted above that R. Avigdor only speaks of one Psalm having been removed). In other words, what we have here is not some radical individual view advocated by R. Moses, but a position that was shared by others and no doubt well known.

It is noteworthy that while earlier editions of Otzar haChochma included the censored version of R. Judah he-Hasid’s commentary, the current edition includes the uncensored text. Otzar haChochma is careful not to include anything heretical on its site, so this can be seen as a “koshering,” as it were, of the uncensored commentary of R. Judah he-Hasid. Also significant is that in the new Otzar ha-Rishonim on Torah, two of the four “critical” comments in R. Judah he-Hasid’s commentary are included (Lev. 2:13, Deut. 2:8). Here is the page that includes the commentary to Deuteronomy 2:8.

As far as I know, no one has placed the Otzar ha-Rishonim in herem for including R. Judah he-Hasid’s comments. 

There is one other thing that is noteworthy about this edition of the Humash. Here is a page where you can see something called Targum Yerushalmi ha-Shalem.

This is not found in the regular Mikraot Gedolot Humash. There you only have a fragmentary Targum Yerushalmi. In academic circles, the complete Targum Yerushalmi is known as Targum Neofiti, and it was only discovered in 1949. You can read about it in Wikipedia here. The Wikipedia entry states that Neofiti is “the most important of the Palestinian Targumim, as it is by far the most complete of the Western Targumim and perhaps the earliest as well.”[11] 

Returning to Viezel, I want to now offer  some valuable information which in my opinion not only shows that Viezel’s argument is lacking, but is significant in its own right. From this point on, when speaking of important medieval Ashkenazic sages who believed that there are post-Mosaic additions in the Torah, in addition to R. Judah he-Hasid and R. Avigdor Katz, we have to add R. Judah he-Hasid’s student, the great R. Elazar of Worms. This at least is Amos Geula’s identification of the author of an unpublished medieval commentary on the Torah, and for the purposes of this post I will assume Geula is correct.[[12] 

In his commentary to Genesis 36:1, R. Elazar writes:[13] 

ואלה המלכים [בראשית לו, לא] לפי הפשט עזרא כתב ואלה המלכים עד שאול. או משה כתבו ברוח הקדש, כבלעם שכתב מעשה אגג ומשיח . . . לפני מלוך מלך בישר[אל] אילו המלכים מלכו קודם שאול המלך כי כשהומלך שאול הכניע אדום כי נלחם באדום ובעמלק עד זמן יהורם שכת‘ ומלך אין באדום נצב מלך [מל“א כב, מח] . . . ואלה שמות אלופי (אדום) [עשו] [בר, לו, מ) מזמן שאול עד יהורם

אלה המלכים המלכים היו קודם האלופים שהרי מנה אותם תחילה. אלופים [מלכים] אילו קודם שמלך דוד שנ‘ לפני מלוך מלך לבני ישר[אל] ואין לך לומר לפני משה שהרי לא מצינו שמלך משה. ואין לומר ויהי בישורון מלך [דב‘ לג,ה) משה

R. Elazar explains that according to the peshat, Genesis 36:31-39, which gives the list of kings “that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel,” was written by Ezra. He offers another suggestion that Moses wrote this prophetically, but as you can see from the rest of his comment, this is not the approach he adopts, as he assumes that these verses, as well as Genesis 36:40-43, are post-Mosaic.

This interpretation is already found in R. Judah he-Hasid and R. Avigdor Katz, who think that these verses were written in the days of Anshei Keneset ha-Gedolah. According to a medieval Tosafist collection of Torah commentaries, this view was also held by R. Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam).[[14] It is thus obvious that this was a common interpretation in medieval Ashkenaz, and as more medieval manuscripts are published we will no doubt find more such “critical” interpretations.

As Geula notes, in the published version of R. Elazar Rokeah’s commentary on the Torah,[15] which was apparently written not by him but by one of his students,[16] we also find the view that Genesis 36:40-43, in addition to Genesis 36: 31-39, are post-Mosaic.

הרי אילו י“א אלופים היו בימי ח‘ מלכי ישראל לכן נקרא אלוף תמנע כי מנעו מהם, מלך אין באדום נצב מלך (מלכים א כב, מח) כנגדם העמידו ישראל י“א שפטים יהושע עד שמואל, ובימי השפטים העמידו מלכים באדום

From all we have seen of how members of this “school” explained this chapter of Genesis, it is clear that this commentary does not mean that the names of the chiefs or the kings were written prophetically.

Another comment from R. Elazar pointing to a post-Mosaic addition is on Genesis 47:26: “And Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth.” This refers to the produce given in Egypt to the Pharaoh. But what do the words “unto this day” mean? R. Elazar sees these words as a post-Mosaic addition.[17] 

ושם אתה יוסף לחוק למשפט. עד היום הזה עד שהגלה נבוכד נצר [!] ובימי משה שכתב את התורה עדיין היה חוק

On this verse, R. Menahem ben Solomon (12^th century), in his Midrash Sekhel Tov,[18] writes:

עד היום הזה אלו דברי הסדרן

Geula understands the “sadran” to be a post-Mosaic author, and at first glance this would seem to make the most sense. However, Richard C. Steiner has studied the use of the term “sadran” in various medieval works, and he believes that it could also be used with reference to Moses.[19] 

Returning to R. Elazar of Worms’ commentary, we find something interesting in the manuscript, although we have no way of knowing what the original text was.[20] The copyist wrote:

וכתב שדהו במשנה תורה [דב‘ ה, יח] לפי שכבר סמוך שייכנסו לארץ [וי]היה להם שדות

However, this was corrected to read:

לפי שכבר נכנסו לארץ והיה להם שדות

The question is why in the version of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:18, in the commandment against coveting, does it include coveting your neighbor’s field while this point is missing from the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:13. According to the second reading in the manuscript, the word שדהו was added after the Israelites entered the Land of Israel. Geula rightly asks, was this a “correction” of a reader of the manuscript, or was he returning the text to its original form?

With all the evidence that we now have, and as mentioned more will no doubt be forthcoming as additional manuscripts are published, it is clear that the viewpoint that there are limited post-Mosaic additions in the Torah was considered acceptable in medieval Ashkenaz (and thus it is hard to see how it can be regarded as an unacceptable view today[21]).

Regarding R. Judah he-Hasid, the following is also worth noting. Here is his commentary to Deuteronomy 2:8.

In the middle we see the following words:

שהוא נמצא כמו מרשיילא או פנדייא שעוברים דרך שם לעכבו כך לא היו יכולין לילך אחר הזהב אם לא היו באין לעציון גבר מתחילה

What does לעכבו mean? Viezel translates as follows: “For it was located like Marseille or Pontoise [place names], as a way station en route [to the gold] so that they were not able to go after the gold unless they came to Etzion Geber first.” (His identification of פנדייא as Pontoise must be correct, and in medieval times Pointoise was an important commercial center.)

Zev Farber in his article here translates the passage as follows: “For it is situated like Marseilles or Pandaya[22] such that people must pass through there to stop in, so that they could not get to the gold if they did not stop first in Etzion-geber.”

I have underlined the words that Viezel and Farber use as translations of לעכבו. Yet both of them overlooked what I pointed out in Limits, p. 109 n. 136, that the parallel text of R. Avigdor Katz allows us to see that the word לעכבו is a mistake and it should actually read לעכו, “to Acre”, which for almost two hundred years was part of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.[23] Now the passage makes perfect sense.

Let me make three final comments about the text of the Torah.

A. In Limits I discussed those who understand Tikkun Soferim literally. To the list of the authorities I mention, we can add R. Pesah Finfer,[24] R. Isidore Epstein, and R. Joseph Messas.

R. Finfer was a dayan in Vilna and considered the expert on masoretic matters in Lithuania.[25] In his Masoret ha-Torah ve-ha-Nevi’im (Vilna, 1906), p. 6, he writes:

ראוי הי‘ עזרא שתנתן התורה על ידו . . . והוא ונחמי‘ עשו תיקון סופרים וכינויי סופרים.

R. Epstein, Judaism (Baltimore, 1959), pp. 195-196, writes:

The spiritualization of the conception of God is reflected already in certain changes known as Tikkune Soferim (Corrections of the Scribes), which, ascribed to Ezra, were introduced into the Biblical text in order to tone down certain anthropomorphic expressions.

R. Messas, Minhat Yosef (Jerusalem, 2012), vol. 4, p. 40, writes:

B. One of the greatest Moroccan rabbis of the last two hundred years was R. Raphael Berdugo (1747-1821), known as המלאך, who wrote important responsa and biblical and talmudic commentaries. In his Mesamhei Lev on Joshua, chapter 5, R. Berdugo calls attention to verse 12 which shows us that even after entering the Land of Canaan, the Israelites were still fed for a time with manna. “And the manna ceased on the morrow, after they had eaten of the produce of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.”

R. Berdugo points out that Exodus 16:35 states: “And the children of Israel did eat the manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat the manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.” The problem is obvious. The verse in Exodus is written from the perspective of when the Israelites were no longer eating the manna, yet we see from the book of Joshua that they continued eating the manna even after Moses’ death. So who wrote the verse in Exodus?

R. Berdugo acknowledges that one can say that it was prophetically written by Moses. Yet he doesn’t think that this makes sense, namely, to write a verse prophetically so that it appears to be written about an event that happened in the past. Therefore, he says that Joshua wrote the verse. It seems that that this does not raise any theological issues for him, and he compares it to the dispute about the last eight verses in the Torah where one tanna holds that Joshua wrote these verses because they refer to events after Moses’ death. Here, too, R. Berdugo states that since the verse refers to something that took place after Moses’ death, it makes sense to say that it was written by Joshua.[26] 

ויאכלו מעבור הארץ ולא היה עוד לבני ישראל מן וגו‘, משמע שאחר שבאו לארץ כנען היו אוכלים מן. ומ“ש בתורה את המן אכלו עד בואם אל קצה ארץ כנען הוא סמוך ליריחו אחר מות מרע“ה, וא“כ צ“ע מי כתב אותו פסוק בתורה, ואף כי אין מעצור לומר כי מרע“ה כתב זה ברוח קדשו ידע העתידות ושישראל יאכלו המן אחר מותו מכל מקום לשכל קשה זה וכ“ש שיאמר אותם בלשון שכבר נעשו, ולכן העיקר שיהושע כתבו אחרי מות מרע“ה, וכן מצאנו שנחלקו רז“ל בפסוק וימת שם, שר‘ יוסי אמר שיהושע כתבו וכו‘.

Also of interest is R. Berdugo’s comment to Deuteronomy 34:10, where in speaking about verses at the end of the Torah written after Moses’ death, he attributes them to כותבי התורה rather than just to Joshua.[27] 

C. In the very interesting book, Derekh Sihah, which records conversations with R. Hayyim Kanievsky, the following questions and answers appear (vol. 1, pp. 323- 324):

שאלה: באור החיים הק‘ (ל“ד, כ“ט) כתב ממדרש שקרני ההוד נעשו ע“י שיור הדיו שנתן על ראשו, והכוונה כי משה מרוב ענוה לא כתב והאיש משה עניו עם יו“ד, ולכן נשאר דיו, וזה פלא וכי כתב איך שירצה, הרי כל אות היתה בנבואה

תשובה: כיוצא בזה כתב בעל הטורים (ריש ספר ויקרא) שכתוב אלף זעירא, כי רצה משה לכתוב “ויקר“, אמר לו הקב“ה כתוב עם אל“ף, אבל מ“מ כתב אותה בזעירא. וכנראה שזה לא נמסר לו איך לכתוב.

שאלה: שאלתי להרב שליט“א עד דברי ה“אור החיים” הק‘ שכתב כי קרני הוד של משה משיירי קולמוס, שהיה צריך לכתוב “עניו” עם יו“ד, וכתב בלא יו“ד, וכי זה נתון לדעתו? ואמר הרב שלא אמרו לו כיצד לכתוב, וחזינן שאמרו רק התוכן, וגם כאן כן הוא.

תשובה: שם זה היה על התיבה הזאת בלבד שלא אמרו לו איך לכתוב, אבל פעם שאלתי מהג“ר גדליה נדל שליט“א שרואים בחז“ל טענות על נביאים כיצד אמרו בלשון מסויים, כגון במסכת פסחים (ס“ו, ב‘) כל המתייהר אם נביא וכו‘ מדבורה דכתיב חדלו וכו‘, וזה היה בנבואה, וכן במסכת מגילה י“ד, ב‘ “כרכושתא כתיב בה אמרו לאיש ולא אמרה אמרו למלך“, ושם מלכים (ב‘ כ“ב, ט“ו) כתוב כה אמר ה‘, חזינן מזה שיש פעמים שהשאירו הבחירה ביד הנביא אלו תיבות לומר

R. Kanievsky states that Moses on his own decided to leave out the yud in the word ענו in Numbers 12:3. R. Kanievsky supports this position with the comment of the Baal ha-Turim on Leviticus 1:1 who states that Moses on his own wrote the final aleph in the word ויקרא in small print. (I did not cite this comment of Ba’al ha-Turim in Limits, as I don’t see it as in opposition to Maimonides’ Eighth Principle. The Principle speaks of the letters of the Torah themselves, not whether they are regular size or small.[28]) 

Despite the citation of Ba’al ha-Turim, I am sure that some will regard R. Kanievsky’s position as inappropriate, or even in opposition to the Eighth Principle which states that the entire Torah found in our hands is of divine origin, for R. Kanievsky states that Moses had the authority to determine if the word ענו should be written with a yud or not.[29] It is true that in the Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Teshuvah 3:8, Maimonides defines a heretic as “One who says that the Torah, even one verse or one word, is not from God.” Maimonides here does not include one who says that a single letter is not from God. However, in the Eighth Principle he does not make such a distinction. Presumably, R. Kanievsky would say that the words of the Eighth Principle must be understood in line with what appears in the Mishneh Torah. Nevertheless, it is significant that R. Kanievsky regards as theologically legitimate the notion that Moses independently determined how a word in the Torah should be written, as the standard view is that all such matters were determined by divine command.

R. Kanievsky further supports his position with a striking insight. He points to Pesahim 66b and Megillah 14b where statements of Deborah and Hulda are criticized by the Sages for being boastful. Yet both these statements are actually part of a prophecy, so how could the Sages find problems with these words if they came from God? R. Kanievsky concludes from this that while the prophetic message comes from God, there are times when the actual words originate in the prophet’s mind, and this explains how the Sages can regard these words as problematic. Although Moses’ prophetic level was above that of all other prophets, R. Kanievsky believes that on at least one occasion Moses was allowed to choose how a word in the Torah was written.

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