When Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Father Translated the Torah
When Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Father Translated the Torah
By Yosef Lindell
Yosef Lindell is a lawyer, writer, and lecturer living in Silver Spring, MD. He has a JD from NYU Law and an MA in Jewish history from Yeshiva University. He is one of the editors of the Lehrhaus and has published more than 30 articles on Jewish history and thought in a variety of venues. His website is yoseflindell.wordpress.com.
In 1962, the Jewish Publication Society published a new translation of the Torah. The product of nearly a decade of work, the new edition was the first major English translation to cast off the shackles of the 1611 King James Bible. Dr. Harry Orlinsky, the primary force behind the new translation and a professor of Bible at the merged Reform Hebrew Union College and Jewish Institute of Religion, explained that even JPS’ celebrated 1917 translation was merely a King James lookalike, a modest revision of the Revised Standard Version that “did not exceed more than a very few percent of the whole.”[1] This new edition was different. As the editors wrote in the preface, the King James not only “had an archaic flavor,” but it rendered the Hebrew “word for word rather than idiomatically,” resulting in “quaintness or awkwardness and not infrequently in obscurity.”[2] Now, for the first time, the editors translated wholly anew, jettisoning literalism for maximum intelligibility. More than sixty years later, JPS’ work remains one of the definitive English translations of the Torah.
The new JPS may have left the King James behind, but it didn’t satisfy everyone. In addition to making the Torah more intelligible, the editors incorporated the insights of modern biblical scholarship, both from “biblical archeology and in the recovery of the languages and civilizations of the peoples among whom the Israelites lived and whose modes of living and thinking they largely shared.”[3] So when asked by Rabbi Theodore Adams, the president of the Rabbinical Council of America, whether the RCA could accept an invitation from Dr. Solomon Grayzel, JPS’ publisher, to participate in the new translation, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik demurred. He wrote in a 1953 letter to Adams, “I am afraid that the purpose of this undertaking is not to infuse the spirit of Torah she-be-al peh into the new English version but, on the contrary, … to satisfy the so-called modern ‘scientific’ demands for a more exact rendition in accordance with the latest archeological and philological discoveries.”[4]
Just one year after JPS released its volume, in 1963, R. Soloveitchik’s wish for a more “Torah-true” translation was answered, but likely not in the way he expected. The two-volume Torah Yesharah published by Rabbi Charles Kahane (1905-1978) relies heavily on traditional Jewish commentary in its translation.[5] But as we’ll explore, because of its lack of fidelity to the Hebrew text, it can hardly be called a translation at all.
Here is the title page (courtesy of the Internet Archive):
The strategically placed dots on the title page indicate that Yesharah is an acronym for the author’s Hebrew name—Yechezkel Shraga Hakohen. R. Charles Kahane was born in Safed and received semichah from the Pressburg Yeshiva in Hungary. After immigrating to the United States in 1925 and receiving a second semichah from Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, he served as rabbi of Congregation Shaarei Tefiloh in Brooklyn for most of his professional career, a shul which drew over 2,000 worshippers for the High Holidays.[6] He was a founding member of the Vaad Harabbanim of Flatbush and helped Rabbi Avraham Kalmanowitz re-establish the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn. Today, however, he is known as the father of Meir Kahane, the radical and controversial Jewish power activist and politician who needs no further introduction. The father does not seem to have been directly involved in his son’s activities, but he took pride in Meir’s accomplishments and was a staunch supporter of the Irgun in Palestine, Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionist movement, and Jabotinsky’s youth group, Betar.[7]
R. Kahane told the New York Times that Torah Yesharah was inspired by Bible classes he gave to his adult congregants where many people did not understand the text even in translation.[8] (Recall that the new JPS translation was not yet available, and other English translations relied on the archaic King James.) He wanted to rectify this problem; indeed, the title page states that the work is a “traditional interpretive translation,” suggesting that it was intended to be more user-friendly. But calling it user-friendly does not do justice to what Kahane did. Here is most of Bereishit 22—the passage of Akedat Yitzchak:
Most translators try to approximate the meaning of the Hebrew. Not so R. Kahane. Nearly every single English verse here contains significant additions not found in the original. The first verse, for example, which states that the Akedah was meant to punish Avraham for making a treaty with Avimelech, follows the opinion of the medieval commentator Rashbam, who, notes that the words “and it was after these things” connect the Akedah to the previous episode—the treaty with Avimelech (Rashbam, Bereishit 22:1). But it’s hard to imagine that Rashbam, famous for his devotion to peshat—plain meaning—would have been comfortable with his explanation being substituted for the translation itself. Many other verses on this page provide additions from Rashi and other commentators.
Pretty much every page of R. Kahane’s translation looks similar: Hebrew on one side and an expansive interpretive translation drawn from the classical commentators on the other. Kahane makes no effort to distinguish between the literal meaning of the Hebrew and his interpretive gloss.[9] Dr. Philip Birnbaum, the famed siddur and machzor translator, criticizes this aspect of the work in his (Hebrew) review, noting that Kahane’s interpretations are written “as if they are an inseparable part of the Hebrew source, and the simple reader who doesn’t know the Holy Tongue will end up mistakenly thinking that everything written in ‘Torah Yesharah’ is written in ‘Torat Moshe.’”[10]
To be fair, R. Kahane cites sources for his interpretations, but only at the back of each book of the Torah and only in Hebrew shorthand:
Thus, a reader not already fluent in Hebrew and the traditional commentaries would have little idea where Kahane was drawing his “translation” from and might not grasp how much the translation departed from the Hebrew original.[11]
Yet perhaps this was the point. R. Kahane considered literal translation to be illegitimate. In the preface to Torah Yesharah, Kahane contrasts Targum Onkelos, which is celebrated by the Sages, with the Septuagint translation of the Torah into Greek, which the Sages mourned. Kahane suggests that a Targum, which is an interpretation or commentary, is superior to a direct translation. Targum Onkelos, he writes, was composed under the guidance of the Sages and based on the Oral Law, and therefore it was “sanctified.” According to Kahane, “The Torah cannot and must never be translated literally, without following the Oral interpretation as given to Moses on Sinai. … It is in this spirit that the present translation-interpretation has been written.”[12]
Kahane was not the only Orthodox rabbi of his time to criticize translation unfaithful to rabbinic interpretation. We’ve already noted R. Soloveitchik’s concerns about the new JPS.[13] Similarly, the encyclopedist Rabbi Judah David Eisenstein reported that in 1913, when JPS was preparing its initial translation, Rabbi Chaim Hirschenson of Hoboken, NJ, convinced the Agudath Harabbanim to protest JPS’ efforts so the new work should not become the “official” translation of English-speaking Jewry the way the King James had become the official translation of the Church of England. The Agudath Harabbanim noted the Sages’ disapproval of the Septuagint and explained that only Targum Onkelos and traditional commentators that based themselves on the Talmud were officially sanctioned.[14]
R. Kahane’s approach also harks back to a series of articles in Jewish Forum composed in 1928 by Rabbi Samuel Gerstenfeld, a rosh yeshiva at RIETS (a young Rabbi Gerstenfeld is pictured below), attacking the original 1917 JPS translation. Gerstenfeld labeled the JPS translation Conservative and sought to demonstrate its departure from Orthodoxy by comprehensively cataloging all the places where the translation departed from the halakhic understanding of the verse. So, for example, he criticizes JPS for translating the tachash skins used in the construction of the Mishkan as “seal skins,” because according to halachic authorities, non-kosher animal hides cannot be used for a sacred purpose.[15] He believed that the word tachash should be transliterated, but not translated.[16] Gerstenfeld concludes that the JPS translators “missed a Moses—a Rabbi well versed in Talmud and Posekim, who would have been vigilant against violence to the Oral Law.”[17]
Still, R. Kahane’s interpretive translation with additions goes far beyond what R. Gerstenfeld was suggesting. To give one example: Gerstenfeld quibbles with JPS’ translation of the words ve-yarka befanav in the chalitzah ceremony (Devarim 25:9). The 1917 JPS translates that the woman should “spit in his face” (referring to the man who refuses to perform yibbum). Gerstenfeld notes that rabbinic tradition unanimously holds that the woman spits on the ground. He suggests that “and spit in his presence” would be a better translation.[18] Gerstenfeld’s suggestion is reasonably elegant—it gives space for the rabbinic reading without negating the meaning of the Hebrew. Kahane makes no such attempt to be literal, instead translating that she will “spit on the ground in front of his face.”[19] As we’ve seen, Kahane had no compunctions about adding words.
Thus, there is no English-language precedent for Torah Yesharah of which I am aware. As the preface suggests, R. Kahane was inspired by the Aramaic targumim, but it would seem more by Targum Yonatan Ben Uziel than Targum Onkelos. Onkelos translates word-for-word in most circumstances, typically departing from the Hebrew’s literal meaning to address theological concerns, such as a discomfort with anthropomorphism. Targum Yonatan, on the other hand, seamlessly weaves many midrashic additions into its translation and looks more like Torah Yesharah. For example, at the beginning of the Akedah passage, Targum Yonatan goes on a lengthy excursus suggesting that God’s command to sacrifice Yitzchak was in response to a debate between Yitzchak and Yishmael where Yitzchak boasted that he would be willing to offer himself to God. This digression is akin to Kahane’s addition of the Rashbam into his translation. If anything, Targum Yonatan is more expansive than Torah Yesharah.
Torah Yesharah received a fair amount of press upon its publication. It was even reviewed by the New York Times, which called it “[a] new and unusual translation” that was intended to make the Torah “more meaningful to Americans.” The article quoted Rabbi Dr. Immanuel Jakobovits, then the rabbi of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan (before he became Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom), as calling it “an original enterprise” and “a most specifically Jewish rendering of the Torah.” While the Times was noncommittal about the work, a critical review in the Detroit Jewish News found Kahane’s language confusing and inferior to the new JPS translation published the prior year.[20] As for Dr. Birnbaum, he praised Torah Yesharah’s reliance on traditional Jewish interpretations and lamented the fact that most other biblical translations “were borrowed from the Christians from the time of Shakespeare,” but criticized the format (as noted above) and some of Kahane’s more tendentious translations.[21]
Despite the interest Torah Yesharah generated, its unique approach was not replicated. One might see echoes of R. Kahane in a better known translation—ArtScroll’s 1993 Stone Edition Chumash. As its editors explained in its preface, the “volume attempts to render the text as our Sages understood it.”[22] To this end, ArtScroll famously follows Rashi when translating “because the study of Chumash has been synonymous with Chumash-Rashi for nine centuries,”[23] even when Rashi is at variance with more straightforward readings of the text. Thus, for example, ArtScroll translates az huchal likro be-shem hashem (Genesis 4:26) based on Rashi as, “Then to call in the name of Hashem became profaned”—a reference to the beginnings of idol worship.[24] However, a more literal translation would run, “Then people began to call in the name of God,” which sounds like a reference to sincere prayer—the opposite of idolatry. It’s also well-known that ArtScroll declines to translate Shir Ha-Shirim literally, adapting Rashi’s allegorical commentary in place of translation.
On the other hand, ArtScroll’s overall approach is different than Torah Yesharah’s. ArtScroll is typically quite literal, translating word-for-word even when the syntax of the verse suffers as a result. An example from the Akedah is again relevant: va-yar ve-hinei ayil achar ne’echaz ba-sevach be-karnav (Genesis 22:13). ArtScroll’s translation, that Abraham “saw—behold, a ram!—afterwards, caught in the thicket,”[25] is awkward, but it preserves the word achar in the precise location that it appears in the Hebrew. When ArtScroll wants to highlight more traditional interpretations of the text in line with Chazal and others, it does so in the commentary, not in the translation itself.[26]
Two recent works—the Koren Steinsaltz Humash (2018) and the Chabad Kehot Chumash (2015)—are much closer to Torah Yesharah in that they insert commentary directly into the English translation. But they still differ in an important respect. Both the Steinsaltz—which is a translation of a Hebrew Humash based on the classes of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz—and the Kehot “interpolate” a good deal of commentary into the translation (the former is more peshat based and the latter leans more on Rashi and Midrash). Nevertheless, they distinguish between what’s literal and what’s added by using bold font for the literal translation. This approach still has its downsides, as it can still be hard to read the English cleanly without the added gloss getting in the way of the literal meaning.[27] But it’s preferable to Torah Yesharah, where R. Kahane did not provide the reader any means of distinguishing between the text and his additions.
Today, Torah Yesharah is but a historical curiosity. Yet its existence highlights the fact that some mid-20th century Orthodox Jews felt a real need for a translation that followed in the footsteps of Chazal and other traditional commentators. To them, JPS’ translation did not embrace an authentic Torah approach. Before ArtScroll came on the scene, Torah Yesharah filled that niche for a time, but its unusual format blurred the line between the Word of God and the words of His interpreters.
Yosef Lindell is a lawyer, writer, and lecturer living in Silver Spring, MD. He has a JD from NYU Law and an MA in Jewish history from Yeshiva University. He is one of the editors of the Lehrhaus and has published more than 30 articles on Jewish history and thought in a variety of venues. His website is yoseflindell.wordpress.com.
[1] Harry M. Orlinsky, “The New Jewish Version of the Torah: Toward a New Philosophy of Bible Translation,” Journal of Biblical Literature 82:3 (1963): 251.
[2] The Torah: The Five Books of Moses (The Jewish Publication Society, 1962), Preface.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Community, Covenant, and Commitment: Selected Letters and Communications (Nathaniel Helfgot, ed., KTAV, 2005), 110.
[5] Charles Kahane, ed., Torah Yesharah (Torah Yesharah Publication: Solomon Rabinowitz Book Concern, NY, 1963).
[6] To the New York Times, Kahane described the shul as “progressive Orthodox,” and it likely lacked a mechitzah. See Robert I. Friedman, The False Prophet: Rabbi Meir Kahane (Lawrence Hill Books, 1990), 20. That, however, was not unusual for those times.
[7] The biographical information in this paragraph is drawn from Friedman (see previous note) and Libby Kahane, Rabbi Meir Kahane: His Life and Thought (Institute for the Publication of the Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane, 2008).
[8] Richard F. Shepard, “Rabbi Publishes New Bible Study; Works on Early Scholars Are Reinterpreted,” New York Times (June 21, 1964), 88.
[9] Here is another example of a large interpretive insertion concerning God’s decision that Moshe and Aharon would not lead the people into Israel because of their sin regarding the rock (Bamidbar 20:12):
That’s quite a few more words than are found in the Hebrew!
[10] Paltiel Birnbaum, “Targum Angli be-Ruah ha-Masoret,” in Pleitat Sofrim: Iyyunim ve-Ha’arakhot be-Hakhmat Yisrael ve-Safrutah (Mossad Harav Kook, 1971), 75.
[11] Of note, Kahane’s translation is available on Sefaria, but with modifications that obscure its radicalness. For one, the format is different: the Hebrew and English are not juxtaposed in the same way. Second, the sources for each verse are cited directly below the translation in parentheses. This is not the way Kahane presented his sources in the original.
[12] Torah Yesharah, xviii-ix.
[13] Among the most intriguing critics of the new JPS was Avram Davidson, who wrote in Jewish Life in 1957 that because the translation was being prepared by non-Orthodox scholars who intended to depart occasionally from the Masoretic text in light of new archaeological discoveries, it was not “being prepared on the Torah’s terms” and was unacceptable. A.A. Davidson, “A ‘Modern’ Bible Translation,” Orthodox Jewish Life 24:5 (1957): 7-11. Davidson later became a science fiction writer of some renown but by the end of his life had become enamored with a modern Japanese religion called Tenrikyo.
[14] J.D. Eisenstein, ed., Otzar Yisrael vol. 10 (New York, 1913), 309. See also the criticism of the 1962 JPS translation and the discussion of Eisenstein and R. Gerstenfeld’s article in Sidney B. Hoenig, “Notes on the New Translation of the Torah – A Preliminary Inquiry,” Tradition 5:2 (1963): 172-205.
[15] Samuel Gerstenfeld, “The Conservative Halacha,” The Jewish Forum 11:10 (Oct. 1928): 533.
[16] Indeed, ArtScroll’s Stone Chumash leaves tachash untranslated. Interestingly, R. Kahane just translates “sealskins” like JPS.
[17] Samuel Gerstenfeld, “The Conservative Halacha,” The Jewish Forum 11:11 (Nov. 1928): 576.
[18] Ibid., 575-76.
[19] Torah Yesharah, 331.
[20] Philip Slomovitz, “Purely Commentary,” Detroit Jewish News (Aug. 21, 1964), 2.
[21] Birnbaum, 76. It’s interesting that Birnbaum was far more critical of non-literal translations of the siddur. When the RCA incorporated the poetic translations of the British novelist Israel Zangwill into its 1960 siddur edited by Rabbi Dr. David de Sola Pool, Birnbaum wrote a scathing review in Hadoar, accusing Zangwill’s efforts as being “free imitations,” not translations, and of having Christian influence. Paltiel Birnbaum, “Siddur Chadash Ba le-Medinah,” Hadoar 40:6 (Dec. 9, 1960): 85. Birnbaum may have been jealous of the RCA’s siddur, which was a direct competitor to his 1949 edition. Also, he was unimpressed with Zangwill in particular, who had married a non-Jew and was not halakhically observant. For more about this, see my article in Lehrhaus here.
[22] Nosson Scherman, ed., The Stone Edition Chumash (Mesorah Publications, 1993), xvi.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid., 23.
[25] Ibid., 103.
[26] Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s 1981 Living Torah translation also bears some resemblance to Torah Yesharah in its tendency to follow Chazal, but it too, despite its exceedingly colloquial approach to translation, does not insert large interpretive glosses into the text.
[27] R. Steinsaltz calls the commentary “transparent” and “one whose explanations should go almost unnoticed and serve only to give the reader and student the sense that there is no barrier between him or her and the text,” but I am not sure I agree. See The Steinsaltz Humash (Koren Publishers, 2015), ix.
69 thoughts on “When Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Father Translated the Torah”
“It’s also well-known that ArtScroll declines to translate Shir Ha-Shirim literally, adapting Rashi’s allegorical commentary in place of translation.”
It is well known that this is in fact not true, and that ArtScroll does offer a literal translation in addtion to the Rashi-based one.
Only in the footnotes of their one-volume Tanach. Not in their siddur, Chumash, or dedicated volume.
And they explain why… Children have easy access to the shul’s copies of siddurim, chumashim, or megillos. And therefore they don’t provide the rather risqué literal translation where tween boys would ogle it.
Whereas the special volume for learning Shir haShirim has a literal translation because somoene not at home with a rather poetic Biblical Hebrew needs that to learn Shir haShirim. They don’t pretend the literal is unimportant or was supplanted.
The decision has nothing to do with translation policy overall.
I don’t get it. There’s nothing to ogle at in Shir Hashirim in either translation. Why do people make a big deal out of it?
If you know what to look for, it’s there.
Most people don’t look for it, so it’s kind of pareve.
Except Artscroll seems uncomfortable with the whole concept of a man and a woman (unmarried) telling each other how much they love each other and how attractive the other is.
Sure, cuz all there is in ShHS is an unmarried man and woman saying how much they love each other, and not also rather detailed comments on bodily features.
Apropos Artscroll’s penchant to interpret psukim in accordance with Rashi, it is worth noting that Rashi writes in his introduction to Shir Hashirim that the Megila is not written from the perspective of an unmarried man and woman, rather these are memory flashes of a married woman from her courting period and marriage and who was subsequently either widowed or divorced and that such end of her marriage is used to symbolize the destructions of the 1st and the 2nd Batei Hamikdash:
רש”י שיר השירים פרק א פסוק א
ואומר אני שראה שלמה ברוח הקדש שעתידין ישראל לגלות גולה אחר גולה חורבן אחר חורבן ולהתאונן בגלות זה על כבודם הראשון ולזכור חבה ראשונה אשר היו סגולה לו מכל העמים לאמר אלכה ואשובה אל אישי הראשון כי טוב לי אז מעתה ויזכרו את חסדיו ואת מעלם אשר מעלו ואת הטובות אשר אמר לתת להם באחרית הימים ויסד ספר הזה ברוח הקדש בלשון אשה צרורה אלמנות חיות משתוקקת על בעלה מתרפקת על דודה מזכרת אהבת נעורים אליו ומודה על פשעה אף דודה צר לו בצרתה ומזכיר חסדי נעוריה ונוי יופיה וכשרון פעליה בהם נקשר עמה באהבה עזה להודיעם כי לא מלבו ענה ולא שילוחיה שילוחין כי עוד היא אשתו והוא אישה והוא עתיד לשוב אליה:
I think this is how Artscroll begins their commentary. But where is there evidence of the end of a relationship in the book?
“My beloved turned away and was gone” (5:6); the wistful “Would that you were my brother… I would lead you…” (8:1-2), etc.
Interesting article. A translation that adds comments as if it were part of the text without any clear delineation is simply not legitimate. Not surprisingly this work is ignored and rightly so.
The Targumim do it, some more than others. (Pseudo-Jonathan a lot; Onkelos a bit.) The new editions of Koren actually put in grey all the words Onkelos adds.
Describing the book as “memory flashes” from a divorced or widowed woman, into her past, sounds like a very modernistic, contemporary explanation; yet in fact, as you write, this is exactly what Rashi already said, long ago.
Food for thought!
Yes, by “how attractive” I was referring to their rather detailed descriptions of various body parts.
And reading a bit between the lines, but not much, there are descriptions of things they did with each other as well.
The Gutnick Chumash is somewhat similar in that Rashi’s interpretation is included in the translation without distinguishing it from the text of the Torah. However, the additions are far less discursive.
And the 1949 linear translation with Rashi?
And there was another interlinear translation into English, author’s name began with L? Black cover?
Interestingly, the 1949 edition (on which one of my rebbeim, Morris Charner, worked) had Orlinsky as a collaborator.
There was an earlier translation, the Rosenbaum-Silberman edition from England. Metsudah had a linear Rashi much later, as did Artscroll. Judaica Press’ Tanach also translates the whole Rashi,
Fascinating. Thank you.
Interestingly, the Chumash was published by Rabinowitz’ bookstore, which specialized in Haskala literature; the store was later taken over by my rebbe, Yaakov Elman, who had worked there as a kid, and who expanded the store to cover the Ancient Near East. Full circle.
It should be noted that “Targum Yonatan ben Uziel” was not, of course, written by Yonatan ben Uziel. We won’t get into the question of who wrote Onkelos. 🙂
Birnbaum had his own Chumash, but it came out later.
I have an article about Birnbaum’s Chumash coming out in Hakirah in about 6 months!
You’re making a fascinating set of studies here!
Thank you!
There’s an old joke that R’ Kahane Sr. once said, “Hashem gave me two sons, the Mei Menuchot and the Mei Merivah.”
חריף!!!
The 1962 JPS was translated by a committee. JPS invited rabbis from the three main denominations to participate. The late Rabbi Dr. Harry Freedman, who had translated for the Soncino Talmud and the Soncino bible volumes, and had started a translation of Rav Kasher’s Torah Shelemah, was the Orthodox representative on the committee, although he withdrew, I think, after the Torah translation was completed. He was well aware of some of the shortcomings of the JPS edition, and so penned a commentary to bring it into line with Orthodox thought. His commentary was published privately by his children and grandchildren in a limited edition, with the Hebrew text and JPS translation. I was involved in editing, typesetting and printing this volume. In style, Rabbi Freedman’s comments are somewhat akin to the notes in the Hertz Chumash, drawing on sources both Jewish and non-Jewish, something that is no longer acceptable in parts of the Orthodox world today.
So unacceptable that Soncino completely redid their Nach volumes to remove all non-Jewish references, saying that the Jewish community wanted it that way, essentially making them the same- the same editor, in fact- as the Judaica Press series. (The Hertz Chumash is still available, but Soncino had already issued its own traditional-only Chumash.)
For the record, though, all the Soncino volumes, and the Hertz Chumash, use the original (1917) JPS translation. It’s the commentary that’s original.
Rabbi Freedman also translated volumes of the Encyclopedia Talmudit and worked on Soncino’s Midrash Rabbah. From the introduction to the new JPS translation it seems he also worked on the Neviim. The only surviving editor of that translation seems to be Rabbi Martin Rozenberg, the Reform representative to the Ketuvim.
Can you tell us where we can find this volume from Rabbi Freedman?
Two other points:
-I recall reading that R’ Soloveitchik had as conditions for “official” Orthodox participation on the JPS translation was that the Orthodox representative be R’ Chaim Heller, and that he have veto power.
-In shiurim, R’ Leiman has said, when trying to figure out what a word in Tanach means, “Let’s see what King James says” and opens the Koren Jerusalem Bible; he then says “Let’s see what it *really* means” and opens the New JPS translation. (Full disclosure, Moshe Greenberg, one of the JPS editors, was R’ Leiman’s doctoral advisor.)
Make that RABBI Meir Kahane. He did have semicha from Rav Kalmanovitch from the Mir.
Thought the same thing. The title was flippant enough, but the reference in the third paragraph was downright disrespectful, and I stopped reading there. I am surprised the editors allowed such an insult to print – it is hardly heavy-handed to require basic respect!
I think you’re making a mountain of a molehill, and I’m a great admirer and follower of R’ Kahane (the son).
I remember Chanan Porat once came to speak at YU- actually to give a pure Torah shiur, not a political talk- and was introduced as “HaRav Porat”, as indeed he was- he was a rosh yeshiva, in fact. He waved it off, saying, “So long as I’m in the Knesset, I’m not ‘HaRav’.”
We could use more of that.
It’s neither a mountain nor a molehill. Basic respect is not trivial, and pointing out the lack of it is not excessive.
And btw, I don’t agree with the story you mentioned. I don’t know R. Porat , but if he is a RY as you say, or rabbi, and especially when he was coming to give a shiur, then he SHOULD be addressed with his proper title. From Rabban Gamliel to R. Meir Shapiro, rabbis have been involved in politics in one form or another. It doesn’t detract from their standing as rabbis, it enhances it. If the yeshivah world can be criticized for going overboard with Gedolim worship, then the mizrachi world can be likewise called to task for not taking it as seriously as they should.
It’s not up to you to agree or disagree with my story; it actually happened, and R’ Porat specifically asked not to be referred to as “rav” because he was, at that time, a politician. I’d tell you to take it up with him, but alas he’s no longer with us, and in any event what he wants to be called is up to him.
R’ Kahane himself could have a very laid back attitude toward his own kavod, depending on context, I suppose.
My disagreement was with what you mentioned the story for, not the details of it. You mentioned it, ostensibly, to show that its all right for a rabbi to be מוחל על כבודו and thus this writer could refer to RMK as “Meir Kahane, the radical Jewish power activist.”
I dont agree. In the first case, if R. Porat chose to be מוחל on his kavod it in no way gives license to someone else, even “an editor at Lehrhaus”, to be מוחל someone else’s. And in the second, I don’t think a RY coming to give a shiur should be treated disrespectfully (and that includes not being treated sufficiently respectfully) merely because he’s also in politics. Or are you really suggesting that one’s involvement in derech eretz is a reason to forego his כבוד התורה?
The author chose, deliberately, to refer to a martyr (which by alone grants RMK the status of a קדוש) without his proper title, and doubled down later on in the article. That reflects poorly on the writer. He should learn from Dr. Marc Shapiro. Early in his career, when he was young, Dr. Shapiro would refer to rabbis without their honorifics, like “Feinstein, Kotler, Solveitchek”, etc, believing it to be simple convention. But readers found it jarring and offensive. To his credit, he wisely adjusted his methods to accommodate his readers’ tastes, thereby increasing his readership and influence “a hundred fold.”
ישמע חכם ויוסף לקח
Look, if you’re only going to read things that match your standards, you’re not going to read very much. And unfortunately, that’s even more true of things written about R’ Kahane, zt”l. You learn to swallow it and hope people get enlightened one day. I’ve been doing it for over thirty years.
The problem since the days of Koheles is too much to read, not not enough. I’m kept occupied enough with material from scholars who follow basic rules of decorum; I don’t need to waste time on someone who won’t or can’t. If someone else doesn’t care, that’s his decision.
The Polish rabbanim who were elected to the Polish Sejm Parliament including R Meir Shapiro is a failed project, which Aguda has since avoided, either by the American system of what Aguda of America calls shtadlanut lobbying, or the Israeli system of intermediaries, who probably hold more power than the “Gedolim” they purport to represent (a whole other debate not advisable to get into here).
Presumably, R Porat subscribed to a Mafdal version of the above.
By the way, on Rav Aviner’s blog website, he insists on calling all politicians by their (unspecified) titles.
‘described the shul as “progressive Orthodox,” and it likely lacked a mechitzah.’
It assuredly had a mechitzah .
The women were moved down from the original balcony to the side of the men -but with a wood design mechitza- was presumably an element of the “progressive “
I remember Blu Greenberg once decrying balconies as unprogressive. Presumably her ideal design would have women and men side by side (and not women in the back). Of course, having them on the same level in any configuration requires more land.
As a lot of Orthodox places didn’t have mechitzot back then, I assume “progressive” referred to some other element, maybe simply what we’d call “Modern Orthodox” these days.
Wasn’t it a Young Israel, which always required all member congregations to have a mechitza, among other requirements they don’t enforce today? The mechitza they always did enforce, though height requirements may be something else m
It was never a member of YI (at least officially or technically)
It’s interesting to read in the Gutnik translation the flippant translation on Bereshis 39:6 describing Potiphera as “crumpet”.
I don’t have the Chumash in front of me, but I’m going to take a wild guess and say that this is an attempt to render into English idiom the midrash- which itself presumably draws on what Yosef himself says to her later- that the word “lechem” in this pasuk is referring to Potiphar’s wife (not Potiphar himself, and not Potiphera, who was Yosef’s father-in-law and not necessarily the same person). So they found a bread-related English word that also can be used to refer to people, especially in a sexual sense. It’s cute if, as you say, a bit flippant.
Also, the term is never really used in American English, either for food *or* people.
The translator is English.
You mean as in England, I suppose.
It’s really not a very proper word. I only know it from Basil Fawlty: “Oh, so this little bit of crumpet’s your mum, eh?”
A crumpet is a cake, as in “tea and crumpets”, and with the exception of John F. Kennedy, most people are not usually described in terms of pastries. “Strumpet” was probably the word used, and it was probably not for Potiphar/Potiphera himself, but for his wife.
No, it actually does say “crumpet,” and Nachum’s guess as to why the translator used it is (most likely) spot-on.
I think R. Kaplan is quite different and rarely adds midrashim into the translation. He often does the opposite i.e. subtracts from original text to simplify it as he mentions in the introduction. One notable exception may be when he has 3 angels speaking to Hagar.
The line I always remember is, “To his sons-in-law, it was all a big joke.”
His goal was to make the text feel natural. That’s why he uses contractions, and uses quotation marks instead of translating ‘vayomer.’
Regarding the distortions of the King James translation, my father a’h once wrote to William Safire about a mistake Safire had made in his long-running ‘On Language’ Sunday NYT magazine column. Mr Safire quoted my father in a subsequent column and blamed his error on his use of the King James translation. Here’s the exchange:
IN ZAPPING A SELF-RIGHTEOUS politician, I wrote that he was filled with the spirit of Isaiah, and quoted that prophet as saying, ”Stand not next to me, for I am holier than thou.”
”You have turned Isaiah inside out,” protests Michael Sanders of Monsey, N.Y. ”>Holier than thou (Isaiah 65:5) is not the spirit of Isaiah, but of those whom he excoriates as ‘a rebellious people’ in the verses preceding.”
Watchman, what of the preceding verses? Sure enough, I owe Isaiah an apology. The prophet was lambasting the unruly people hanging around graveyards, eating swine’s flesh and stirring caldrons filled with a tainted brew – presumably a near-primordial moonshine – and he quoted them as saying to him, ”Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou.”
It was a quote-within-a-quote, but the clarifying punctuation was not in use at the time of the 1611 King James translation, and so I have been attributing to Isaiah the hypocritical words he was attributing to the targets of his wrath. But the words, which we would now characterize in a hyphenated compound adjective as >holier-than-thou, had been spoken by Isaiah to describe others, not himself.
Call off the postcard barrage, Isaiah fans. As Lyndon Johnson used to say, ”Come now, let us reason together.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/19/magazine/on-language-pen-palindromes.html
In 1611, while the English language was essentially already the same as ours, spelling and punctuation were very different. The KJV was extensively edited- no words changed, of course- in the late 1700’s, and that’s the “King James” we speak of. Shakespeare got a similar treatment a few decades later. You can still get original spelling and punctuation versions of the KJV and Shakespeare today, but they’re very nearly impossible to read for non-experts.
This poses a dilemma for those Christian sects who see the KJV as divinely inspired, refusing to use the various revisions of the late 19th and 20th centuries (RV, ASV, RSV, NRSV, and others) but *do* use the late 1700’s edit. Don’t worry, they’ve worked out an excuse.
Nochum, thanks for your informative response. It’s both interesting and odd that Mr Safire, a true master of language, used the original version. And of course he wasn’t a Christian sectarian.
I can’t say for sure. The same punctuation issue may have persisted into the late 1700’s version as well. I’d have to look it up.
There’s a fine (and not always easily obvious) line between adding extraneous, interpretive material to a translation, and writing a translation in such a way that it brings to the fore interpretive information that was likely part of the original meaning, but has become less obvious over time and to contemporary readers.
A text usually has meanings and ideas that are relatively apparent to contemporaneous readers familiar with its social framework and context and with language and writing usages and styles, but becomes less obvious to later readers, who tend to focus on the words’ and passages’ meanings much more narrowly and literally.
Robert Alter’s new translation of the Hebrew Bible is an interesting example of an effort to achieve something more than just a purely literal translation, to encompass deeper and richer levels of meanings, but to do it in a vessel that stays very close to a literal translation.
“ArtScroll’s translation, that Abraham “saw—behold, a ram!—afterwards, caught in the thicket,”[25] is awkward, but it preserves the word achar in the precise location that it appears in the Hebrew”
I think that it really depends what you’re trying to accomplish in translation. My sense is that Artscroll’s goal is basically to bridge the gap so people can essentially read the original. That’s generally accomplished by leaving the word order as close to the original as possible. There’s an unavoidable trade-off in terms of awkwardness.
I think some readers may find this interesting. (If not, my apologies for the spam.)
From here: https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/HOE-Transcript-Episode150.pdf
Tyndale’s translations proved to be so popular within England that
they served as the basis for later English translations of the Bible, including the King James
Version. As a result, many of Tyndale’s words and phrases have passed into Modern English
over the intervening centuries, and that includes several terms from his translation of the opening
books of the Old Testament.
For example, from Tyndale’s translation of the Book of Genesis, we got the line “Let there be
light.” In the 1300s, John Wycliffe rendered the line as ‘light be made.” In the story of Sodom
and Gomorrah, Tyndale was the first to refer to Lot’s wife being turned into ‘pillar of salt.’
Wycliffe had previously written that she had been turned into an ‘an image of salt.’ In the long
lines of genealogy contained in the book of Genesis, Tyndale was the first to use the word begat,
which is now synonymous with those provisions. Wycliffe has used the word gendred.
Tyndale’s translation of Genesis also gave us the first known use of the phrase ‘men of renown.’
In the same passage, Wycliffe had referred to ‘famous men.’ So ‘famous men’ now became ‘men
of renown.’ Tyndale’s translation of Genesis also contained the first recorded use of the phrase
“the fat of the land.” It occurred in a passage which Wycliffe had translated as ‘the marrow of
the land.’
In the following book – the Book of Exodus – Tyndale gave us the first known use of the term
taskmaster. Tyndale used the term to refer to the oppressors or slave-masters of the Hebrews in
Egypt. Wycliffe had previously used the term ‘masters of works.’ So ‘masters of works’ now
became taskmasters. Tyndale’s translation of Exodus also contains the first recorded use of the
phrase ‘a stranger in a strange land.’ The line is translated as “I haue bene a straunger in a
straunge lande.” Over a century earlier, Wycliffe had rendered the line as “Y was a comelyng in
6
an alyen lond” – ‘I was a comeling in an alien land.” A comelyng was ‘one who comes to a
particular place’ or a newcomer. Tyndale apparently thought that word was old-fashioned, so he
replaced it with stranger.
Interestingly, Tyndale’s translation of Exodus also contained the first recorded use of the word
Passover. The original Hebrew word was pesach which meant ‘a passage.’ Wycliffe had
translated the word as ‘passing’ in his Middle English Bible in the line “the passyng of the Lord.”
Tyndale changed that wording to “the Lordes passeouer,” which again is the first known use of
the word Passover.
In the next book – Leviticus – Tyndale gave us an early recorded use of the term stumbling
block. He is the first known English writer to use that term, and he used it on several occasions in
his translations of both the New Testament and the Old Testament. In Levitius, he used it where
Wycliffe had used the word ‘hurting.’ In the passage, Wycliffe had written “thou schalt not curse
a deef man, nether thou schalt sette an hurtyng bifor a blynd man.” Tyndale rendered the same
lines as “Thou shalt not curse the deaffe, nether put a stomblinge blocke before the blynd.”
Again, this is one of the earliest known uses of the term stumbling block in English.
And in the same book, Tyndale gave us the first known use of the word scapegoat – which
appears to be a term that he coined. Believe it or not, in its original usage, a scapegoat was
literally an ‘escape goat’ – a goat that escapes. In Leviticus, God instructs Moses about the
selection of two goats – one that will be sacrificed, and one that will be allowed to go free or
‘escape the sacrifice’ and symbolically bear the sins of the people. Wycliffe had referred to that
goat as “the goot that schal be sent out.” But Tyndale referred to the goat as the “scapegoote.” Of
course, that was an innocent goat that bore the sins of the people, and over time, the term
scapegoat came to apply any person who is blamed or punished for the sins of others.
In the following book – the Book of Numbers – Tyndale gave us the first known use of another
common English phrase – ‘to fall flat on your face.’ It occurred in the story of a diviner named
Balaam who sees an angel and falls to the ground. In the 1300s, John Wycliffe has described the
man’s actions by writing, “Balaam worschipide hym lowli in to erthe.” But Tyndale changed
that line. He wrote, “And he bowed him selfe and fell flatt on his face.” Again, that is the first
recorded reference to someone ‘falling flat on their face’ in the English language.
This is fascinating. Thank you.
As JPS points out in their introduction, Tyndale- from which every English translation draws- based himself on Luther’s translation; Luther in turn based himself on Rashi. (Rashi existed in Latin translation by that point.) Rashi of course is based on Targum and Midrash, which means that ultimately, most Christian translations of Tanach today are ultimately based on Chazal.
Of course, the Septuagint, the basis of the Vulgate and thus Catholic translations, was also a Jewish work.
Readers who have heard the Yiddish word קפיטל instead of פרק (esp. in Tehillim) might be interested in this paragraph from the article you referenced:
Even though the word capital is derived from Latin, it can be found in documents as early as the Anglo-Saxon period. In Old English, the word often appeared as capitle, spelled C-A-P-I-T-L-E. And it was used to refer to a section or portion of a manuscript. When a manuscript was divided into sections, each section often had a ‘heading,’ usually in the form of a large illuminated letter. And the word capitle could refer to either that heading itself or the section of the manuscript that was marked by that heading.
Interesting article!
I dissagree with both Philip Birnbaum here, and Rabbi Kahane here.
Does the ksav yad of Rashi even have a demarcation between the quote and the commentary on it?
Rashi isn’t claiming to present the whole Torah, as is obvious from last week.
I’m surprised no one brought up the Chumash Kepshuto controversy here.
Seforim blog generally takes a commendably ethical approach. However, this is hardly the case with this (otherwise excellent) piece on Torah Yesharah. I was horrified by the description of Meir Kahane, as merely ‘the radical and controversial Jewish power activist and politician who needs no further introduction.’ Kahane was a convicted terrorist, a hillul haShem whose dogmas have done untold harm to the Jewish people. He certainly needs a further introduction distancing us all from his ideas. And (having looked at the comments) he does not deserve the title of ‘rav.’
“Convicted” by who? Do you say the same thing about people “convicted” by Soviet tribunals, for example?
“whose dogmas have done untold harm to the Jewish people”
So “untold” that you can’t actually tell us what “harms” those are.
Coming late to the party, but this is a fascinating article. Re footnote 13, Avram Davidson was a friend of my family and I remember him well. He was not raised Orthodox but went through a frum phase, then as you say, he lapsed again. He was a wonderful writer — my favorite story of his is “The Golem.” My father co-wrote a story with him and used to receive small royalty checks.
Dan, I just saw your comment. I am currently working on an article about Avram Davidson. I’d love to speak with you further.
Coming even later to the party, I have to express amazement at ‘Interestingly, R. Kahane just translates “sealskins” like JPS’!