This is Torah Talk for the week of June 18th, 2017
“Now Dathan and Abiram had come out and they stood at the entrance of their tents, with their wives, their children, and their little ones.” And they’d better watch their step! (Especially the little ones.)
This is Torah Talk for the week of June 11th, 2017
Num. 15:30 But the person, be he citizen or stranger, who acts defiantly [ביד רמה] reviles the Lord; that person shall be cut off from among his people. 31 Because he has spurned the word of the Lord and violated His commandment, that person shall be cut off—he bears his guilt.
Rashi: Literally, “with a high hand”—deliberately rather than inadvertently.
Why does Lev 26:42 list the patriarchs in reverse order? A symposium.
Bonus: Rashi explains why the NJPS translation is wrong.
Lev. 26:42 Then will I remember My covenant with Jacob; I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land.
Happy Passover to all! Reminder: no podcast next week, when we are reading the holiday portion on Shabbat; the podcast will be back the week after, with Parshat Shemini.
For an introduction to the Samaritan Pentateuch, see Robert T. Anderson and Terry Giles, The Samaritan Pentateuch: An Introduction to Its Origin, History, and Significance for Biblical Studies (Atlanta: SBL, 2012). For more examples of this exegetical technique in the Samaritan Pentateuch, see J. H. Tigay, “Conflation as a Redactional Technique,” in Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism (ed. J. H. Tigay; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), pp. 53–95. For an edition of the SP, see Abraham Tal and Moses Florentine, The Five Books of the Torah: Samaritan Text and Masoretic Text (Tel Aviv University Press, 2010). For an English translation of the SP, with a consciously Samaritan flavor, see: Benyamim Tsedaka (translator and editor) and Sharon Sullivan (co-editor), The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah: First English Translation Compared with the Masoretic Version (Eerdmans, 2013).
