The Bible, the Talmud, and the New Testament. Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik
adaber hemah la-milḥamah (
May I succeed in this venture! May the favor of YHWH descend upon my work, so that it may produce in the hearts of those who read it abundant and beneficial fruits, that with a unanimous spirit they will embrace the worship of one God, and that through my humble intervention, the words of the prophet will come true (Zephaniah 3:9): For then I will make the peoples pure of speech, so that they all invoke YHWH by name and serve him with one accord. Amen.
1 The full mishnah reads: “Each of these disciples had three maxims. R. Eliezer: “A friend’s honor must be as dear to him as his own. Do not allow yourself to be easily angered. Repent one day before your death.” [He also said:] “Warm yourself before the light of the wise, but beware of their embers, perchance you may be singed; for their bite is the bite of a fox, and their sting the sting of a scorpion, and their hiss is that of a fiery serpent; and all their words are as coals of fire.” The apparent use of this mishnah in Soloveitchik’s imagined rabbinic response to his work is that he is being too flippant with rabbinic statements, using them against tradition. The imagined admonition is that the words of the sages can be as dangerous as they are sacred.
2 On R. Yosef’s prohibition to reading Ben-Sira, Rashi comments: “It contains many useless things [
3 The test of the waters of jealousy, whose formula consisted of a curse, contained the holy Tetragrammaton, which was written by the priest and then mixed with water and dust (Numbers 5:17–23). If this test showed that the woman is question proved to be faithful—that is, she did not physically react to to drinking the potion—as the Talmud says, good relations would be reestablished between husband and wife.
4 On this, see R. Travers Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (New York: Reference Books, 1966); and, more recently, Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).
5 On Toledot Yeshu, see Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu; and David Biale, “Counter-History and Jewish Polemics Against Christianity: Toledot Yeshu and Sefer Zerubavel,” Jewish Social Studies 6, no. 1 (1999): 130–145.
6 On Maimonides, see Joel Kraemer, Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds (New York: Doubleday, 2010); and Moshe Halbertal, Maimonides: Life and Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013).
7 See Isadore Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah) (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982).
8 Here is the textual list of the parts in question: I) 1. The Principles of the Torah; 2. Lifestyle and Behavior; 3. The Study and Teaching of the Torah; 4. Idolatry; 5. Repentance. — II) 6. The Shema; 7. Prayer, the Priestly Blessing; 8. Tefillin, Mezuzah, Torah Scrolls; 9. Tzitzit; 10. Blessings; 11. Circumcision. — III) 12. Shabbat; 13. ‘Eruvin; 14. Yom Kippur; 15. Festivals; 16. Matzah (Unleavened Bread); 17. The Shofar, the Sukkah, the Lulav; 18. The Temple Tax; 19. Sanctification of the Month; 20. Fasts; 21. Purim and Hanukkah. — IV) 22. Marriage; 23. Divorce; 24. Levirate Marriage; 25. Virginity (seduction, abduction); 26. Adultery. — V) 27. Forbidden Sexual Relations; 28. Forbidden Foods; 29. Animal Slaughter. — VI) 30. Oaths; 31. Vows; 32. Nazirites; 33. Consecrations. — VII) 34. Mixtures; 35. Gifts to the Poor; 36. Offerings to the Priest; 37. Tithes; 38. The Second Tithe, etc.; 39. First Fruits, etc.; 40. The Sabbath Year and the Jubilee. — VIII) 41. The Temple; 42. Temple Utensils and Servers; 43. Conditions of Entry into the Holy Places; 44. Things Forbidden on the Altar; 45. Sacrifices; 46. Daily and Additional Sacrifices. 47. Holy Things That Become Defiled; 48. The Service on Yom Kippur; 49. Sacrilege. — IX) 50. The Passover Sacrifice; 51. (Individual) Festival Offerings; 52. Firstborn; 53. Sacrifices for Errors; 54. Purification Sacrifices; 55. Substitutions for Sacrifices. — X) 56. The Impurity of a Corpse; 57. The Red Heifer; 58. Leprosy; 59. Things That Make Beds and Seats Impure; 60. Other Sources of Impurity; 61. Impurity of Food; 62. Impurity of Clothing and Utensils; 63. Purification. — XI) 64. Property Damage; 65. Theft; 66. Robbery and Loss; 67. Injury; 68. Murder; Protection of Life. — XII) 69. Sale; 70. Acquisitions and Gifts; 71. Sharing and Joint Ownership; 72. Agents and Partners; 73. Slaves. — XIII) 74. Hiring; 75. Borrowing and Depositing; 76. Financial Debt; 77. Civil Action; 78. Estates. — XIV) 79. The Courts and Their Jurisdiction; 80. Testimony; 81. Authority of the Sanhedrin, Its Powers and Limits; 82. Mourning; 83. The Monarchy and Rules of War. (A few years ago, I published the first five sections, with commentary in Hebrew, English, and German.).
9 Soloveitchik slightly alters the verse to suit his needs. He changes the first-person plural “we,” referring to Moses and Aaron, to the first-person “I,” referring to Soloveitchik. The context of the verse is also interesting. After leaving Egypt, the Israelites complain to Moses that it would have been better to die in Egypt than starve to death in the wilderness. Moses tells them that their complaints are not against him and Aaron but against God. He continues that God will give them “flesh to eat in the evening and bread in the morning to the full.” Could Soloveitchik be saying something similar to his Jewish and Christian detractors? That is, their complaints are misplaced; they are not against him but against God, who has revealed himself in both the Old and New Testaments. He is just revealing this truth.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, WITH COMMENTARY
CHAPTER 1
1 The book of the toledot of Yeshua the mashiaḥ, son of David, son of Avraham.
Toledot (i.e., generations; genealogies)—Even the Greek says this.1 Apparently, this would be a miracle, since Yeshua had neither wife nor children. Perhaps this means “his disciples,” for even the disciples are called “children,” as it is written: And the children of the prophets came (2 Kings 2:3). The meaning of this passage is “disciples.”2 However, this is not possible, for Mattai explains where Yeshua came from, not what came from him (i.e., progeny).3
Therefore, noble reader, see chapter 15, where I correctly asserted that the book of Mattai was written in Hebrew and that toledot (genealogies) was the word that was written there. Toledot (whose root comes from the verb laledet, “to give birth”) is a common noun used concerning the offspring of a person, or concerning events that have happened to him, as in: You do not know what the day will give birth to (Proverbs 27:1).4 Even the word “book” (sefer) is a common noun, which sometimes employs the plain meaning, and sometimes the meaning should be understood as “a story of events.”5 Therefore, Mattai recounts what happened to Yeshua, who came from the line of David. Thus, similarly we find, And these are the generations [toledot] of Jacob (Genesis 37:2), yet it does not count the generations, but rather the events that happened to him with Joseph.
Avraham—Perhaps one would wonder why the genealogy given in Luke (3:23 and on) extends all the way back to Adam, while Mattai’s begins from Abraham. By doing this, Mattai is implying that just as Abraham was the first to instill monotheism in the hearts of people who did not know YHWH, teaching them to cast away their idols and worship YHWH alone, so, too, was Yeshua the first one to instill