Chasidut su Deuteronomio 27:8
וְכָתַבְתָּ֣ עַל־הָאֲבָנִ֗ים אֶֽת־כָּל־דִּבְרֵ֛י הַתּוֹרָ֥ה הַזֹּ֖את בַּאֵ֥ר הֵיטֵֽב׃ (ס)
E scriverai sulle pietre tutte le parole di questa legge molto chiaramente.'
Kedushat Levi
Deuteronomy 27,8. you will inscribe on these stones all these words of the Torah, very clearly.”
A look at Rashi’s comment on the expression will reveal that he understands this as a translation of the entire Torah into 70 languages.
[According to Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi, foremost super commentary on Rashi, Rashi may have arrived at this interpretation when considering that the letters of the word היטב when converted into what is known as tzeyrufim, ”letter permutation,” ה, הי, היט, היטב, add up to a numerical value of 70. Ed.]
Still, we must try and understand what prompted Moses to command at this point that the Torah be made available in indelible writing (engraved on stone) in all the known languages of that time. We may find the answer in Rashi’s commentary on the very first verse in the Torah, where he said (based on Bereshit Rabbah 1,3) that the reason why the Torah commenced with the statement that G’d had created heaven and earth, was so that when an international Court of Law would declare the Israelites’ conquest and subsequent dispossession of the seven Canaanite nations illegal, we would respond that the Canaanites themselves had claimed territorial rights to an earth that belonged exclusively to G’d who had created it. Surely the owner had the right to re-allocate the earth to tenants of His choosing.
The whole idea behind G’d’s commandments to take stones from the Jordan river and (erect them near Mount Gerizim) to inscribe in them the Torah in all the known languages was that if the Israelites, at this time, prepared to take possession of the lands of the Canaanites they would do so with the owner’s permission, nay, at the Owner’s instructions. Moreover, this should remind the nations of the world that the reason they were now being dispossessed was because they had refused to accept this very Torah when they had been given the opportunity to accept it. Seeing that the Israelites were the only nation willing to accept the Torah, most of whose commandments can only be observed in the land which up to then had belonged to the Canaanites, the Canaanites were now forced to abandon it or die in the struggle to hang on to it.
A look at Rashi’s comment on the expression will reveal that he understands this as a translation of the entire Torah into 70 languages.
[According to Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi, foremost super commentary on Rashi, Rashi may have arrived at this interpretation when considering that the letters of the word היטב when converted into what is known as tzeyrufim, ”letter permutation,” ה, הי, היט, היטב, add up to a numerical value of 70. Ed.]
Still, we must try and understand what prompted Moses to command at this point that the Torah be made available in indelible writing (engraved on stone) in all the known languages of that time. We may find the answer in Rashi’s commentary on the very first verse in the Torah, where he said (based on Bereshit Rabbah 1,3) that the reason why the Torah commenced with the statement that G’d had created heaven and earth, was so that when an international Court of Law would declare the Israelites’ conquest and subsequent dispossession of the seven Canaanite nations illegal, we would respond that the Canaanites themselves had claimed territorial rights to an earth that belonged exclusively to G’d who had created it. Surely the owner had the right to re-allocate the earth to tenants of His choosing.
The whole idea behind G’d’s commandments to take stones from the Jordan river and (erect them near Mount Gerizim) to inscribe in them the Torah in all the known languages was that if the Israelites, at this time, prepared to take possession of the lands of the Canaanites they would do so with the owner’s permission, nay, at the Owner’s instructions. Moreover, this should remind the nations of the world that the reason they were now being dispossessed was because they had refused to accept this very Torah when they had been given the opportunity to accept it. Seeing that the Israelites were the only nation willing to accept the Torah, most of whose commandments can only be observed in the land which up to then had belonged to the Canaanites, the Canaanites were now forced to abandon it or die in the struggle to hang on to it.
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