Chasidut к Дварим 6:8
וּקְשַׁרְתָּ֥ם לְא֖וֹת עַל־יָדֶ֑ךָ וְהָי֥וּ לְטֹטָפֹ֖ת בֵּ֥ין עֵינֶֽיךָ׃
И ты будешь связывать их знамением на руке твоей, и они будут для повязок между глазами твоими.
Kedushat Levi
Deuteronomy 1,5. “on the far side (east bank) of the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this Torah;”
A look at Rashi, based on Tanchuma, shows us that Moses translated the Torah into 70 languages. Why did Moses find it necessary to choose this time and location to translate the Torah into all the known languages at the time? If this was indeed so, this helps us explain a verse in psalms 87,6 ה' יספור בכתוב עמים זה ילד שם סלה, “The Lord will inscribe in His register of all the peoples that have been born, selah.”
It is an accepted rule that on occasion the Torah writes some words in Aramaic, such as in Genesis 31,47 “יגר סהדותא,” “the stone of witness,” whereas Yaakov named the very same heap of stones גלעד in its Hebrew equivalent. Aramaic is not the only foreign (non Hebrew) language that is found in the Torah. An example that comes to mind is the word טוטפות used by the Torah to describe the area on the forehead where the phylacteries are to be placed. (Deuteronomy 6,8). The word may describe some jewelry worn on the head. There are still other occasions when the Torah uses words from the Greek or other languages. The Talmud Zevachim 37 deals with the subject.
The point is that the gentiles come across words in the Torah which are familiar to them from their own language. More than that; the language of a nation is an essential part of its “life,” i.e. its culture, its reason for being a separate nation. Seeing that G’d foresaw that at some time in the future the Jewish people would spend their lives in exile amongst people speaking an “alien” tongue, the fact that the odd word of such languages were familiar to them from the Torah would serve as an encouragement to them, reminding them that they were not in a totally alien world. It is this thought that the psalmist alluded to in psalms 87,6 when he referred to the Jewish people though in exile will never be counted as an integral part of the host nation, but as “Zionists,” see reference in the verse preceding psalms 87,6. (Compare Alshich)
According to our author, the smattering of foreign words in the Torah is designed to give Jews born in foreign lands due to their parents being in exile, confidence that they can live there as Jews, provided they live as a צדיקים, righteous persons, as the tzaddik is also referred to as זה, (Compare B’rachot 6) and this is what the psalmist alludes to when writing the word זה after the word עמים in the verse quoted earlier from psalms 87,6. The Talmud quotes as its example the word זה in the last verse of Kohelet, where the line כי זה כל האדם, for this is the “whole” human being, implies that only a person who is a ירא שמים, ”lives in awe of His Creator,” is truly a human being.
The reason that the Torah refers to Moses explaining the Torah in the land of Moab is that only in חוץ לארץ, outside the Land of Israel proper, is there any need for Torah also to be understood by resorting to a tongue other than the holy Tongue.
A look at Rashi, based on Tanchuma, shows us that Moses translated the Torah into 70 languages. Why did Moses find it necessary to choose this time and location to translate the Torah into all the known languages at the time? If this was indeed so, this helps us explain a verse in psalms 87,6 ה' יספור בכתוב עמים זה ילד שם סלה, “The Lord will inscribe in His register of all the peoples that have been born, selah.”
It is an accepted rule that on occasion the Torah writes some words in Aramaic, such as in Genesis 31,47 “יגר סהדותא,” “the stone of witness,” whereas Yaakov named the very same heap of stones גלעד in its Hebrew equivalent. Aramaic is not the only foreign (non Hebrew) language that is found in the Torah. An example that comes to mind is the word טוטפות used by the Torah to describe the area on the forehead where the phylacteries are to be placed. (Deuteronomy 6,8). The word may describe some jewelry worn on the head. There are still other occasions when the Torah uses words from the Greek or other languages. The Talmud Zevachim 37 deals with the subject.
The point is that the gentiles come across words in the Torah which are familiar to them from their own language. More than that; the language of a nation is an essential part of its “life,” i.e. its culture, its reason for being a separate nation. Seeing that G’d foresaw that at some time in the future the Jewish people would spend their lives in exile amongst people speaking an “alien” tongue, the fact that the odd word of such languages were familiar to them from the Torah would serve as an encouragement to them, reminding them that they were not in a totally alien world. It is this thought that the psalmist alluded to in psalms 87,6 when he referred to the Jewish people though in exile will never be counted as an integral part of the host nation, but as “Zionists,” see reference in the verse preceding psalms 87,6. (Compare Alshich)
According to our author, the smattering of foreign words in the Torah is designed to give Jews born in foreign lands due to their parents being in exile, confidence that they can live there as Jews, provided they live as a צדיקים, righteous persons, as the tzaddik is also referred to as זה, (Compare B’rachot 6) and this is what the psalmist alludes to when writing the word זה after the word עמים in the verse quoted earlier from psalms 87,6. The Talmud quotes as its example the word זה in the last verse of Kohelet, where the line כי זה כל האדם, for this is the “whole” human being, implies that only a person who is a ירא שמים, ”lives in awe of His Creator,” is truly a human being.
The reason that the Torah refers to Moses explaining the Torah in the land of Moab is that only in חוץ לארץ, outside the Land of Israel proper, is there any need for Torah also to be understood by resorting to a tongue other than the holy Tongue.
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