Teaching Bible in Our Rabbinical Schools ment of a secular institution of to be-constitutes the focus of study. However, for the correct understanding of the Bible in its historical career, the Christian and Moslem countries of Asia, Europe and North Africa-and only re- cently also the countries of the Western World--during the first two millenia CE, constituting as they do the period and regions in whiCh the Bible was widely used and regarded as the basis of the Bible in its historical set- of authority by every important By HARRY M. ORLINSKY Teaching Bible in a rabbinical ting, the Near East of the last stratum of society, make up the school is not the same as teach- two millenia BCE-the period and area of our interest. ing Bible in the Semitics depart- region in which the Bible came So it is two different Bibles that are involved in these two great, but different, historical epochs. For we must realize (From the files of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency) clearly that the Bible became 40 Years Ago This•Week: 1930 and remained a living force in The World Zionist Organization's Actions Committee refused Dr. Jewish (as in Christian) life Chaim Weizmann's offer to resign as WZO president after he caused a precisely because it was lifted sensation by declaring: "We must agree to 'Palestine becoming a bi- right out of the living conditions national state. It is impossible to continue the talks about a Jewish which had brought it into be- state as we did during the period when the world was engaged in war ing and adjusted to the con- . . . Two nations must exist in Palestine." Maurice Schwartz, whose Yiddish Art Theater of New York closed siderably different conditions of for lack of support, announced he would relocate it in Philadelphia. the Hellenistic, Roman, Chris- Dr. Sigmund Freud won the 1930 Goethe Prize. tian, Moslem, Persian and other The East Side Chamber of Commerce said 75 per cent of the busi- cultures and societies of the nesses in that New York area were in Jewish hands despite an exodus. Common Era. I use the term Dr. Paul Goebbels, a National Socialist member of the Reichstag, "adjusted" in its widest possible was given a six-week jail term for libelous published remarks about sense, excluding virtually no im- Berlin's Jewish police chief. plications. Editor's Note: Dr. Harry M. Orlinsky, author of this essay, is professor of Bible at Hebrew Union College and higher learning. In a Semitics di.-1 president of Society of Biblical Litera- partment, the primary purpose is ture. He was chairman of the commit- tee that supervised the revived transla- to account for the Bible in its his- tion of "The Torah," which was pub- , torical setting: how and why it lished by the Jewish Publication So- ciety, and is author of "Notes on the I came to be. In a rabbinical school, New Translation of the Torah, a recent the primary purpose is to account JPS volume. This essay was the sub stance of an address Dr. Orlinsky de- for the Bible in its historical de- livered at Camp Kum Warwick, N.Y., velopment: how and why the Bible sponsored by the Union of American , Hebrew Congregations. The summer -as a finished product-came to group he addressed is called Torah be used and interpreted. Corps-Plugat Hatorah. For the proper comprehension • . This Week in History 10 Years Ago This Week: 1960 The Zionist Organization of America urged Washington to "under- take a new initiative to bring Israel and the Arab states into direct negotiations at the peace table." The State Department, while warning Kuwait against "unwarrant- ed" pressure on American businesses to support the Arabs' boycott of Israel, said the pressure was not an "unfriendly act" because it "was not directed against the United States as such." Foreign Minister Golda Meir said Israel would provide 1,000 schol- arships for studies there by African and Asian students. Alpha Tau Omega, a top fraternity, said it would "cooperate with university authorities in their anti-discrimination rulings," but that its "traditional membership" probably would not change. George Lincoln Rockwell and seven American Nazi "stormtroopers". were convicted in Washington Municipal Court on two counts of dis- orderly conduct in connection with anti-Semitic rallies. New York State Supreme Court Justice Henry Epstein rejected Rockwell's plea to speak in Union Square because the resultant "public disorder and riot" would put the rally beyond "the reasonable scope of the Bill of Rights." Premier Hazza al-Majali of Jordan was assassinated with a time bomb. The Anti-Defamation League warned Jews to ignore the "unsub- stantiated rumors" that Presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon had "anti-Semitic bias." Two rabbinic leaders said the Czech and Hungarian regimes ex- pected their Jewish communities to disappear because they are "con- vinced that religion cannot long endure in the climate of a society that vigorously pursues a policy of materialistic atheism." V a■ 7 6 11 15 20 ■ 19 ■ 24 ■ 17 18 28 2 ■ 13 23 3 4 10 14 25 ■ 11- EBRE TV HOBBYISTS 5■ 6 40 33 ■ ■ 32 U K ■ L: 16 L A L. (( U d t t... L. LC Lt G t I u a a 4 c t ■ L. a t A 4 4 26 L t r 1.: r 1 29 L 4 c a t ■ ■ ■ ■ L 4 1 L. c C4 it ci t is G t 1..1 u (.1 U 27 34 42 41 4 a Lc U G L. t U LCG c 4LI.r 37 CetiZZe L.: 4. c Hebrew Column Archeologists in Sinai Desert 4 CI 4. 1. I t DOWN 1. thank you very much 28 29 30 31 32 . 34 37 . sons the nights garden hook the dew the hope bad (masc. sing.) orange 41. warm (masc. sing.) 42. doors 43. pure (masc. sing.) 38 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. (two words) flower beauty damp (masc. sing.) sub brown take (plural) hook 11. bell 13. echo . 15. cost of 17. to lead It is equally true that mod- ern biblical scholarship, mostly Protestant, has been nothing short of revolutionary in mak- ing us comprehend the Bible in a manner and to an extent that was impossible and unimagin- able prior to the 20th Cen- tury; for this we must all be forever most grateful. Yet we can gain even deeper compre- hension of the Bible if we study the medieval Jewish commenta- tors increasingly, systematically and critically, for they will sup- ply us with considerable inform- ation and understanding that will go well with the extrabib- Heal data unearthed in more re cent ti e I say this, because of my ex- perience in translating the Bible as a member of the committee that produced the Protestant Revised Standard Version of the Old Testa ment (1952) and of the commit- tee that produced the new Jew- ish Publication Society's version of the Torah (1962). In the volume of Notes on the New Translation of the Torah, due to appear any day now (it appeared on March 4), I wrote, "A major consequence of this new (JPS) translation is the realization that the traditional in- terpreters of the Bible-beginning with the earliest rabbinic litera- ture and extending through Saadia, Rashi, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Radak, Ramban, Ralbag, Sforno, and Abravanel, to Luzzatto, Malbim, and others-command in vastly increased measure the respect and gratitude of modern critical schol- arship. "These traditional commentators gain our scholarly respect not from I 0 d expression. , . A llman ACROSS 21 only 23. pirates 26 doll a 1 L. l 43 1 prayers 6 (they) engraved 9 and wind 10 apple 12 (he) pushed 14 page 16 children 19 who LC L.: 35 38 CI 21 22 , 31 36 39 1 9 12 30 ■ When studying the Bible in its historical setting, it is the langu- ages and cultures and histories of Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, the Hurrians, the Hittites. Canaan, Moab, Ammon. Edom, Aram, Pho- enicia, Philistia, and the like, that must be studied; and the arche- ology of these lands and civiliza- tions assumes major significance for the serious student of the Bible. For the study of the Bible in its historical development, how- ever, it is rather the opinions and interpretations of Rabbi Akiba in the 2nd Century, of the Talmudic Rabbis and the Masoretes in the centuries that followed, of Saadia Gaon in the 10th Century, of the incomparable Rashi in the 11th Century, of his grandson Rashbam in the 12th, of the acute Ibn Ezra and of Radak-the greatest of the Kimchis-in the 12-13th centuries, of Ramban in the 13th, Ralbag in the 14th, Abravanel in the 15th, and Sforno in the 16th Century- it is to these Jewish masters of biblical exegesis that we must turn. A is-man expedition from the anti- quities department in Jerusalem visited the Sinai Desert, and made an arche- ological survey for a week. The ex- pedition traveled to Sinai to get to know the region of Kadesh-Barnea, which was one of the important stops of the children of Israel when they wandered through the desert on the way from Egypt to the land of Canaan. Kadesh-Barnea is situated next to an Important road-junction which connects the land of Israel and Egypt with the Sinai Desert. The spot is today called Tel Kudeirat and is situated in a fer- tile valley blessed with water. The spring, Ein Kudeirat, flows strongly (lit. with much force). The members of the expedition found a wall circling the valley in which Kadesh-Barnea is situated. Its length is about five kilo- meters and it stands to this day at a height of 1! ,2 meters above ground. One of the members of the expedi- tion related that on their way in Sinai they found a great number of rock drawings. The drawings were from the Nabatean, Roman and early Arabic 18. you sat (plural) 20. right 22. voices 24. apartment 25. blood 27. expensive 30. wave 33. (they) flew 34. the brother 35. committee 36. (they) drank the Iron Age. The expedition also visit- ed a small island in the Gulf of Ellat and found ruins of buildings from the Middle Ages on IL 40. (he) moved by Brit Ivrit (Hama in conjunction with Keren Mittman Latarbut Yehudit. 39. piece (of bread) Feature Sponsored by Tarbut Foundation for the Advancement of Hebrew Culture. blind acceptance of their views but rather from a critical evalua- tion of their exposition in a man- ner that any modern commenta- tor expects from his peers." And in an article on Jewish influence on Christian translations of the Bible, ("Jewish Scholarship and Christian Translations of the He- brew Bible," Yearbook LXIII cf the Central Conference of Ameri- can Rabbis, 1953, pp 235-252), I dealt inter alia with the central role that Rashi's commentary-by way of the Jewish convert to Christianity, Nicolas de Lyra- played in the making of Martin Luther's great German translation and-through Luther-of William Tyndale's English version; with the influence of David Kirnchi (Radak), so pervasive that, as put by Max L. Margolis in his fine little book on The Story of Bible Translations, it "may be traced in every line of the Anglican (so- called King James) version of 1911"; with the way in which Abraham ibn Ezra influenced the translation of the word tzedaka of Proverbs 8.18: "prosperity" in- stead of traditional "righteous- ness" and the like. In a rabbinical school it is not easy to combine the two ap- proaches, though much of the prob- lem would be solved if a post- graduate course in Bible leading to the PhD degree were simul- taneously available to the interest- ed student. Lacking that, the stu- dent has to depend on his teacher and on the secondary literature- where he is usually limited to the English language-for information of extrabiblical origin. Professional biblical scholars have tended to dismiss them as well-meaning and learned men who lacked the critical attitude that distinguishes the scientifically minded from the merely learned student of the Bible-as we say in Yiddish, der gelernter as distinct from der vissenshaftlicher. Of course the traditional Jewish com- mentators-just like the non-Jew- ish prior to the 19th Cen- tury - were not archeologists, trained historians, cuneiformists, Egyptologists, and the like, but they knew the Bible. They knew Hebrew. They had a feeling for the nuances of a biblical Hebrew .rp - 73 -774 crai5ietplx - n7L)nnn rrvp 1 48-Friday, August 28, 1970 nr_7'. vp 711 ''t.7;17 , ai5itqlrt -In '1'0 17 ric;,4 r:027)7pri - 5tri nn ,morr nx -rnn5 nirmn nrizi nrrno Min npq ,5rtn4r 4 7j 111Mtj tV7 r:14. 1 4 74 1117.4 -1-174 11 74 .7171P - r*? 1 217 rizqn; 117:?R7? ,77Pjrltr?"11 -ritilY Dv n717P1 rps; nipp ntp 77.4 ti47p4 X111 ,raii-r7 -171.71 - 71? ,7747nri .n7np 7pri .=1 1_173 oft lx47; nn5Vpri nzqP? i3TT ,P7. ?7,i M.? - nrvnnn -WFt# 171.kr) 1311 ,tripni5 ,p 1 P 7i rinj.4 r)17 .?117 ' 7177? nn'77,Pn 5V n"14rin jn "Tr5 v47? ^]^a3 t1 114 ^n , 1PP .1R?? t7i13 Inan3 1759 - 71, nYlrrin 17? ❑ r.3 n'1 1 s471 n^3lu11 ,n,tp . 371 -rip Da 1:1"11” 117" .1-17?11771 riTa nn5t4ip7 .5n3m -rip17 ,115 ' - r1 P??4V iy 'kz4 na 0'4:44 51ti Er- rift; i3 ;-ittnli . 071'; 71 '7n^n period. There are also drawings from Translation of Hebrew Column issued 7P tj'N 15 51g ( rothiw rrinv zinz niairm) "r17.11-17 1112Ir112 ThT? 17?." VI. 941 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS