26

In the Parshah of Chayei Sara, in Bereishis 25:6, there is a Posuk that refers to הפילגשים - "the concubines". Rashi expounds that since the word is missing a Yud, it must be a reference to the fact that Hagar and Keturah were one person and that is how the Torah is alluding to this fact (see Rashi there).

The question is: What missing Yud?

Artscroll's comment answers that: "Rashi's text of the Torah had the spelling פילגשם, without the letter י of the ים suffix which indicates the plural ..."

Does this mean that in Rashi's time the text of the Torah was actually slightly different - so much so that Rashi took the effort to expound a particular missing Yud that we don't actually have on our modern Torah scrolls?

If so, wouldn't it be more appropriate for modern Sofrim to "fix" this issue by leaving out the Yud (since we can trust Rashi on this presumably)?

I'm curious about this.

Improve this question
11
  • 1
    This happens a few times
    – simchastorah
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 4:46
  • 3
    This isn't an answer, but... is it possible that Rashi, Midrash, even Chazal were just quoting from memory, thus silent letters are present or not according to the author's memory rather than their actual text?
    – yoel
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 17:30
  • 7
    @yoel, WADR, it doesn't seem reasonable to me that Rashi would "darshn" a spelling without being sure first that it was the correct spelling (according to his m'sora or whatever).
    – msh210 ♦
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 17:41
  • @msh210 Rashi isn't, the Midrash is.
    – avi
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 19:21
  • 2
    @avi, all the more so, then.
    – msh210 ♦
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 20:26

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
14

Rashi is actually quoting here from Bereshis Rabbah 61.

The question is, do we trust the midrash with the text of our sifrei torah, and "fix" the problem accordingly, or do we trust the vast majority of our texts and sifrei torah that have the word with two yud's?

Beis Yosef (YD 275), who claims that this problem happens quite often, seems to say (correct me if I'm wrong), quoting a teshuva of Rashba, that in such cases we follow the majority of accepted texts.

In this case, the accepted consensus seems to be that we write "הפילגשים" with two yud's. [See Minchas Shai. This is also discussed by R' Menachem di Lunzano (see editor's notes on left of following page).]

Improve this answer
1
8

There is a book called Fixing God's Torah, Barry Levy. It deals with this Rashba. There is a Rebbi Akiva Aiger in Masechet Shabbat (55B) where he has a list of such issues. Also note, in the examples given above, they are letters that the gemara (Kiddushin 30A) says "we are not expert in full and defective spelling" i.e. the use of the vav. The yud is more problematic but is nonetheless a silent letter. Also see in the back of the final volume of Torat Hayim, Mossad HaRav Kook, there is a short list of variants between torahs.

Improve this answer
2
  • MordechaiRockover, welcome to the site and thank you for the information. I hope you stick around and enjoy the site.
    – msh210 ♦
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 17:42
  • 2
    i should also point out that the most interesting thing on shabbat 55b is the tosafot there: "our sha"s argues on our sefarim". מעבירם כתיב. הש״ס שלנו חולק על ספרים שלנו
    – moses
    Commented Apr 22, 2012 at 23:28
7

In this article by Gil Student titled "On the Text of the Torah", this and other textual issues are discussed. In the article (In the Aggadic Midrash section ) he proposes that it was actually pretty common practice for the Rabbis to deliberately "change" the word in order to drive home a homiletic point.

from the article (please read it for context and examples):

However, we do not need to raise this issue because a more nuanced understanding of aggadic drashot reveals that they are not based on the actual spelling of the words.

...

Thus, the textual variants we find in aggadic midrashim do not necessarily reflect different versions of the Bible. They reflect the homiletic license that is typical of this literary genre. Some rishonim did not understand it this way.

Improve this answer
1
  • To say that Gil is suggesting that the rabbis deliberately "change" the word, is a bit misleading. Particularly given your quote "aggadic midrashim do not necessarily reflect different versions of the Bible."
    – barlop
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 14:04
4

Rashi's text is not necessarily better than ours. More problematic is the couple of places where its clear that the gemara has a slightly different text than we do. (For example, in Mes. Sukkah the Gemara has a different number of 'vavs' in "sukkos".) Most, if not all, of the rishonim who discuss this issue say the text of the Torah should be changed to match the Gemara's, but no one followed that.

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    for example, the Radvaz mentioned in this answer says that when the Rabbis cite a different spelling of the Torah than the one we have, they are more correct, otherwise we follow the tradition we have presently. (It may be that he is not saying we should change the text, but rather we don't negate the teaching just because it is based on a different version of the word than the one we have): judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/9633/…
    – Menachem
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 15:39
  • 1
    The article in my answer says: Tosafot in Shabbat 55b said that the Gemara's version of the Bible was different than the textus receptus because the Gemara had מעבירים chaser while the textus receptus has it yeter. However, Rashba (Responsa Attributed to Ramban, 232) wrote that we shouldn't revise our biblical texts based on aggadic midrashim. Similarly, Rashbatz (Tashbetz 3:160)wrote, "We do not rely on aggadic midrashim to correct the texts." Even though we aren't experts in chaser and yeter, we still can't be sure that these midrashim were doing anything more than loosely reading the text.
    – Menachem
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 16:13
  • 2
    @Menachem Worth emphasizing that the Rashba you quote there says not to change for aggadic midrashim, but yes to change for halachik midrashim.
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Aug 23, 2013 at 5:18
3

This question was posed to R. Hershel Schachter in this Q&A forum beginning at about 13:18. He said that there are many such textual discrepancies, and that it is "a big problem" and "a serious problem" and "a serious issue" because it would affect the validity of the Torah scrolls. He quoted the Minchas Chinuch saying that these types of discrepancies don't invalidate Torah scrolls, but did not seem to be entirely convinced. He added that he does not think that this falls under the ambit of Rambam's Eighth Principle that the entire Torah that we have is the Torah that was given to Moshe. (I.e. he thinks that Rambam was not referring to the text.)

Improve this answer
1

According to the commentary in Torat Chaim (seems to be by Rabbi Chaim Dov Chavel [pronounced Schwell]), the word is supposed to be (you would expect it to be) פילגשיים, with three yuds. His comment reads:

כי צריך להיות "הפילגשיים" בשתי יודין, כמו "ועבריים", דהיינו יו"ד אחת לסימן היחס ויו"ד שניה לסימן הריבוי.

So according to this explanation at least, our text is correct (i.e. the same as Rashi's).

Improve this answer
5
  • So are you saying our text matches that and has 2 yuds at the end? it doesn't. It has 1 yud at the end so 2 yuds in total. Not 3. mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0125.htm
    – barlop
    Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 8:55
  • 1
    I'm saying Rashi had the same text we do. His comment is that the word "should have" 3 yuds total, but only has 2, so it's "missing" one.
    – Scimonster
    Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 12:04
  • OK but then should your last line read "So according to this explanation at least, our text and rashi's text are the same" rather than "our text is correct". One can't say that according to rashi, ours or his are correct on this word, if he is saying it should have another yud.
    – barlop
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 13:58
  • Edited. Hopefully it's clearer now.
    – Scimonster
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 14:01
  • If Rashi is saying it's missing a yud then he's saying it's not correct, he's saying it's incorrect, and on this particular word rather than the whole text or "the text". But, he's not saying it's correct. He's saying it's missing a yud. If one wants to label it as correct or incorrect he's saying that our text on this word is **incorrect**(not correct), in its spelling of the word. The formulation I suggested in my suggested adaption of your last sentence, would be correct and clear "So according to this explanation of rashi, our text and rashi's text have this word the same"
    – barlop
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 16:02

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .