Examples abound of lost verbal connections — and lost opportunities for understanding — in the translation of biblical texts. Translations into English made prior to the late 1970’s (and even some published later) were oblivious to most literary nuances of the biblical text. Fortunately, the work of Everett Fox (on Torah and Nevi’im Rishonim, so far) and Robert Alter (on Torah, Nevi’im Rishonim, Psalms, and the Wisdom Books, so far) do a great deal to rectify that situation.
My favorite lost internal allusion is one I learned, if I recall correctly, from another student of our late lamented teacher Nehama Leibowitz. Near the end of Parashat Toldedot (at Gen. 27:44), Rivka tells her beloved son Ya'akov to flee to her family of origin and to stay away yamim ah.adim ("a few days†may be the best literal reading) until his brother’s anger blows over. He does go, of course, and straightaway he meets Rah.el, for whom he ends up laboring for 7 years. But “they [i.e., the seven years] were in his eyes like yamim ah.adim, in his love for her†(in Parashat Vayyeitzei, at Gen. 29:20). The poignancy of the connection is especially great when we realize that while for Ya’akov, the time felt as though it passed as his mother had predicted, for her it was an eternity: she never saw him again.
The “new†(1960’s) JPS Torah translation renders the phrase in Toledot as “a while†and in Vayyetzei as “but a few days.†The reader of the translation is unable to make the connection.
Peretz Rodman
Rabbi Peretz Rodman
Jerusalem, Israel
www.PeretzRodman.com
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2016 03:45PM by mlb.
