Samaritan Torah, פַּרְשַׁת בְּמִדְבַּר

Numbers 3:5-3:9

במדבר ג ה-ג ט

The Lord spoke to Moses: "Bring near the tribe of Levi, and present them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister to him. They shall keep his charge, and the charge of the whole congregation before the tabernacle of the congregation, to perform the service of the tabernacle. They shall keep all the vessels of the Tent of Meeting, and the charge of the children of Israel, to perform the service of the tabernacle. You shall give the Levites to Aaron and to his sons: they are wholly given to him out of the Israelites."

וַיְדַבֵּר ה׳ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר׃ הַקְרֵב אֶת־מַטֵּה לֵוִי וְהַעֲמַדְתָּ אֹתוֹ לִפְנֵי אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן וְשֵׁרְתוּ אֹתוֹ׃ וְשָׁמְרוּ אֶת־מִשְׁמַרְתּוֹ וְאֶת־מִשְׁמֶרֶת כָּל־הָעֵדָה לִפְנֵי אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד לַעֲבֹד אֶת־עֲבֹדַת הַמִּשְׁכָּן׃ וְשָׁמְרוּ אֶת־כָּל־כְּלֵי אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד וְאֶת־מִשְׁמֶרֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לַעֲבֹד אֶת־עֲבֹדַת הַמִּשְׁכָּן׃ וְנָתַתָּה אֶת־הַלְוִיִּם לְאַהֲרֹן וּלְבָנָיו נְתוּנִם נְתוּנִם הֵמָּה לוֹ מֵאֵת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל׃

The Samaritan text has a small but significant difference: Instead of "they are wholly given to him out of the Israelites", it reads "they are wholly given to Me amongst (לִי מִתּוֹךְ) the Israelites."

Samaritan Torah notes         Jewish learning notes index

Singer's siddur commentary, and how to translate בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳

I'm currently reading the commentary volume to the first edition of the Singer's Prayer Book. Why I like it, and dislike the ArtScroll, may be summed up by what both siddurim have to say about the origins of בָּרוּךְ שֶׁאָמַר. The commentary to the Singer's says:

The whole passage, much as we have it, is, apparently, at least as old as Moses Gaon (about 820) and in germ is much older. (See Vitry, p. 5, and commentaries on Shulḥan Aruch, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, §51, 1.) Several of its most characteristic phrases are already cited in the Mishnah and Talmud.)

Whereas the ArtScroll says:

The commentators record an ancient tradition that this prayer was transcribed by the Men of the Great Assembly approximately 2400 years ago from a script that fell from heaven.

Here's one interesting thing I've learned from this volume. How do you translate בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳? In English, the pretty much universal translation is "Blessed are You, Lord." But in German, the standard translation is gelobst seist du, Ewige, "Praised be You, Eternal," using a subjunctive that I don't really see the Hebrew supporting. I did a little experiment with aviva_m the other day and discovered that how she translated the phrase depended on which language she was translating it into!

Actually, it's not just the first two words that the two languages differ translating, but the third one as well. I've already blogged about how the Reform movement translates the Tetragrammaton as "the Eternal", based on the traditional interpretation of it as encapsulating הָיָה, הוֹוֶה, יִהְיֶה "[God] was, is, and will be".

However, something I recently learned from the Plaut chumash commentary, which neither the Hertz nor Etz Chayim mention, is that if the pronunciation scholars say was the most likely for the Tetragrammaton, viz. "Yahweh", is correct, then the Tetragrammaton ceases to be something looking vaguely like the verb "to be", from which we have to extrapolate a meaning, but becomes, very simply and regularly, the third person future imperfect of the הִפְעִיל of the verb stem הוה, and thus can be assigned an unambiguous meaning, "[the One Who] will cause to be".

I'm surprised (but also unsurprised) that this isn't better known amongst Jews.