Title: Yad HaGer: Lessons From Targum Onkelos
By: Rabbi Yehoshua Dovid Portowicz
Mosiaca Press
The Jewish people, as a group, engage in the study of the same portion of Torah every week. This is a beautiful idea. Based on “And they walked for three days in the wilderness and did not find water” (Shemos 15:22), the Gemara (Bava Kamma 82a) describes how public Torah reading was instituted so that three days do not go by without the Jewish people “drinking” from Torah. So we all study and discuss the weekly Torah portion together, and it becomes a magnificent national social intellectual spiritual experience.
This weekly learning is also formalized in the mitzva of Shenayim mikra v’echad targum, which is accomplished by reading each pasuk of the weekly portion twice, and Targum Onkelos (Onkelos’s translation of the Torah) on the pasuk once. The problem with doing this is that unless your Aramaic is up to par, it’s going to be a struggle. I learned years ago that you can fulfill the obligation by learning Rashi instead (and some hold even an English translation of Rashi), which is nice in terms of being an alternative and gets you familiar with Rashi. But it’s not Targum. Targum and Rashi do completely different things; Rashi is a commentator and Targum is a translation. Targum Onkelos is extraordinary, penetrating, and currently underrated (at least in girls’ yeshivas) due to the language barrier. Yad HaGer: Lessons From Targum Onkelos by Rabbi Yehoshua Dovid Portowicz book does a great job of getting people to appreciate what is unique about Targum.
Onkelos was always heroic in my mind. Before sitting down to write about the book, I couldn’t resist this opportunity to check how accurately I remembered the stories of my youth: Nephew of Titus from the Arch of Titus fame, Onkelos decided to convert. His uncle Titus did not accept his conversion, and sent soldiers to bring him back. Onkelos talked two groups of the Caesar’s soldiers into converting when they tried to take him. The third time, the soldiers were warned not to engage in any discussion with this persuasive philosopher. Which orders they followed. But Onkelos placed his hand on the mezuza on the way out and a soldier could not resist asking about it…and his satisfying, reasonable, and inspiring explanation convinced yet another group. After that, Caesar gave up and Onkelos learned Torah in peace. (Check out Gittin 56b-57a, which is not quite like I remember, but Avoda Zara 11a is closer and the conversations are worth studying in depth.) Targum Onkelos is often considered to date to around 400 C.E, around the time the final editing of the Tanaaitic midrashim took place, and it consistently uses the final edited versions of the midrashim.
To me the name of the book Yad HaGer, “the hand of the Convert,” indicates the author’s intention to give us a hand in understanding the words attributed to this famous convert. I also learned, through this book, about two commentaries on Onkelos, named Nesinah LaGer (lit., Giving to the Convert) and Nefesh HaGer (lit., Soul of the Convert). The introduction to Nesinah LaGer describes that Ezra wrote an Aramaic translation (Sanhedrin 21b) which was passed down orally and much of it lost, until Onkelos came and returned the lost object and copied it anew (Megillah 3a). I was excited to learn about these commentaries on Onkelos and happy to see their insights sprinkled throughout the book.
Yad HaGer is well organized. I found the introduction riveting. What makes Targum Onkelos special if it’s a translation? Isn’t a translation just the same words in a different language? Anyone familiar with learning Torah in the original Hebrew knows how tricky it can be to translate some of the words and how many words have nuances and more than one meaning. I particularly enjoyed the section “General Rules of Onkelos,” a list of twenty-two things that are unique to Onkelos and patterns that Onkelos does in his translation. It gives you a sense of phenomena to look out for while you come across them studying Onkelos in the wild, so to speak.
You might be forgiven for thinking Targum never translates exactly, considering that this book is chock full of the “unusual” Targums. Which makes sense, since those are the ones to study carefully and appreciate. In actuality, much of Targum is a basic translation. But it is full of gems to be looked at more carefully. The structure of this book is that it is divided by parsha. Every parsha has a few short articles focusing on a particular Targum translation. As a matter of fact, before I began reading the book, I was preparing a shiur on Vayechi, so I flipped it open and peeked at the articles on that parsha and immediately found a point that was quite useful for the material I was preparing. This is not a book that needs to be read in order, and you can just turn to the parsha that week and read a short and interesting exploration of an idea through the lens of Targum.
The author’s approach is to give a smattering of all sorts of interpretations and meforshim in order to bring out Onkelos’s ideas. Personally, I would prefer a more explicit and direct approach: 1) State the peshat. 2) State Onkelos’s divergence from the peshat and the question that this brings up. 3) Explain why Onkelos did that.
What you have instead: The question is the title of the section. (This is an excellent technique that grabs you in right away!) The pasuk is written in Hebrew. Underneath that is Targum, with an English translation of Targum, which is very nicely laid out, visually. Then you have what is essentially a dvar Torah using Targum and others (he lists in his introduction the main sources: Rashi, Ramban, Rabbenu Bachya, Nesinah LaGer, Nefesh HaGer, Hakesav V’Hakabbalah, Me’at Tzari, Gemaros and Midrashim).
Although, as I said, my preference would be more tunnel-vision Onkelos focus, that is probably due to my thirst for Onkelos, and I think many people will enjoy the wider appeal of these short, easy-to-read-and-digest general divrei Torah on parsha that use Onkelos as a jumping off point for broader insights.
Something I paused on in the introduction is the point that Onkelos is “MiSinai.” I cannot but wonder, how is the translation from Sinai? As mentioned above, it is broadly understood that the mesorah of the Aramaic translation was lost after Ezra, and that Onkelos re-established it. How are we to understand that Targum’s translation is considered from Sinai?
I am reminded of the story in the Gemara (Menachos 29b) where Hashem explains to Moshe that He is putting crowns on the letters for R’ Akiva to expound upon in the future. Moshe asks Hashem, “Show him to me,” and Hashem tells him to look behind him. Moshe went and sat at the end of the eighth row in the classroom and did not know what they were talking about, which sapped Moshe’s strength. R’ Akiva made a point, and his students asked, “Rebbi, where do you derive this from?” And R’ Akiva answered: “It’s halacha l’Moshe MiSinai [Moshe received this law at Sinai]!” Moshe’s mind was then put at ease.
How could R’ Akiva have taught Torah that Moshe did not understand, and yet it has the status of being transmitted to Moshe from Sinai?
One possibility is that the Torah is infinite, with infinite possibility of infinite ideas – but all based on principles and truths given to Moshe at Sinai. What makes Targum Onkelos unique is that he was able to recreate and creatively intuit translations that are in line with the eternal truths that were given to Moshe at Sinai. As the author quotes, when Onkelos recited his translation before his rebbeim, they praised him. Perhaps because they saw its profundity and depth, and how it aligned with what Moshe received at Sinai.
Each vort in this book ends with a very beautiful tefillah based on the ideas the author just extrapolated and expounded for us. I loved every single tefillah. It’s such a beautiful and profound way to take what we learn and turn it directly into a mindset of action, growth, understanding and prayer.
May many readers learn this sefer, appreciate Onkelos’s recondite translation, and grow in Torah and middos!
