By Laurence Kaufman
We have segued to the Book of Numbers, or in Hebrew, BaMidbar, in the wilderness.  The English name is a response to the census that is the focus of the first parasha. The Hebrew name, beyond referring to the first substantive word of the text, is an overview of the book as a whole, reflecting both the physical setting in which the action takes place, and the emotional wilderness of uncertainty, rebelliousness, jealousy, and other tensions that shape the action.  Our wonderful new Women's Torah Commentary alerts us to the inherent contradiction of the Hebrew and the English names for the book - the English stressing the order that is imposed by counting, the Hebrew introducing the chaos our ancestors will experience en route to their new reality.

Clearly the difference is not a matter of translation, any more than translation is the issue in the Exodus/Shmot (Names) pairing or the Leviticus/VaYikra (And [God] called) pairing.  The English names apparently trace back to the Septaguint, the important early translation of the Tanach into Greek.  Perhaps some scholarly reader of this blog can elucidate why those Alexandrian translators changed rather than translated the Hebrew names; but whatever the reason, they instituted a shift that has essentially carried over into all translations into all languages over the centuries.  In my view, the new direction is constructive in the case of Exodus and Leviticus, immaterial in the case of Deuteronomy, and counter-productive in the case of Numbers.

For a recent d'var Torah, I compared several translations of the description of Jacob as ish tam yoshev b'ohalim (a simple man, a dweller in tents), and found tam translated as simple, but also as innocent, perfect, mild, homespun, and wholesome.  Taking simple as the most prevalent translation, one of my listeners pointed out that there are multiple meanings of simple -- so not only is every translation a commentary (or, as suggested by Robert Alter, a betrayal), but even the commentary has to be interpreted.  (See the whole analysis on my blog)

I hypothesize that the decision by the seventy translators of the Septaguint to change rather than translate the name of those books of the Pentateuch reflected some kind of change in the values they wanted to project.  We can find values-laden choices as we study various Biblical translations, but I am most frequently struck by values-laden choices in our siddurim (prayer books), since we encounter them week after week.  These include conscious mistranslations (Gates of Prayer) and directive rather than neutral translations (Mishkan T'filah).

In Eilu d'varim, the obligations without measure in Gates of Prayer, the Hebrew l'vayat ha-meit, accompanying the dead, is "translated" as to console the bereaved.  In my personal value system, making the shiva call is more important than going to the cemetery, so I support the English even as I recoil at the failure to translate accurately.  I imagine a disagreement in the editorial committee, resolved by the assumption they could have it both ways, because the laity wouldn't know the difference.  This theory of presumed contempt for the laity is bolstered when talmud Torah k'neged kulam, the study of Torah is equal to them all, gains the English addendum, because it leads to them all.

Objections from congregation-land to this kind of editorial decision-making led the editors of Mishkan T'filah to provide "faithful" translations.  (Apparently, we Jews in the pews now know more than the rabbis of the early 1970's were ready to give us credit for.)  The Eilu d'varim translations in Mishkan T'filah pass my faithfulness test.  I question the claim of faithfulness, though, in what was perhaps the most controversial issue the editors dealt with - the reinstatement in the T'filah of the m'chayeih hameitim option.  Why, if m'chayeih hakol can be translated as giving life to all, can't m'chayeih hameitim be translated as giving life to the dead, instead of as reviving the dead?

We know that the nineteenth century Reformers couldn't live with the idea of resurrection, which they understood as inherent in m'chayeih hameitim.  As someone who avails himself of the m'chayeih hameitim option (and who is not hung up on consistency), I don't expect any reviving of the dead.  My parents, in their graves for many decades, are very much alive to me, and never more so than when I am at prayer. Thus I understand and translate the phrase as giving life to the dead.

Where I infer that the Stern gang, in translating for Gates of Prayer, were guilty of contempt for the laity, I interpret my disagreement with the choices made by the editors of Mishkan T'filah as the product of their erudition and rigorous intellectual honesty.  They know that m'chayeih hameitim originally expressed an expectation of bodily resurrection, and they think we should know it too.  (Full disclosure:  I have discussed Mishkan T'filah personally with Rabbis Knobel and Frishman, although not this issue.  I didn't know Chaim Stern and his cohorts.)  In addition, let's remember that our prayer-books, like our Bible translations (starting with the Septaguint itself), are the products of committees, and thus of compromise.

Hinei ma tov u'ma na-im, behold how good and pleasant it is that we have this blog, so even as we recognize how some of these things happen, we don't have to suffer them silence!

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