Avodah Mailing List

Volume 43: Number 67

Mon, 03 Nov 2025

• 1. 1960 de Sola Pool Edition of the RCA Shabbat and Yom Tov Siddur (Joseph Kaplan)
• 2. Re: Where was Dan? (Akiva Miller)
• 3. Re: Oops Re: Names in Aramaic and other languages (Ilana Elzufon)
• 4. Re: Names in Aramaic and other languages (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: Ben sorer et al (Micha Berger)

Areyeh Frimer asks: ?Is there someone on this list who has access to the de
Sola Pool Edition of the RCA Shabbat and Yom Tov Siddur. I am interested in
verifying whether R. De Sola Pool indeed translated  "Bar E-lohin" in
Berikh Shmei as "Angel" or "Son of God".   I vaguely remember he did the
latter, and Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik was extremely upset. [ In this
regard, See the Mesorat HaRav Rosh Hashana Machzor p. 395 note 1, and
Introductory material,	Hanhagot haRav, no. 57. p. Lv ]?

In the original version, which lists on the cover page ?Authorized by the
Rabbinical Council of America, J.B. Soloveitchik, Chairman, Halakha
Committee, C.B. Chavel, Chairman, Siddur Commuttee,? it?s translated as
?son of God? (p  242). In a later edition, which lists on its cover page
?Under the direction of the Siddur Committee of the Rabbinical council of
America? with no additional names, its?s translated as ?a created being?
(p. 242). Both editions have a 1960 copyright date. (I have both editions
in my home library.) 

The second one has the original ?Introduction? by the editor and translator
David de Sola Pool as well as an ?Introduction: Revised Edition? by members
of the Siddur Committee (R. Chavel is no longer listed as Chairman). While
the second introduction has a discussion of issues regarding translation,
the translation and retranslation of bar E-lohin is not mentioned.  It
notes at the end that the Siddur Committee ?hopes, in the near future, to
prepare a companion to the Siddur that will provide an explanation to all
these [translation] fine points.? 

Those are the facts. Now to my recollection. (a) No such companion
regarding translation was ever issued. (b) When the original came out there
was a major brouhaha over the translation of bar E-lohin. The Rav was very
angry, and the word from those who knew was that he insisted an a revised
edition without his name. (c) I also think, but am less sure about this,
that he did not know that his name was going to be included as it was in
the original edition. 

Joseph
Sent from my iPhone  as was 

.
R' Micha Berger asked:

> There are many place names in the Chumash that we today can't
> locate.
> Why do you consider his contemporary generation a more important
> audience than later ones? If you aren't bothered by the Chumash
> referring to places we can't identify, why are you bothered by
> the Dor Dei'ah having to settle for "the place where Dan will
> live, wherever that is"?

I apologize for not stating my question more clearly.

To me, it seems very obvious that things get forgotten over the course of
time, and people accept that as natural. No one today is sure exactly which
mountain is "Har Sinai", but that phrase is not totally meaningless. We
understand what it refers to, and we understand why we're unsure which
mountain it is. Similarly regarding the relatively short list of nonkosher
birds; we don't really know what an "atalef" is, but that doesn't bother
us, because Jews have not been zookeepers over the centuries, and we never
bothered to keep track of these birds' identities. We've been farmers, but
we concentrated on wheat and barley, and most of us are not shocked to hear
of uncertainty about "shiboles shual".

But I have always expected that the Dor Dei'ah did know these things. Maybe
not every single individual, but surely there were experts who one might
consult. It MUST have been so, because consider the reverse: Imagine Moshe
Rabenu teaching Parshas Shmini, and six hundred thousand people all asking,
"What's an atalef?" At the very least, Moshe himself must have been able to
answer the question, because if he couldn't, then the pasuk is literally
meaningless. And I just can't accept that.

So too, if they are learning that Avram went to Dan, and someone asked,
"Was Dan near or far? Where was it?", there must have been someone who
could have answered. But if Dan was a place which did not yet have that
name, then the pasuk would have been meaningless to all of Klal Yisrael.

R' Micha again:

> Why would Hashem be speaking a code only the first generations
> can understand and not the hundreds, or thousands, or infinite
> generations after them?

You include the word "only", and that highlights which part of my question
you misunderstood. I don't mean to suggest that the Torah should be
understood ONLY by the Dor Dei'ah, but that the Torah SHOULD be understood
by the Dor Dei'ah.

Our understanding of the Torah is a function of how well we learned it and
how well the middle generations taught it. But there is a presumption that
the first generation did understand it perfectly. We have even heard
descriptions of the procedure, by which Moshe taught Yehoshua and then
tested him, and Yehoshua taught the Zekeinim and tested them, and the
Zekeinim taught the people, etc, etc, with tests and reviews backwards and
forwards, to insure that every. single. little. thing. that. Hashem.
conveyed. was. present. and. understood. by. everyone.

So, to suggest that there was a word which did not have a clear and precise
meaning in the year 2448, is simply unacceptable.

Akiva Miller
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[Actually, I lost track of which email RnIE was replying to, and I
mangled her original emails. This provides some kind of meaningful
context. -micha]

On Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 09:57:19PM +0200, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote:
>> Moshe/Moses, Carlos/Charles, and Ya'akov/Yankef are all seen as variants of
>> the same name, *not* as translations. Does anyone know of exceptions to
>> this rule? Can anyone give me examples (in Hebrew, Aramaic, or any other
>> language) of translated names which are totally unrelated?

> Benedict/Baruch Spinoza
> Azariah Rossi/Min Ha'adumim
> Pinhas Feldman/Sadeh (lots of other Hebrew writers changed their names to
> Hebrew names, but most of them are not translations, but Hebrew words that
> sound similar to their original names, or unrelated)

As Yiddish names fell out of fashion, it became common to substitute Hebrew
translations. Shayna>Yaffa, Gittel>Tova, Feige>Tzipora, Raizel>Vered or
Shoshana, and so on.

Would you consider Ovadya/Abdallah a translation?

I think we are conflating two subjects: Halachic vs legal names, and
the original question of whether a name should get translated, eg
in targum.

The first category touches home: I bought my dirah before having
Israeli citizenship, so the name on the paperwork is that on my
passport: Mitchel Samuel Berger.

To make ownership easier, we decided I should keep that legal name. So,
my Te'udat Zehut reads "Mitchel Shemu'el Berger", not "Micha".

Notice they refused to recognize "Mitchel" to "Micha". (Which they
shouldn't -- "Mitchel" is "Mikha'el" via French, as opposed to the
Germanic version "Michael".) But "Samuel" vs "Shemu'el" was considered
just a transliteration.

Similarly when an English translation uses "Jacob" for Ya'aqov. It's
not a translation, just a German transliteration.

    A bit of English language history: "J" was a variant of "I" in
    German and Old English. To be used when it was more like a "y"
    sound. Christian Bibles kept the "J" even after the sound changed. So
    "Joseph" is "Joseph" because when it was coined it was pronounced
    "Yoseph". (Now I miss RSM...)

Biblical examples: Yosef / Tzafnas Panei'ach, Hadassah / Esther,
Pesachyah / Mordechai (with nicknames "Bilshan" - the translator,
possibly "Malachi" -- yes, *the* Malakhi -- because he was mishneh
lamelekh).

There there are nicknames in Tanakh:

We don't know which of Yisro's names is the one his parents gave
him.

And Moshe... there is debate about which name his birth-parents gave
him, because we use the name from his adoptive mother. Which may have
been Hebrew, or (IMHO more likely) wordplay between both Hebrew and the
Mitzri word for "son".

RnIE mentioned translated last names: Avraham Rosenstein was a friend and
Chavrusah of R Dovid Lifshitz. (The went to Rosenstein's father's cheder.)
When they were 12, they wrote a peirush on part of Tanakha together.
Rosenstein made aliyah and wrote a dictionary and a concordance under
his new name - Even Shoshan. Notice that he translated, not looked for
a similar sounding name. But then, he wrote dictionaries.

None of which touches on the original question about translating a name.

I don't think Unqelus translates names just as a translation. Rather, if
the location was known by a different name in Aramaic*, he would use that
name. But it's not a translation of the name, it's a different identifier
of the same place. Closer to Hadssah / Esther than a translation like
Yaaqov / Aqiva (same shoresh, Hebrew vs Aramaic diqduq).

(* Given that the gemara (Megillah 3a) suggests that Unqelus was recreating
the translation Ezra suggested making The Torah, perhaps it depends on
whether the place was called something else in Ezra's day, not Unqelus's.)

And writing in Judeo-Aramaic, transliteration was a non-issue.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Man can aspire to spiritual-moral greatness
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   which is seldom fully achieved and easily lost
Author: Widen Your Tent      again. Fulfillment lies not in a final goal,
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    but in an eternal striving for perfection. -RSRH

On Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 05:31:47PM +0000, Joseph Kaplan via Avodah wrote:
> It always seemed to be that the witness was not being literal because what
> is the likelihood that he actually saw all the things he said he saw which
> none of his contemporaries had heard of...

I thought that "ani ra'isiv veyshavti al qivro" (Sanh 71a) or "...
veyachavti al tilah" for the ir hanidachas wasn't tesimony that he saw
such cases, but that he saw the grave or ruin where they were.

The whole "al qiviro" or "al tilah" is problematic anyway, since R
Yonasan was a kohein. So some do indeed do not take it literally.

But if we read him as I did, your question isn't the motive.

By the way "al" does sometimes mean "next to" (like the American idom
"he was standing on top of me"). Like Avraham "omeid aleihem" when
feeding his guests. (18:8) It is also idiomatic in "omedim aleinu
lekhaloseinu". That would get rid of the kohein problem while still
keeping the point of his statement intact.

By the way, the Ben Soreir uMoreh is one of four cases where the chiyu
misah requires hachrazah first. The reason for hachrazah is given in
the other three as "velo yosifu la'asos" or "velo yezidun od". Here,
there is no explanation. Perhaps hinting that it would never be done in
the first place, nevermind preventing it being done again!

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Live as if you were living already for the
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   second time and as if you had acted the first
Author: Widen Your Tent      time as wrongly as you are about to act now!
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF          - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning


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