Parashat Devarim 5786
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites
The fifth book of the Torah, known as Mishneh Torah (“Repetition of the Torah”), is devoted primarily to reviewing the commandments, statutes, and laws that were given to the Jewish people in the four preceding books. It also contains Moses’ words of rebuke to the nation on the eve of their entry into the Land of Israel, together with his farewell, blessings, and guidance to the people he had led from the Exodus from Egypt until they stood at the threshold of the Promised Land.
As part of this process, the Torah describes another act through which Moses prepared the nation for life in the Land of Israel:
“And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month… beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this Torah.”
(Deuteronomy 1:3-5)
Rashi comments:
“He explained it to them in seventy languages.”
This raises an obvious question. The Jewish people were about to enter their own land and become a nation living on its own soil, united by a single language – the Holy Tongue. Why, then, was it necessary to explain the Torah in seventy languages? Was the language in which the Torah was given not sufficient and fully understood by the entire nation?
Moreover, throughout the generations, the sages of Israel were extremely cautious about translating the Torah into other languages, lest the nations of the world gain access to the Torah and its deeper secrets. One of the tragic dates commemorated in the Jewish calendar marks the day when King Ptolemy compelled the Jewish sages to translate the Torah into Greek. How, then, can it be that Moses himself translated the Torah into all the languages of the world?
The commentary HaKetav VeHaKabbalah (on Deuteronomy) explains:
“The intention is not the languages of the other nations, for what benefit would that have brought Israel? Nor did our sages abandon their own language in favor of another nation’s tongue. Rather, our sages often use the word lashon (‘language’) to mean an intention or interpretation. Thus, ‘seventy languages’ refers to seventy interpretations, corresponding to the teaching that ‘the Torah has seventy facets,’ meaning its many inner dimensions beyond its plain meaning.”
According to this explanation, “seventy languages” means “seventy interpretations,” in keeping with the sages’ well-known teaching that the Torah has “seventy faces.” Yet there is a fundamental principle that “Scripture never departs from its plain meaning,” and indeed most commentators understood Rashi literally – that Moses truly explained the Torah in seventy different languages.
The great masters of Chassidic thought offer another explanation. Moses foresaw that the Jewish people would endure future exiles. He therefore prepared them for the reality that lay ahead, when they would be scattered among the nations and would need to study the Torah in many different languages so that it would never be forgotten.
Yet even this explanation leaves a question unanswered. Couldn’t the sages of each generation have translated the Torah as the need arose? Why was it necessary for Moses himself to do so specifically at this moment, just before the people entered the Land of Israel?
It seems that a much deeper principle is being taught.
One of the common claims made about the Torah is that it is no longer relevant to the changing realities of modern life. Yet one of the Thirteen Principles of Faith affirms that the Torah is eternal and will never be replaced.
The generation that received the Torah at Mount Sinai knew how to conduct itself in every situation. The Torah, the Torah of Life, provided clear guidance for every question and every challenge. But as the generations pass, languages change, lifestyles evolve, and reality itself takes on new forms. Naturally, one might begin to feel that the Torah belongs to the past and no longer speaks to the present. It was for this reason that Moses explained the Torah in seventy languages.
This was not merely a matter of translation. It was the gift of the Torah’s eternal ability to speak to every generation in its own language, through its own concepts and within the realities of its own world. In every era, in every place, and under every circumstance, the Torah retains the power to illuminate the path and guide people in how they should live. The Torah itself is one and unchanging, yet its practical message can be expressed anew in every generation.
When Moses translated the Torah into the “language of life” of every generation, each Jew, in every age, is not merely studying a tradition handed down through history. Rather, it is as though he is hearing the words directly from their original source, just as they were given at Sinai.
Just as the first generation knew with certainty how they were meant to live, so too every generation can hear the voice of the Torah speaking directly to the realities of its own time.
This understanding lies at the foundation of every Jew’s faith. God continually renews the work of Creation each and every day, and the very existence of the world rests upon the holy Torah, through whose letters and combinations of letters the world itself was created. It therefore follows that nothing is more relevant than the Torah. Its laws, values, integrity, morality, and the social principles it instills have accompanied humanity throughout the generations. As the world continues to advance and develop, it becomes ever clearer that the Torah is indeed a Torah of Life, providing a straight and enduring path for all who embrace it – and nothing could be more relevant than that.
