Rashi BaMidbar 22:9- “Taut Sofrim” or “Agadot Chalukot?”

Rashi BaMidbar 22:9- “Taut Sofrim” or “Agadot Chalukot?”

By Eli Genauer

Summary: Here we find polar opposite approaches to a Stirah in Rashi’s commentary to the Torah. One approach maintains that Rashi used two different Midrashic sources for his contradictory comments, and the other solves the Stirah by saying that one of the comments attributed to Rashi is actually a Taut Sofrim

There is a very perplexing verse towards the beginning of Parshat Balak

ט:וַיָּבֹא אֱלֹקים אֶל-בִּלְעָם וַיֹּאמֶר מִי הָאֲנָשִׁים הָאֵלֶּה עִמָּךְ:

Balak sent messengers to Bilaam asking him to curse the Jewish people. Bilaam retired for the night and Hashem approached him at that time. “Who are these men with you?”, Hashem asked. Certainly, the Omniscient One knew the answer to that question. We look to Rashi to explain the motivation for G-d’s question and surprisingly we find it all the way back in Parshat Breishit (Breishit 3:9). Adam and Chava had just disobeyed Hashem by eating the forbidden food and they heard Hashem walking in the Garden. Hashem asked Adam “where are you?”( איכה), the answer to which Hashem already knew. Rashi comments as follows

“איכה“. יוֹדֵעַ הָיָה הֵיכָן הוּא אֶלָּא לִכָּנֵס עִמּוֹ בִּדְבָרִים, שֶׁלֹּא יְהֵא נִבְהָל לְהָשִׁיב אִם יַעֲנִישֵׁהוּ פִּתְאוֹם (בראשית רבה),[1] וְכֵן בְּקַיִן אָמַר לוֹ אֵי הֶבֶל אָחִיךָ (בראשית ד), וְכֵן בְּבִלְעָם מִי הָאֲנָשִׁים הָאֵלֶּה עִמָּךְ (במדבר כ“ב), לִכָּנֵס עִמָּהֶם בִּדְבָרִים, וְכֵן בְּחִזְקִיָּה בִּשְׁלוּחֵי מְרֹאדַךְ בַּלְאֲדָן:

Hashem knew where Adam was, but He asked this in order to open up a conversation with him that he should not become confused in his reply, if He were to pronounce punishment against him all of a sudden……..Similarly with Bilaam, “who are these men with you?” — to open up a conversation with them.

Rashi in Breishis emphasizes that the reason Hashem asked Bilaam “who are these men with you” was to draw him into a conversation, thereby making him more comfortable in speaking to Him.

However in Parshas Balak (BaMidbar 22:9) Rashi seems to have a different take[2] on why Hashem asked “Who are these men with you?”

מי האנשים האלה עמך. לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא, אָמַר פְּעָמִים שֶׁאֵין הַכֹּל גָּלוּי לְפָנָיו, אֵין דַּעְתּוֹ שָׁוָה עָלָיו, אַף אֲנִי אֶרְאֶה עֵת שֶׁאוּכַל לְקַלֵּל וְלֹא יָבִין (תנחומא):

“Who are these men with you?” G-d’s question led Bilaam to conclude “Sometimes, not everything is revealed before Him, for He is not always omniscient. I will find a time when I am able to curse, and He will not realize it.” The words “ לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא” with which Rashi begins, seem to indicate that Hashem was trying to mislead Bilaam into thinking that He was not all knowing, and not to draw him into a conversation . Here are a few attempts to translate לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא.

1. “To cause him to err did He come” – Linear Translation of Rashi – S.S. and R Publishing Company Brooklyn, NY 1949
2. “It came to delude him“ – Chabad website for Parshat HaShavua based on translation of Rabbi A.J Rosenberg for Judaica Press
3. He intended to delude him (1) – Chumash with Rashi of A.M. Silbermann and M. Rosenbaum, Jerusalem 1934

The Silbermann Chumash directs you to a footnote which reflects the approach of many of the Meforshai Rashi on the contradiction between the two comments of Rashi. “Rashi on Genesis 3:9 has already pointed out that sometimes G-d puts a seemingly superfluous question to a person to open a conversation. One of the instances he cites there is Bilaam. The heathen soothsayer did not understand the purpose of this question, and it suggested to him that G-d was not omniscient at all times”

The Artscroll Sapirstein Rashi does a much better job in encapsulating this approach by replacing “cause him to err” with “gave him room to err”.[3] Artscroll adds a footnote summarizing the approach of Gur Aryeh by saying that Hashem intended to gently open the conversation with Bilaam, but worded the question in an ambiguous way. Bilaam could have understood the question as Hashem’s way of entering into a conversation with him, but he instead chose to interpret it to indicate that Hashem was not always aware of all the details of a situation.

Professor Yeshayahu Maori Z”L in his book “Sugyot B’Nusach HaMikrah U’B’Parshnato”[4] advances the idea that the Stirah stems from the fact that Rashi accessed two different Midrashic sources, one for his comment in Breishit and one for his comment in BaMidbar.[5] This is based on the idea which was advanced by Rav Eliyahu Mizrachi that sometimes Rashi used “Agadot Chalukot”.[6] The author of “Tzaidah L’Derech” (Prague 1623) sees this case as one where Rashi used “Agadot Chalukot” and that is why Rashi’s comment on “מי האנשים האלה עמך “is different in Breishit and BaMidbar.[7] Here are the words of Rav Yissachar Ber Eilenburg (1570-1623) author of “Tzaideh L’Derech”

אלא מאי אית לך למימר שאגדות חלוקות הן ורש״י רגיל לפרש פעמים אחר אגדה אחת ופּעמים אחר אגדה אחרת כמו שכתב הרא״ם ז״ל בהרבה מקומות אין מספר

“But what can you say but that Rashi used different Aggadot here. Rashi is accustomed to explaining matters by using one Aggadah here and another Aggadah there as Rav Eliyah Mizrachi has stated in many places”[8]

Rav Yosef Ben Yissachar Miklish (1580-1654) is one who is very bothered by the fact that this comment in Rashi seemingly contradicts what he wrote in his commentary on Hashem’s question of “where are you?” to Adam ( Breishit 3:9).[9] He addresses this Stirah in a completely different manner. He maintains that he had a manuscript which was 315 years old in which the words “לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא” did not exist, nor did it contain the words that followed. Rather, it had a completely different Girsa in this Rashi. The website Alhatorah.org attributes a very similar Girsa to a manuscript called Berlin 1221[10] along with material from other manuscripts.[11] It also notes that Wolf Heidenheim attributed the comment to Rav Yosef Kara.

היידנהיים ייחס את התוספת לר׳ יוסף בר׳ שמעון ז״ל,[12] ואפשר שכך היה כתוב בכ״י שלפניו, אך בכל עדי הנוסח שבידינו, אין ייחוס מפורש לר״י קרא. והשווה רש״י בראשית ג׳:ט׳.[13]

The comment attributed to Rashi in this manuscript in general matches the words quoted by Yosef Daat for “his” version of Rashi. The main thrust is that Hashem addressed Bilaam in a way to engage him in the way one addresses someone to make them feel comfortable כשיבוא לתפוס את האדם מתוך דבריו, and not to delude him (ְלהַטְעוֹתוֹ)

Berlin 1221

https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN666097542&PHYSID=PHYS_0160&DMDID=DMDLOG_0001

Yosef Daat

The author of Yosef Daat even speculates that the words “לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא” are a Taut Sofrim inserted by printers “to cause people to err” as Rashi himself would never have written such a comment.

כי גירסת “לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא” היא גירסא בא בדפוס להטות את הבריות

However, the overwhelming majority of manuscripts contain the wording of Rashi as we have it today, something which the author of Yosef Daat would not have known.[14] Here is the important manuscript known as Leipzig 1.[15]

The three Defusim Rishonim (Rome, Alkabetz and Reggio di Callabrio) do not contain the Girsa cited by Yosef Daat. There is no indication in any early printed edition from the 1400’s and 1500’s that any other Girsa existed.

Avraham Berliner (Berlin 1867) normally notes the Girsaot of Yosef Daat but here completely ignores it.[16]

There was another approach taken a bit over 400 years ago in trying to explain what Rashi meant when he wrote לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא and that is to insert an explanatory remark in parentheses embedded into the text of Rashi. The first time I could find it in a printed edition was in one printed in Hanau 1611-1614. This is how it looks:

)ר“ל ישרים דרכי ה‘ צדיקים ילכו בם ופושעים יכשלו בם כוונת הש“י שאמר מי האנשים היתה לטובה ליכנס עמו בדברים כמ“ש רש“י בפ‘ בראשית בתיבה איכה אך בא לבלעם לטעות כי הוא טעה)

This portion in the parentheses is clearly not part of Rashi and it makes no attempt to hide it as it states clearly כמ“ש רש“י בפ‘ בראשית בתיבה איכה. It tries to explain what Rashi means by first quoting a Pasuk, (ישרים דרכי ה׳… ) something Rashi could have done himself if he so desired.

The Hanau edition contained many other comments like this. The Bibliography of the Hebrew Book notes that this was an edition which featured additions to Rashi from some of the Meforshai Rashi.

ככל אשר נדפס בויניציאה [ש”ן-שנ”א] -מעבר לשער הקדמה קצרה (“אל עין הקורא”) ובה רשימת “כמה מעלות” שבהוצאה הנוכחית. בין השאר נאמר שהחומש והתרגום ובפרט פירוש רש”י הוגהו “מתוך חומש של … רּ ישעיה הלוי” (הורוויץ, בעל השל”ה).

After the Hanau edition, the embedded comment in parentheses had a very strong run. I consulted my personal collection of Chumashim from the 1700’s and 1800’s and, beginning with a Chumash printed in Amsterdam in 1729 to one printed in Pressburg in 1868, 13 have the comment and 6 do not. The comment also appears in practically all the Chumashim from the 1900’s that I looked at. This might be because many of them are photo offset of what is known as the Netter Mikraot Gedolot of Vienna of 1859 which served as the model for many editions that followed.[17]

Vilna Netter 1859

It is included on the Chabad website for the portion of the week, but only on the English side!

However, many new editions such as Oz Vehadar, Mosad HaRav Kook and HaMaor (2005) do not include this parenthetical comment, a practice which returns this Rashi to its original form.[18]

[1] בראשית רבה י״ט: י״א