It Sounds Greek to Me

King Ptolemy and the 72 Sages

The Talmud relates that King Ptolemy of Egypt summoned seventy-two sages of Israel and asked them to translate the Torah into Greek. He then placed them in separate cubicles, so that they could not confer with one another about the translation.

Miraculously, all of them translated the Torah identically. Even the few deliberate changes they made to avoid arousing the king’s ire, they thought of independently.

This translation, known as the Septuagint, was the first attempt at introducing the Bible to the outside world.

Concerning this undertaking, our sages say that it was as difficult for the Jews as the day in which the Golden Calf was created. Why was it so terrible for the Torah to be translated into Greek?

Translation a Double Edged Sword

It has been suggested that by translating the Torah into Greek, they were doing much more than just transferring the knowledge of Torah from one language to another.

To accommodate the needs of the Greek monarch they were compelled to transfer the concepts as well. They may have been the same words, but they were now in Greek garb. Torah had been diminished, although ever so subtly, by fitting it into a secular framework. What had been transcendent was now part of the vast body of literature. Torah had now been admitted into the club of worldly knowledge.

From the point of view of the world, it was a definite boost. The beauty of the Torah cannot be denied.

But, from the perspective of Torah itself and the Jewish people, who have always appreciated its true value, Torah had been denigrated, stripped of its majesty and G-dly image.

This transformation represented the seeds that were planted that later gave rise to the attempt of the Syrian Greeks to impose its culture on the Jewish people.

The First Change

It is interesting to note that the first difference — and therefore, the defining one — between the original and the Greek translation was in the very first few words of Genesis. This change is emblematic of the entire process that was, for all intents and purposes, a negative phenomenon.

In the original Hebrew the Torah begins with the words: “Breishit bara Elokim…” Translated literally, in accordance with Hebrew syntax, which places the predicate ahead of the subject, these words would be rendered: “In the beginning, created G-d…” In English, a more accurate rendition would invert the order of the words, yielding: “In the beginning, G-d created…”

When the seventy-two sages of Israel translated this phrase they were concerned. To translate it accurately would leave room for a major distortion. Instead of understanding this opening phrase of the Torah to mean that in the beginning of time G-d created the universe, it could be interpreted that ”… [A being, or a primary G-d, called] the beginning created [lower demi] g-ds.”

To prevent this gross misinterpretation, the sages inverted the words and made it read in Greek, “G-d created in the beginning.” This left no room for any pagan distortion.

Why does the Torah Start with the Letter Beit?

Besides sacrificing the accuracy of the text, this change had one other striking effect on the words of the Torah.

Our sages make a big to-do about the fact that the first word of the Torah is Bereishit, which begins with the letter Beit, the second letter of the Alphabet and not with an Aleph, the first letter.

The Jerusalem Talmud asks why does the Torah begin with the second letter of the alphabet and not with the first letter of the alphabet?

The Jerusalem Talmud answers that the letter beit is the initial of the word beracha, which means blessing, while the letter aleph stands for arur curse.

The question has been raised: aren’t there positive sounding words that begin with aleph, such as ahavahlove, echad -one and ohr-light? Conversely, aren’t there some nasty sounding words that begin with the letter beit?

Isn’t it then arbitrary to say that just because there is one good word that starts with beit and one negative word that starts with aleph, we should therefore begin the Torah with beit?

Logic of Torah is its Second Step

The following is an adaptation of the Rebbe’s discourse on this subject (Likkutei Sichot vol 15):

To shed light on the Talmud’s puzzling explanation of why the Torah must begin with the letter “beit,” let’s return to our discussion of the difference between Torah and other disciplines. Torah is Divine wisdom that has been made accessible — by virtue of G-d’s infinite kindness — to the human mind. It is not a human creation; it is G-dly light.

When one studies Torah, one has to realize that the first step — the aleph — is not the logical understanding of Torah, but its Divine character. Once this fact is understood, then the beit — step two — can safely and securely be the understanding of the text, making it accessible to the human mind.

When one follows this approach, making his or her logical understanding of Torah the second step, then the study of Torah is a beracha, a blessing. The divinity of Torah will then seep through and bring its positive energies into the person.

If, however, one commences Torah study with the notion that all it is a book of human knowledge, then Torah becomes a curse. Bereft of its Divine nature, the Torah can be manipulated and distorted to the point that it becomes harmful.

When the sages translated the Torah into Greek, they reversed the order. Now the first word was “Elokim,” which begins with the letter aleph, representing the Hebrew word “arur” (“curse”) which also begins with an aleph.

This revision was thus more than a minor change; it demonstrated what distinguished the real Torah, in its original form, from the translated, diluted version.

Elokim: The Divine Cloaked in the Garb of Nature

It should also be noted that the word Elokim, which the Torah began with in its Greek translation, refers to G-d as He is cloaked within the garb of nature. The word “Elokim” has the same numerical value - 86 - as the word for nature in Hebrew, “ha’teva,” which also means “submerged.”

In effect, the Greek version of the Torah started with the notion that nature is dominant. We can now appreciate why it has been suggested that this exercise of translating the Torah into Greek was the forerunner of the attempt by the Greeks to “Hellenize” the Jewish religion and the events that led to the story of Chanukah. The victory of light was thus the victory of Torah over those who tried to dim its splendor.

The Effects of Jewish Mysticism

In conclusion it can be said that one of the effects of Jewish mysticism is its guarantee that the pure, pristine light of Torah will never be tarnished. What the menorah is to the Temple — a holy place filled with G-dly light into which more G-dly light is introduced — the teachings of Kabbalah and Chassidut are to the rest of Torah. It introduces light into light.

As was mentioned in the preceding chapter, it is no wonder then that the holiday of Chanukah occurs in the month of Kislev, the nineteenth day of which has been associated with the opening of an unrestricted flow of Jewish mystical knowledge to the world.

From the book Safe Kabbalah, Part Two: The Fourth Dimension by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.