Anyone who learns Torah from a translation may get stuck in the finality of the word, in the darkness, and not pass through the gate that opens to endless worlds and spaces. the translation is the revelation of the secret, the revelation of the hidden. The translation can redeem the text from itself, from the closed circle in which it is due to be imprisoned. Silence and melody are mentioned by Rabbi Nachman as ways of dealing with the limitations of language, but translation is also such a path.
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The article you are about to read has been translated. It was originally written in Hebrew, has undergone a process of translation into English, and then it is presented to you. What is the meaning of translation, what is it generating in the text? What is the relationship between the original text and its translation?
In Megillat Ta’anit a difficult description of the Torah’s translation is presented: “On the eighth of Tevet the Torah was written in Greek during the days of King Ptolemy, and darkness was in the world for three days”. The translation causes darkness for three days because it supposedly darkens the original words, the illuminating words. The moment I tried to copy the text from the language in which it was written, I had lost some of its meaning, from its subtle hints, from the secret that cannot be translated.
There are texts that can perhaps be translated without causing darkness in the world. Cooking books or operating instructions for an electric appliance are written in a language that is unequivocal, without any hint or secret, and therefore can be translated into many languages without any special difficulty. But the task of translation becomes much more difficult when it comes to poetry books, when the text is rich in images and symbols. When the words contain not only themselves, but hints to additional expanses and are linked to more worlds and memories - one cannot translate all those expanses and worlds. In those cases, only the word itself receives a parallel word in another language, all the “surplus” being lost.
On the verse “Therefore, write down this poem and teach it to the people of Israel” (Devarim 31:19) says the Gemara: ‘Rava says: With regard to the mitzva for every Jew to write himself a Torah scroll, even if a person’s ancestors left him a Torah scroll, it is a mitzva to write a scroll of one’s own, as it is stated: “therefore, write down this poem”’ (Sanhedrin 21b). The Torah is called poetry.
It must be understood how all the Torah is called a poem, which means that it is written in a poetic language, for it is known to all those who understand Talmud that different is the poetic language from that the prosaic […] For in a poem, the matter isn’t as well explained as the prose. […] For such is the nature of the entire Torah, that the story inside it is not well explained, rather its precise language must be commentated and interpreted (Introduction to Ha’amek Davar on the Torah, Chapter 3).
The words of the Torah are the gateway to infinity. Anyone who learns Torah from a translation may get stuck in the finality of the word, in the darkness, and not pass through the gate that opens to endless worlds and spaces. The translator asks, “What is the meaning of the word? What does it mean?’, and then questions of ‘What does the word do to me? Who is behind it?’ are at risk of being missed. To ‘take’ a person by his word, by quoting it or translating it, is an act that can erase the speaking person, lose the encounter with him. When I perceive God in His word I risk not meeting Him. This act of diminishing infinity, confining it within a word, is very similar to the sin of idolatry - making a statue or image as a dwelling place for infinity. Indeed, this is how the translation is described in Tractate Soferim (Chapter 1): “An event occurred in which five Elders who wrote the Torah in Greek to the King Ptolemy, and that day was difficult for Israel like the one when the golden calf was made, for the Torah could not be completely translated”.
Now that we have come to realize that the infinite reduction of the word is like idolatry, another question arises: Why is the act of translation so severe? Or in other words: Why do we consider translation as only a conversion of a word in one language into the other? Indeed, every word, even in the Hebrew language, is already a pale and thin translation of the Infinite, seeking to be expressed through it and not succeeding. The Torah itself is an act of translation seeking to capture the spirit of the hovering God, seeking to capture and not always succeeding. Perhaps this is the meaning of the breaking of the Tablets’ by Moshe, and its juxtaposition with the golden calf. Moshe Rabbeinu became aware of the tremendous gap between hearing the voice of God speaking from the fire and the stone tablets, the distance between the element of fire and the element of the soil, that coldness creeping within the engraved words. The breaking of the Tablets can be understood as a fear of turning the tablets into a statue (so wrote the Meshech Chochma Shemot 32:15). A more radical possibility of understanding Moshe’s action indicates that the Tablets are indeed the Torah itself, Torat Hashem - “The Tablets were God’s work, and the writing was God’s writing, incised upon the tablets” (Shemot 32:16), but they do not necessarily tell of God’s deep desire. The text is a translation, and it may be the opposite of the sub-text that can never be translated. Therefore, the translation must be discarded, and the depth of the Almighty should be revealed.
For Moshe saw the magnitude of the destruction that Israel had sinned so badly, transgressing all the Torah and worshiping idolatry, until it was in accordance with the Torah to distance and destroy Israel, God forbid. […] And therefore, Moshe was wise and threw the tablets to the earth. […]To teach that even though they are the Torah of truth, nevertheless, since it occurs to him that there is no hope according to them and no possibility to longer pray for Israel, so he threw them to the ground and distanced them away from his face, and strengthened himself to believe that it was impossible to realize the Devine knowledge’s depth. […] For only this is the essence of the truth of truth, that he shall not be distanced by the truth. […] And this is the meaning of ‘anyone who judges a case by the true truth, as if he were a partner to the Holy One, blessed be He, in the act of creation’. […]That the main thing is to judge by the true truth, and not to be mistaken by the truth (Reb Noson of Nemyriv, Likutey Halachot Hilchot Ribit, 5:28-29).
God may find himself imprisoned in the prison of truth, in the Torah’s prison - ie. the translation: “A king is held captive in the tresses - this speaks of the Divine” (Tikunei Zohar 144:). Moshe Rabbeinu knows to cast the ‘truth’ in order to reveal the ‘true truth’. This is how one can understand why God chose the stuttering Moshe, whose words are broken and he is heavy-tongued and heavy-handed, as the one who will bringing the Torah down from heaven to earth. Moshe felt the infinity searching and scouting for words and still not finding any. Only voices, syllables, and fragments of words can be luminous enough, transparent enough - such that does not cover the original.
Moshe, not despite but rather because of the stuttering, was deserving to bring the Torah to earth, for he also knew how to cast it when the translation was not faithful to the original. The Gemarah alludes that “Both the Tablets of the Covenant and the broken tablets are placed in the Ark” (Berakhot 8b). The fragments of the tablets remind us of language’s limitations, allowing for the source’s existence - that which isn’t contained in any translation. The fragments of the tablets “speak” with the tablets and illuminate them with the illumination of the infinite.
Yet, we also find another, completely opposite, orientation to the idea of translation:
The Aramaic translation of the Torah used in the synagogues was composed by Onkelos the convert. […] The Aramaic translation of the Prophets was composed by Yonatan ben Uzziel. […] Eretz Yisrael quaked over an area of four hundred parasangs [parsa] by four hundred parasangs, and a Divine Voice emerged and said: Who is this who has revealed my secrets to mankind? (Megillah 3a)
Here the translation is the revelation of the secret, the revelation of the hidden. The translation can redeem the text from itself, from the closed circle in which it is due to be imprisoned. Silence and melody are mentioned by Rabbi Nachman as ways of dealing with the limitations of language, but translation is also such a path. It can be said that the word in the original language is a first reduction, but this reduction is hidden, misleading the reader to think that he is touching the original. The translation, precisely because it is limited and openly narrow - contraction after contraction (Tzimtzum after Tzimtzum) - hints to us the infinity above and beyond any letter. The translation allows for the word to open up, since it does not pretend to replace it. It is precisely the contraction after contraction that hints to us that the contraction is not simple (הצמצום אינו כפשוטו).
Even though today the tenth of Tevet is a fast due to it marking the beginning of the siege and the Torah’s translation, the prophet tells us that this day will turn out for the better: “Thus said the LORD of Hosts: The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth month, the fast of the seventh month, and the fast of the tenth month shall become occasions for joy and gladness, happy festivals for the House of Judah” (Zechariah 8:19). The translation will be revealed as bringing great light to the original language, the night will laugh with the day, for joy and happiness and happy festivals.
