json/Tanakh/Acharonim on Tanakh/Rav Hirsch on Torah/English/Sefaria Community Translation.json

{
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Rav Hirsch on Torah",
    "versionSource": "https://www.sefaria.org",
    "versionTitle": "Sefaria Community Translation",
    "actualLanguage": "en",
    "languageFamilyName": "english",
    "isBaseText": false,
    "isSource": false,
    "direction": "ltr",
    "heTitle": "רש\"ר הירש על התורה",
    "categories": [
        "Tanakh",
        "Acharonim on Tanakh"
    ],
    "text": {
        "Introduction": [],
        "Genesis": [
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [
                    "After Abraham had the bitter experience of breaking with his brother's son, i.e. the surviving second generation, on whom he, the childless man, could have placed his next hope for the continuation of his spiritual mission, yet for the sake of the external material temptations he [Lot] would rather be in community stepping with Sedom and Amora, God said to him: Not to a man like Lot, but precisely to you - a man not primarily striving for material prosperity - this land with all its fullness falls to you; I give it to you and the descendants from you. You should not go out and, as a missionary, win other people over to your mission. What is to belong to you must be sown by you, begotten and brought up by your pure spirit. Jews want to be born Jews, not just educated Jews. — לך אתננה ולזרעך עד עולם. It does not say that they will always have it. It will always belong to them, they and it will always have the destiny for each other, just as it was given to Abraham here, without him ever receiving it personally. —\n"
                ]
            ],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [
                [
                    "(1) אחר הדברים. As in Ch. 15, 1 above (see there), these words introduce a crisis, a reversal of all that went before. Avraham had already proclaimed God as א׳ עולם, Yitzchak was born to him, the eldest son sent away for his sake, ביצחק in Yitzchak the seed of the future was to be carried on, and this future was already recognized in the present, the king had already concluded a treaty embracing not only Yitzchak himself but with his further descendants so that Yitzchak's promised future had already taken root in the present - and now comes the behest to break off everything that has happened so far!  . הָאלקי׳, the same God who had revealed himself to Abraham by then, and had made Yitzchak the combination of the whole aim of Avraham's life. - נִסָה, related to נסע - moving on, נסח - flinging away, נשא - raising up, all three having the concept of bringing something to a further or higher position. Likewise נסה regarding physical or moral forces: to test, i.e. to give it such tasks to do which, up till now, it has not proved in its ability to accomplish.",
                    "Hence every test is therefore a step forward, is a strengthening of the powers which exist already, but which have not yet been proved in this further or higher task. A rope that has already carried fifty pounds is put to the test as soon as it is given the fifty-first pound to carry, but moral and spiritual powers are thereby strengthened and raised. \n"
                ]
            ]
        ],
        "Exodus": [],
        "Leviticus": [],
        "Numbers": [
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [],
            [
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [],
                [
                    "",
                    "The phrase \"ולא תסב נחלה וגו׳\" cannot be meant in an absolute sense. Such a transfer of inheritance from tribe to tribe inevitably occurs in every case where the brothers die after their daughters are married into another tribe. Therefore, its intention must be to prevent the alienation of inheritances from the original tribe as much as possible. By establishing the העברת נחלה (transfer of inheritance) in the conditional inheritance granted to daughters in the general laws of inheritance (Chapter 27), and with the introductory words זה הדבר אשר צוה ד׳ (This is the thing that the Lord has commanded), this prevention of alienation of inheritances is only the subject of this legal measure for the duration of that particular generation. If we consider the interests that this temporary measure was intended to serve, we would find its legal justification."
                ]
            ]
        ],
        "Deuteronomy": [
            [
                [
                    "אלה הדברים refers to the entire content of this fifth book. Just as the last chapters of the fourth book report what God decreed and ordered in connection with the imminent possession of the land by Moshe, so this fifth book contains what Moshe spoke to the people from whose midst he was about to depart and who — without his guidance — were about to accomplish their task in the land to be taken possession of. The following definitions of places seem to want to determine the location exactly according to its geographical position, where Moshe lived his last weeks among his people, where the people last saw their leader in their midst, where they last heard the living word of Moshe. The more each word of these last speeches of our God-sent leader bears the imprint of the entire intimacy of his soul — which was attached to his people and their future of salvation — the more it expresses the ardent desire to give his spirit and his soul to his people for the testing future that awaits them. And the less this place in the desert itself was recognisable by any characteristic of its own, the more understandable is the desire to preserve it in memory through its location and limitation. After all, our Moshe passed away and no monument, no column of honour, no earthly sign of remembrance remained of him; not even his grave was to become an external means of remembrance for his descendants. The entire bodily personality of our Moshe disappears with his death. Only the place where his faithful word to his people was last heard will be handed down to memory with the greatest possible precision, so that when a later descendent of his people enters this place, the locality may bring him the echo of Moshe's faithful word and inspire him to faithfully follow his people and serve their cause.",
                    "מול סוף, it is unlikely that ים סוף is to be implied here, as it does not occur without the collective noun ים. Rather, it seems to be a place name. After all, תפל and לבן do not occur elsewhere either. If, according to one view in the ספרי, all these place names are reminiscent of sins that the people had been guilty of during their long wanderings through the desert, then it is not impossible that Moshe and the people were referring to certain places that surrounded the plain, on which Moshe spent the last weeks of his earthly pilgrimage for instruction and admonishing speeches, these very names, testifying to the national aberrations, were given by Moshe and the people in order to awaken, as it were, the most earnest intentions for a purer, more faithful future by bringing such a past to mind."
                ]
            ]
        ]
    },
    "schema": {
        "heTitle": "רש\"ר הירש על התורה",
        "enTitle": "Rav Hirsch on Torah",
        "key": "Rav Hirsch on Torah",
        "nodes": [
            {
                "heTitle": "הקדמה",
                "enTitle": "Introduction"
            },
            {
                "heTitle": "בראשית",
                "enTitle": "Genesis"
            },
            {
                "heTitle": "שמות",
                "enTitle": "Exodus"
            },
            {
                "heTitle": "ויקרא",
                "enTitle": "Leviticus"
            },
            {
                "heTitle": "במדבר",
                "enTitle": "Numbers"
            },
            {
                "heTitle": "דברים",
                "enTitle": "Deuteronomy"
            }
        ]
    }
}