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From: Russell Hendel <rhendel@saber.towson.edu>
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 18:17:35 -0500 (EST)
Subject: E: Perfect transmission of All Torah Letters

I thank Joseph Tabory for his citations (v30n88) that there is a
viewpoint that the meaning of our doctrine of faith that "The Torah we
have in our hands is the same that God gave Moses" is that no WORDS have
changed.However I categorically state that I personally believe that we
have the same Torah in all its LETTERS

I therefore have an obligation to explain those talmudic texts that Dr
Tabory brought. How does a person who believes we have a perfect
transmission deal with the statement that "There were 3 Sefer Torahs in
the Temple and when a problem arose they went by the majority". In
clarifying this I will show that the issue is not just doctrinal but
attitudinal and affects our learning.

Quite simply besides statistical methods the Masoerites developed
special types of Midrashim which would preserve texts. The Minchat Shai
specializes in such midrashim. Let me bring one from Rav Hirsch. The
word "OFFSPRING" is spelled FULL (with all vowels) only twice in
Tnach--Gen 2:4 "These are the OFFSPRING of heaven and earth when they
were created:" and Ruth 4:18 "These are the OFFSPRING of Peretz (from
whom King David came)". Rav Hirsch wryly comments "Only two things in
human history are perfect (and hence spelled fully)--its beginning
(Creation) and its end (The Messianic throne)." Notice how Rav Hirsch's
words besides being "cute" and "philosophical" also preserves the
text. Indeed suppose I was reading one of the Temple Torahs. I come to
Gen 2:4 and I "notice" that "OFFSPRING" (the Hebrew word TOLDOTH) is
spelled with one VAV. I instantly remember the Hirsch Midrash and
suspect that something might be wrong. So I check the other two Sifray
Torah and see that indeed a mistake has crept in.

In other words I am positing that (a) besides the facts that mistakes
happen rarely in any Sefer Torah (as any Baal koray can testify) I am
also positing that (b) the mesorah was preserved BOTH by Midrash as well
as statistics. So it is very reasonable that no mistakes ever crept in.
(To be fair to Dr Tabory I should note that preserving Mesorah with
Midrash is a very tricky business...all I am saying is that some
Midrashim had that goal).

Finally allow me to show how this has influenced my life. I recently (on
another email group) got into a discussion about FULL and DEFICIENT
spelling Precisely because I believe that our Torah has preserved all
letters I spent time learning and researching to see how Rashi dealt
with the problem I gathered all Rashis on the subject and found that
Rashi always used one of two methods (See
http://www.shamash.org/rashi/v1z1-14.htm for details).  In other words
my BELIEFS that the Torah has every letter preserved led to greater
learning.

Russell Hendel; Phd ASA; Math Towson University
Moderator Rashi Is Simple
http://www.shamash.org/rashi/