{"id":69068,"date":"2020-01-25T11:37:28","date_gmt":"2020-01-25T09:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=69068"},"modified":"2023-08-20T14:05:22","modified_gmt":"2023-08-20T11:05:22","slug":"introduction-to-the-commentary-of-shmuel-david-luzzato-shadal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/introduction-to-the-commentary-of-shmuel-david-luzzato-shadal\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction To The Commentary Of Shmuel David Luzzato (Shadal)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Our comments on Isaiah regularly featured the commentary of Malbim (Meir Leibush ben Yechiel Mikhel Weiser; Rumania, 1809-1879). For Jeremiah, we are shifting our focus to his slightly older contemporary, Shadal, Shmuel David Luzzatto (Italy, 1800-1865), who, like Malbim, wrote commentaries on most of the books of Tanakh and\u2014again, like Malbim\u2014also served as a pulpit rabbi, lending to their commentaries an air of practical homiletics that is absent in the more \u201cacademic\u201d commentaries of most of the medieval exegetes.<\/span><\/p>\n

To gain a preliminary acquaintance with Shadal, here is a brief excerpt from the introduction to his Torah commentary.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first foundation of biblical exegesis is, without doubt, tradition. Tanakh was written in a language that expired hundreds of years ago that is not spoken by any known nation. Therefore, anything that we can know about it today relies on the information transmitted to us, orally, by our predecessors, from father to son. Without this information, Tanakh would be a sealed book; even the alphabetic characters are known to us only from Tradition.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second foundation of exegesis is a knowledge of philology and grammar, which, itself, can be divided in two. The first part deals largely with the rules of vocalization… and relies on the authority of the Masoretes\u2026 The second part deals with the properties of the language itself [including] the conjugation of verbs\u2026 and syntax.<\/span><\/p>\n

The third foundation of exegesis is the very foundation of all human endeavors: common sense. Here, I would like to point out some of the deviations from common sense that are frequent amongst exegetes. The first abrogation of common sense is to be satisfied with the superficial [literal] meaning of words, which is the error of the Karaites\u2026 We will stipulate that the original and true meaning of Scripture is not always that which is closest to the definitions of its [individual] words. Moreover, the literal sense is frequently misleading and erroneous.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of our objectives throughout our own comments on this book will be to determine whether Shadal remains true to these fundamental principles, and, as with Malbim on Isaiah, we will often highlight the featured commentary via comparisons with the classic medieval exegetes as well as modern historical, philological, and literary scholarship.<\/span><\/p>\n

Note: As there is no published English translation of Shadal on Jeremiah, all the citations used here are my own. I might also add that my focus on individual exegetes here and in Isaiah (and, foreseeably, in Ezekiel and Minor Prophets) is undertaken in large measure as a learning experience. By obliging myself to find something suitable in every chapter, I have had to pay very close attention to these exegetes\u2014considerably more so than in the ordinary course of textual study.<\/span><\/p>\n

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