Commentary: On Sifra

Commentary on Sifra 1a

Second Half of the 12th Century

About This Entry

Abraham ben David’s penchant for commenting on relatively obscure rabbinic works led to his elucidating the Sifra, an early rabbinic commentary on Leviticus. This excerpt, from the beginning of the book, interprets R. Ishmael’s famous teaching about the thirteen hermeneutical principles of interpretation, which he refers to as “this midrash.” Abraham emphasizes the role of tradition in determining Jewish law but also underscores the role played by the intellect in understanding the biblical text.

R. Ishmael says: The Torah is expounded by means of 13 rules, etc. Because this book of Leviticus is full of commandments and laws, and because the exposition of it necessarily entails so many a fortiori deductions, so many contrasts of generalizations and specifics, and so many linguistic analogies, the Sifra placed this midrash, which introduces all such interpretation, and which is at the basis of all the commandments, right at the beginning. All of these interpretive rules come to us via tradition except for a few which are derivable from the Torah, as we will shortly explain (with God’s help).

Now, tradition is the origin of them all; it is at the root of all the commandments of God, our Lord. Were it not for tradition, how could we understand how to combine the commandments and interpret them correctly? How would we know to explicate: In the beginning God [Elohim] created (Genesis 1:1) as “first”? How would we even know that Elohim is the name of the one who created? Even the language we use to request each of our needs from the Creator—if not for tradition, what words would we use? So we must have great faith in and reliance on the words of our original, ancient sages, who received from their ancestors—and their ancestors from their own ancestors—all the precise details of the commandments and their interpretation, even if the interpretation [midrash] departs from the straightforward sense [peshat] of the text. Were it not that the work before us is long and weighs heavily upon us, due to our limited intelligence and lack of understanding, and that we must exert all parts of ourselves in order to explain and to unfold fully the words of the sages, so they might be clarified for anyone who asks and who seeks [to make them completely useful], we would expatiate at length on these words, to demolish the words of the sectarians [i.e., the Karaites], who refuse to heed the words of our sages faithfully. Yet we have given a hint to believers and an opening to those of understanding. Let their hands be strengthened in God.

Translated by Michael Carasik.