SEVENTY-TWO SCHOLARS

Rabbi Dunner shares some wonderful ideas on Shoftim from his grandfather’s sefer, Mikdash Halevi, including a captivating look at the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Torah commissioned by the Egyptian king, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, in the third century BCE. The Talmud in tractate Megillah reveals that all the seventy-two translators, despite being separated from each other, miraculously added a word to the translation, to avoid potential heresy. The Mikdash Halevi queries why the original Hebrew didn’t simply include that extra word, and offers a fascinating explanation.