Q&A: Scripture Credits It to Him
Scripture Credits It to Him
Question
The expression “Scripture credits it to him” is common in the Talmud. For example (the first three examples in a search on the Daf Yomi Portal site): “If one intended to perform a commandment but was prevented by circumstances beyond his control and did not perform it, Scripture credits it to him as though he performed it”; “Whoever eats on the ninth, Scripture credits it to him as though he fasted on the ninth and the tenth”; “One who hosts a Torah scholar in his home and lets him benefit from his property, Scripture credits it to him as though he offered the daily burnt-offerings” (the fourth example was harder, so I stopped at three).
The simple meaning, apparently, is not that this is some new merit that Scripture in its kindness credits to the person, but that it reveals that the same underlying point is present here in abstract form or as a shadow. In a commandment, on the human side, the decisive intention is primary, and the act is only a byproduct or proof of firm resolve (I’m not getting here into the issue that compulsion is not like one who acted with regard to positive commandments). On the tenth, one could say that the point of fasting is to free oneself for the service of God and not to cause suffering, and therefore eating on the ninth enables him to be even more available on the tenth and is similar to fasting on the tenth. Investing in a Torah scholar because he is bound up with Torah and transmitting it is, from the donor’s perspective, like spending money for the donor himself to offer sacrifices (and all sacrifices and meal-offerings involve edible things, and presumably that is relevant here). And so on.
A. Is that in fact so? Or could one also say: whoever brings first-fruits, Scripture credits it to him as though he took back his divorced wife? (I tried to come up with something absurd, but I see that with a slight wave of the thumb you can find a connection even here too and draw distant things together by force; there’s a talkative freedom to stitch things together and a freedom to tear them apart.) In other words, do we discover that from the standpoint of the metaphysical structure of things, it is inscribed in creation that these two acts produce a similar result? (In that case, all that remains is to investigate what the Sages saw that led them to interpret one as similar to the other, and how they knew it—not because the thing itself has to be similar.)
B. Last in writing, first in thought—in Menachot 30a: one who writes it [a Torah scroll], Scripture credits it to him as though he received it from Mount Sinai. What is the meaning of that? Does getting one’s hands stained with ink in any way resemble the experience of receiving the Torah? Even one’s connection to his own four cubits touches only the particular scroll that he wrote, not the content written in it, which is just child’s play.
Answer
Clearly this is not a full and direct equivalence. Usually there is some similar point, and usually one can also argue about the interpretation of what that point is.
From that comes the answer to your questions, although I didn’t understand everything. I could suggest some interpretations, but I don’t see much point in dealing with that. Certainly the intention is not to compare getting your hands stained with ink to receiving the Torah. That is a childish and foolish statement.
Discussion on Answer
What’s the problem? Copying a Torah scroll (especially in an era without printing) is something that contributes greatly to the study, dissemination, and transmission of the Torah. So it is the continuation of the giving of the Torah.
Okay, you’re right. I hadn’t thought of it that way, and in retrospect it’s very understandable.
With God’s help, 6 Elul 5780
To T – greetings,
When a person writes the Torah, he must be exact not to add even one letter and not to omit one. This precise writing brings a person to listen anew to the text, paying attention to its “creases” and “folds,” a listening that sometimes yields renewed insights.
The same experience of a “new reading” of the text also exists when one studies Torah Shebe’al Peh texts analytically, especially in “Tunisian-style analysis,” which pays attention to every word and expression and asks, “Why was it written this way and not another way?” In that way one listens anew to the text, even though it is familiar and well worn.
Another thing about which the words of the Sages say that it is as if one received the Torah from Mount Sinai is teaching Torah to one’s grandson. And one may say that here too, when learning with the grandson, who reads the words for the first time as “a fresh proclamation,” the grandfather too—who has “plowed through” these words for decades—discovers in them new questions and new insights.
With blessings, S.Tz.
For my granddaughter Tamar, who started first grade this week.
Obviously I exaggerated with the business about getting stained. But I don’t see anything childish in the question of why, according to the Sages, the giving of the Torah at Sinai is connected in some way to copying texts.