Q&A: Multiple Interpretations of a Text
Multiple Interpretations of a Text
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I studied the second root in Maimonides together with Nachmanides’ critiques, and as I understood it, the point of the dispute is that Maimonides assumes that a text has one interpretation, and all the other interpretations are not hidden within it, but rather expanded from it.
My question is: where does this basic assumption come from? Why is it reasonable to say that a text has only one plain meaning?
Answer
I think it’s just common sense. It stands to reason that if someone writes a text, he means something specific and not three different things. True, with respect to the Holy One, blessed be He, perhaps one could discuss it, and maybe Maimonides held that the Torah speaks in human language.
Discussion on Answer
Maybe this should be connected to Ockham’s razor. Though one would have to investigate what is actually simpler.
Note that Maimonides too is speaking about the default. There are situations in which the homiletical interpretation is in fact Torah-level / of biblical origin (when the Sages tell us that this is a Torah-level law). That is precisely the result of what you wrote: that there is no necessity for there to be only one interpretation. That is the default, unless this is an exceptional case in which both interpretations are present in the text.
As long as you understood the intention of the matter, the interpretation is less important.
Thank you very much for the response.
Yes, I understand. And from the outset I was asking about the Creator.
But truthfully, even regarding a human being: it doesn’t seem far-fetched to me to use a word that from the outset contains two actions hidden within it that do not contradict each other. I don’t see any necessity to claim that every additional interpretation is, by definition, an expansion.