Q&A: The Plain Meaning of Scripture
The Plain Meaning of Scripture
Question
What is the explanation regarding the Chumash The Plain Meaning of Scripture?
Recently a number of rabbis and yeshiva heads have come out in protest against the work The Plain Meaning of Scripture. They claim that Rashi’s commentary is itself the plain meaning of Scripture, and that in our generation one should not study the Bible as an independent discipline together with the plain-sense commentators, along with other claims. On the other hand, rabbis such as Rabbi Chaim Weiss, the city rabbi of Beitar, have come out and written: “We hereby, like the court closest to the slain person, testify in a place where they do not know him, that we know the author, who is among the important Torah scholars in our city… and it is inconceivable that there is in him or in his book even a trace of a foreign spirit.”
I wanted to ask whether there is really something to these claims, or whether there is no problem studying the Chumash, and what is the idea behind saying that in our generation one should study only Rashi’s commentary.
Answer
In my personal opinion, there is no point in studying Scripture at all, regardless of the commentaries. You don’t learn much from it (this has been discussed here to exhaustion, and you can search). But if you think there is value in studying Scripture, then obviously these things are nonsense. You can study Scripture with any commentary you like, and if it convinces you, good; and if not, then not. You don’t need endorsements for any commentary on anything.
Discussion on Answer
How can you say that we learn almost nothing from Scripture?! That smells like terrible heresy.
According to the plain meaning of Scripture, if a child is born as a result of relations between an Israelite woman and a man who is not an Israelite, the child is not called “an Israelite man” in his own right, but is identified through his mother and called “the son of an Israelite woman,” or also “the son of the Israelite woman.”