Jewish Concepts of Scripture

144 Aaron W. Hughes

Nahmanides’s Conception of Scripture

Th e egg of the ant is as small

as the outermost sphere

of my limited understanding

And my knowledge is imprecise

When compared to the hidden matters of the Torah

Th at lie hidden in her house and

Concealed in her room;

For every precious thing, every wonder,

Every profound secret, and all glorious wisdom

Are stored up with her,

Sealed up in her treasure

By a hint, by a word

In writing and in speaking. 13

With these words, Nahmanides begins his rich and multitextured com-
mentary to the Torah. Nahmanides’s goal, as indeed it is the goal of every
biblical commentator, is twofold: to understand the biblical text within the
parameters of its linguistic and historical context and to tease out the text’s
latent meanings. He writes, “Moses our teacher wrote this book of Genesis
together with the whole Torah from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed
be He.”14 Following rabbinic tradition, he holds that there exists forty-nine
gates of understanding that Moses transcribed into the Torah either “ex-
plicitly or by implication in words, in the numerical value of the letters or
in the form of the letters, that is whether written normally or with some
change in form such as bent or crooked letters or some other deviations.”15
Th e Torah, in other words, is inexhaustible. A narrow interpretive frame-
work, according to Nahmanides, risks fragmenting both the Torah and,
concomitantly, Judaism. Th is risk seems to have been behind his involve-
ment in the Maimonidean controversy, wherein the various bans and
counterbans threatened the unity of Judaism:

Th e Torah will become like Two Torahs, and all of Israel [will become]

two opposing groups. One group will agree with your decision, but the

other will ignore your ruling. .  . . If you decree something that [pro-

Maimonideans] are necessarily unable to accept, they will ignore the

herem of your group [literally, minyan] and they will say to you “we believe

this.” .  . . It is unlawful to declare a ruling on all Israel unless the majority