Concepts of Scripture in Nahmanides 151curred in a vision of night. Linking his disagreement with Maimonides to
kabbalistic interpretation, Nahmanides writes,
Onkelos could not have literally translated “and behold I am with you”
[and was forced to paraphrase it as “and My word will be in your help”],
because it is written here And, behold, the Eternal stood beside him. Th e
wise individual will understand. Since Onkelos found the meaning of this
verse not to be in line with its plain meaning, he therefore spurned [a lit-
eral translation], and thus he said, “My word will be in your help,” instead
of saying, “My word will be with you,” as he said in the case of Moses. And
may God show us the wonders of his Torah. 29Nahmanides here refers to the fact that the word for God used in Gen-
esis 28:15 is the Tetragrammaton, which, in kabbalistic parlance, refers to
the divine attribute of mercy. Instead Onkelos decided, again according to
Nahmanides, to translate it as “my word,” which symbolized the divine at-
tribute of judgment (din).
Despite the fact that Nahmanides was familiar with the type of ratio-
nalism that Maimonides employed, his disagreement with him was one of
the major engines that powered his commentary. A complete rationalist
approach to scripture, one wherein dreams are invoked to explain textual
“infelicities,” is so problematic to Nahmanides because it not only puts the
literal level of the Torah at risk (something he occasionally does himself )
but subverts traditional Jewish reading.
Between Rashi and Ibn Ezra
Nahmanides writes at the beginning of his Commentary on the Torah,
I will place as an illumination before me
Th e lights of the pure candelabrum,
Th e commentaries of our Rabbi Shlomo [i.e., Rashi]
A crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty,
Adorned in his ways,
In Scripture, Mishnah, and Gemara
Th e right of the fi rstborn is his.
Upon his words I will meditate