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 Ibn Ezra & Biblical Criticism: The Secret of the
Twelve

Spinoza was under the misimpression that the point Ibn Ezra was troubled by
was that 'ever ha'yarden' meant 'east of the Yarden.' The difficulty was that
Moshe never went west and only somebody on the west side would call it 'east of
the Jordan!' Thus, he would suggest, this passage cannot have been written by
Moshe, and that would be the beginning of biblical criticism. However, Ibn Ezra
intended no such thing. The word 'ha'taam' in Ibn Ezra means 'the sense is.' The
idea here is that these words were said in 11 days. That's when the mitzvos were
given over, etc. And that's what it means when it says 'be'er es ha'torah ha'zos'- it
is referencing the fact that Moshe began reteaching the laws here. That's the
meaning of k'chol asher tziva aleihem- he retaught them words they had heard
before. Ever HaYarden simply refers to the place where Moshe did this and
taught them. In fact, Shadal, who we will come to later, cites the Sephardic
scholar Motot who had this opinion and says it could be that Spinoza learned
from him, quote Spinoza and shows how he did not learn this Ibn Ezra correctly.

Now that we have ascertained that the words Ever HaYarden are not what
trouble Ibn Ezra here, what triggered the following comment in Ibn Ezra,
namely: "And if you want to understand the sod, it's in these 12 verses?" Well,
perhaps we may understand these last 12 verses as referring to the last 12 verses
of the Torah; those would not have been written by Moshe.

Let's look at the verses cited in this Ibn Ezra as those alongside which the last 12
verses of the Torah "reveal a sod, a secret." According to the Toras Chaim edition
put out by Mosad HaRav Kook, the first verse is from Deuteronomy 31:22.

.‫ירה ַהזֹּאת ַבּיּוֹם ַההוּא וַיְ ַל ְמּ ָדהּ ֶאת ְבּנֵי יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵאל‬

ָ ‫כב וַיִּ ְכתֹּב מ ֶֹשׁה ֶאת ַה ִשּׁ‬

So Moses wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.

"Well, what's wrong with that verse?" The Adept questioned us and we
struggled to answer him. He finds the Toras Chaim edition to be a 'shake well

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before using' type; he thinks it's better to get the Mosad HaRav Kook editions
with the supercommentaries that lumping everything together and removing the
commentaries.
"Perhaps it's that he couldn't have taught the whole Torah to them when it wasn't
all finished and written down yet?" one student questioned hopefully.

"Who says it's the whole Torah? Look at the plain sense of the verse," The Adept
guided us. "It seems perfectly fine to say that Moshe taught all of them a song.
Therefore, if I had to guess, the verse being cited in vayichtov Moshe is actually
referring to Deuteronomy 31:9."

Aside from the 12 verses at the end of Deuteronomy and this verse regarding the
length of the Hebrews' travels we have other-

Seemingly Later Additions to the Moses-Written Text

‫ֹהנִ ים ְבּנֵי ֵלוִ י ַהנּ ְֹשׂ ִאים ֶאת ֲארוֹן ְבּ ִרית יְ הוָה וְ ֶאל ָכּל ִז ְקנֵי‬
ֲ ‫תּוֹרה ַהזֹּאת וַיִּ ְתּנָהּ ֶאל ַהכּ‬
ָ ‫ט וַיִּ ְכתֹּב מ ֶֹשׁה ֶאת ַה‬
.‫יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵאל‬

And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, that
bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and unto all the elders of Israel.
(Deuteronomy 31:9)

This verse poses a question/problem. Moses wrote 13 copies of the Torah, one for
each tribe, one deposited; how could that verse have been written until after the
Torah was fully complete and given? It seems like a later addition to the text.

‫אָרץ‬
ֶ ‫מוֹרה וְ ַה ְכּ ַנעֲנִ י אָז ָבּ‬
ֶ ‫אָרץ ַעד ְמקוֹם ְשׁ ֶכם ַעד ֵאלוֹן‬
ֶ ‫אַב ָרם ָבּ‬
ְ ‫ַו ַיּ ֲעבֹר‬

And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the
terebinth of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. (Genesis 12:6)

It sounds like whoever wrote the words "and the Canaanite was then in the land"
was suggesting they are not now in the land. (For example, now Bnei Yisrael are

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in the land.) So the problematic word is az. Ibn Ezra on Genesis 12:6 states: Of
course Canaan is there; who else would it be? The idea is that already they were
there. But if that's not the answer, then there is a sod.

.‫ֵר ֶאה‬
ָ ‫ ְבּ ַהר יְ הוָה י‬,‫ֵאָמר ַהיּוֹם‬
ֵ ‫אַב ָר ָהם ֵשׁם ַה ָמּקוֹם ַההוּא יְ הוָה יִ ְר ֶאה ֲא ֶשׁר י‬
ְ ‫יד וַיִּ ְק ָרא‬

And Abraham called the name of that place Adonai-jireh; as it is said to this day:
'In the mount where the LORD is seen.' (Genesis 22: 14)

This statement (‫ֵר ֶאה‬ ְ seems like a common saying. However, it would
ָ ‫)בּ ַהר יְ הוָה י‬
not have been common at that time. It wasn't yet called har Hashem in those
days so how can there be a saying that people say of har Hashem? Ergo there are
those that say this is from a later period.

‫ֶתר ָה ְר ָפ ִאים ִהנֵּה ַע ְרשׂוֹ ֶע ֶרשׂ ַבּ ְרזֶל ֲהלֹה ִהוא ְבּ ַר ַבּת ְבּנֵי ַעמּוֹן ֵתּ ַשׁע‬
ֶ ‫יא ִכּי ַרק עוֹג ֶמ ֶל ְך ַה ָבּ ָשׁן נִ ְשׁאַר ִמיּ‬
.‫אַמּת ִאישׁ‬
ַ ‫אַר ַבּע אַמּוֹת ָר ְח ָבּהּ ְבּ‬
ְ ְ‫אָר ָכּהּ ו‬
ְ ‫אַמּוֹת‬

For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim; behold, his
bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the children of Ammon?
nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the
cubit of a man.-- (Deuteronomy 3: 11)

Everyone knew the height of Og in that day, so why would they have to provide
it? They had just defeated him! This sounds like a reference for doubters later on.
But this had just happened! So it sounds like whoever wrote this wrote it later on.

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FIVE SHITOS/ APPROACHES TO THIS IBN EZRA

There are many people who comment on this Ibn Ezra. I (The Adept) am going
to provide someone to speak for each category/ approach, with the
understanding that there are many more people who agree with each person in
each category.

1. Sefer Tzafnat Paneach (and all those who agree with him.) He was a Rishon
who lived in the 14th century by the name of R' Yosef Tov Elam. He states as
follows:

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The plain sense of these verses suggests a 3rd party wrote them (not Moshe.) The
secret is that these are editorial glosses added by others later. However, that
other is definitely a Navi, prophet. These glosses could not be part of the Torah
unless they were revealed by God. Thus, an authorized later hand made these
changes.

2. R' Yehuda the Chasid- author of the Sefer Chasidim. He has a comment on
ֶ ‫ וְ ַה ְכּ ַנעֲנִ י אָז ָבּ‬and notes that later in the same parsha it states that the
‫אָרץ‬
Canaanites and the Perizim were in the land. He compares Genesis 12:6 to
Genesis 13:7 and he notes in 13:7 the word yoshev appears.

‫אָרץ‬
ֶ ‫ אָז י ֵֹשׁב ָבּ‬,‫וּבין ר ֵֹעי ִמ ְקנֵה לוֹט וְ ַה ְכּ ַנעֲנִ י וְ ַה ְפּ ִר ִזּי‬
ֵ ‫אַב ָרם‬
ְ ‫ז וַיְ ִהי ִריב ֵבּין ר ֵֹעי ִמ ְקנֵה‬

And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of
Lot's cattle. And the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelt then in the land.

R' Yehuda the Chasid here states that Ibn Ezra figures out a sod. This peirush was
written by the son of R' Yehuda. The son writes, "My father explained the sod! No
nation could settle in the land unless the angel on high in charge of that land
settles there first. And by the time we see Genesis 13:7 they're already residing
there." So he is suggesting that every time there is a sod in one of these verses,
each one has a unique exegetical secret.

There's a Rishon who wrote a book entitled Peirush HaSodos Shel Ibn Ezra. Click
here for the book. This Rishon is R' Yosef Ibn Kaspi. See page 4 of the
ֶ ‫וְ ַה ְכּ ַנעֲנִ י אָז ָבּ‬. He explains that this
download I gave you for his comment to ‫אָרץ‬
means that every nation can occupy the land only with God's permission. The
Canaanites were there and did not have God's permission to be there yet. So
again you see this is a whole sefer on every sod in Ibn Ezra with every sod having
a different solution. Two totally different people both concur with this approach.

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3. Mechokekei Yehudah is a five-volume commentary on Ibn Ezra by R'
Yehuda Leib Krinsky (1928) of Minsk. He states that what these passages have in
common is that it looks like someone else wrote them but in fact Moshe wrote
them through nevuah. These are projections by Moshe.

Now The Adept chose to digress to show how careful one has to be when reading
Sefarim.

This is what the Mechokekei Yehudah states:

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So he states: "There are heretics out there who read into the Ibn Ezra heresy
(namely, saying that these verses are later additions to the Torah.) They wanted
to trap Ibn Ezra to fall into the same trap they fell into (he's referring to bible
critics and maskilim of the 19th century.) Therefore I will cite a passage from
Shadal who proves otherwise. Here's the passage: 'These verses here are among
those some say are not authored by Moshe but several generations later were
added...and you have to ask if they were added, for what purpose? Like why add a
gloss saying it took 11 days to get from Har Seir to Kadesh Barnea? Now that
writings of Spinoza are widespread, even Hebrew biographies of him, that is why
even Jews read his writings; therefore we must inform them of the sheker that
Spinoza writes.'" So according to the Mechokekei Yehuda, even Shadal the Maskil
says that Spinoza lies!

But it's a misquote.

Here's what Shadal really said:

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In truth, Shadal agrees with Approach 1! "It's true that Ibn Ezra alluded to the
fact that some verses were not written by Moshe." He disagrees with Spinoza in
that Spinoza drew the conclusion that the whole Torah was not written by Moshe.
Shadal states that's definitely not what Ibn Ezra was saying; what he was saying
is that certain glosses were not written by others. But the Mechokekei Yehuda
made Shadal out to say and misquoted him to say that there's no way that
anything in the Torah was not written by Moshe. The Mechokekei Yehuda left out
a very important line. He skipped out the line where Shadal writes: ‫כי יש בתורה קצת‬
‫מות משה מקראות נוספים אחרי‬. The Mechokekei Yehuda deliberately skewed the quote!

Not just that but you see that other scholars were not careful to check up on this.
For instance, the ‫ מפרשי המקרא‬by Ezra Tzion Melamed has a whole section on the
Ibn Ezra in Volume 2 where he addresses this passage. He says to look at the
Mechokekei Yehuda who proved from Shadal that Ibn Ezra would never have
imagined that these words were written by another.

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And if you look at R' Menachem Kasher's Torah Sheleima (which by the way is a
tremendous work, The Adept adds), Volume 19, page 378, you will see that he
has a long dissertation on this passage of Ibn Ezra. He states that Ibn Ezra means
to say that these verses are projections and/or nevuah by Moshe. And he writes
kein pirash Shadal and says to look at the Karnei Ohr who quotes him. See here:

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So you see he did not check it up either.

So now you know that whenever you see something cited, you must go look up
the original source. There can be misquotes, censorship or something else- you
have to do the research!

4. ‫להבין‬ ‫ עזרה‬is a commentary on Ibn Ezra by R' Yitshak Meler (lived in the 19th
century, published in 1897). In his introductoin to Ibn Ezra he says this statement
in Deuteronomy comes from a talmid to'eh- a student that erred. (Chana: Really
he is agreeing with approach 1 but find it heretical and therefore determines it
cannot have been written by Ibn Ezra.)

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5. There was a scholar in England named M. Friedlaender who wrote Essays on
the Writings of Abraham Ibn Ezra (four-volume work.) He says as follows:

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Basically, that what all these passages have in common is that they are all trivia.
Who cares? Why does the Torah have to tell us this? These are trivia and that is
the problem Ibn Ezra has- there may be some secret but who knows?

All right, so now that we know the five different approaches one may take to
understand this Ibn Ezra, let's raise questions on them- in reverse order.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FIVE APPROACHES TO THIS IBN EZRA

5. Regarding Friedlaender's approach: the statement that what all these verses
have in common is that they are trivia does not work for the last 12 verses of the
Torah. Those verses tell you about the death of Moshe! That's why Friedlaender is
forced to say that "the secret of the twelve" has nothing to do with the last twelve
verses of the Torah. He says it is referring to the 12 nesiim when each one
brought the same exact korban. But even if he reads it that way, the fact that
Moses wrote 13 copies of the Torah is hardly trivia. And if Ibn Ezra were truly
connecting these verses because they are trivia, this is too short a list! One would
think there are many other verses in the Torah one could link under trivia. So this
is not a convincing approach.

4. The talmid to'eh approach- if this is indeed true, the mistake should appear
in one or two manuscripts of Ibn Ezra, but this appears in all of them. Also, R'
Yehuda HaChasid, who is Ibn Ezra's contemporary, cites this passage (and he
certainly does not seem to think it is a talmid to'eh who wrote it.) There is also a
great Rishon, kabbalist and teacher of Ramban named R' Ezra. We have a letter
that he wrote. See ‫למנחת שי הנוספות‬:

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So as you can see he wrote: "The entire Torah is revealed by God; there is nothing
superfluous. No difference between what you might think of as trivia and the Ten
Commandments. If you leave out one letter of the Torah it is like you left out
worlds or the name of God. Don't listen to anyone who tells you that Ezra (the
Sofer) added something to the Torah like 'v'haCanaani az b'aretz' or by Og."

So he's saying there are people walking around making this claim- but don't
believe it! So you see he does not resort to the talmid to'eh idea. R' Bachya also
argues with Ibn Ezra but does not resort to the talmid to'eh idea.

3. When it comes to the idea of this having been written via projections/
prophecy of Moshe, look at Genesis 14:14 regarding 'vayirdof ad dan' and see
what Ibn Ezra says there. He writes that this might have been stated derech
nevuah or there were two different names of the place. So the problem with
claiming the sod here is that these pesukim were written via nevuah is that it is
Ibn Ezra's custom to stay that explicitly. See Ibn Ezra to Deuteronomy 11:30- he
states explicitly that this was derech nevuah. It seems like regarding these
specific pesukim Ibn Ezra is making a distinction. It would be a much longer list
of verses if he were stating all of those that he thinks were given over b'derech
nevuah.

2. The approach where each pasuk has a secret of its own: if so, why did Ibn
Ezra cite these 5 pesukim together? He clearly linked them for a reason. Also, this
would be much too short a list because Ibn Ezra has hundreds of sodos. It seems
clear he cited these particular pesukim for a reason; they linked together in some
way.

So we are down to approach 1, namely that what all these verses have in common
is that they were written later and this has to be explained. In the 18th century a
whole series of Geonei Yisrael started arguing regarding this Ibn Ezra. The Chida
alludes to this controversy. It is discussed in a book by Naftali ben Menachem in
Inyanei Ibn Ezra. He quotes a gadol defending approach 1. By believing this
approach one is not being mevazeh devar Hashem. One still believes it is devar
Hashem! That is Ibn Ezra's stance. His approach was that as long as a verse was

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said by a Navi with permission later/ written in by an authorized hand, that was
fine.

Approach 3 (the Mechokekei Yehuda, etc) regarding Moshe saying these verses
were written via nevuah has been canonized. But Approach 1 makes the most
sense to us. The Tzafnas Paneach has a most extensive defense of Ibn Ezra on this
matter in pages 91-93 on Genesis:

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