Reply To Jennifer Solis

Submitted by orange yonason (United States), Dec 18, 2008 at 21:58

B"H

The Torah encourages people to think for themselves. In fact, it demands it. Along with thinking for oneself comes the inevitable errors one is bound to make, which is why the Torah includes methods to correct for those mistakes. So, no, I'm not offended by your comments, even though they are mistaken, because I think you are sincere. And that is why I'm correcting you, so you can fix the mistakes.

For example, you wrote...

Verse 15 goes on - "If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and they have borne him children [both] the loved and the unloved, and [if] the first born son is of her who is unloved.." - "wives" here is NOT plural in the original Hebrew - "wives" here is actually the SINGULAR 'ishshah - WIFE...

I don't know what you are using as a source, Jennifer, but the correct Hebrew is (if it comes out ok)...
"... טו "כִּי-תִהְיֶיןָ לְאִישׁ שְׁתֵּי נָשִׁים
"Ki-Tihyeynau l'ish shtei Naushim.",
....which translated is,...
"If a man have two wives".
"Shtei" means "two", and "Naushim" means "wives".
It IS plural.

I suggest that you get a good Kosher copy, like the Stone Chumush, or the Tanach if you also want the Prophets and Psalms and some other things that aren't in the Chumash. Until then, you can find that here...

It's hard enough to avoid errors even with correct sources. but if the ones you are working with are flawed, errors are inevitable. So, I hope you can see that when you work with methods AND content that are incorrect, you can't hope to understand what's going on. BUT, the fact that you are thinking critically about it is wonderful. All you have to do is get a good source and learn how to approach it correctly.

Best of luck in your future studies.

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