Avodah Mailing List

Volume 44: Number 14

Sat, 28 Feb 2026

• 1. Re: Asseres Hadibros (Akiva Miller)
• 2. Arba'a Turim (Akiva Miller)
• 3. Moshe's refusal (Joel Rich)

.
R' Micha Berger wrote:
? Taam Elyon has one sof pasuq per diberah.

and R' Arie Folger concurred:
> Indeed. That is literally what the Ta'am Elyon is for,
> using te'amim above the letters for not pausing until the
> end of every dibberah

This makes sense, and I'm sure that both of you heard/learned this from
someone. But so far, no one has pointed to any sefer which says so.

In sharp contrast, R' Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter cites Ibn Ezra on Devarim
Perek 5 as endorsing the view that "Anochi..." is NOT the first, and that
the ninth and tenth are "Lo Sachmod Beis" and "Lo Sachmod Eishes".

(Note that it may be difficult to find this Ibn Ezra. This is partially
because the numbering of these pesukim is inconsistent from publisher to
publisher, surely a result of the "Taam Elyon vs Taam Tachton" tension. But
also, having looked for it in my chumashim, I'm not sure that this comment
is clearly labeled with a specific Dibbur Hamas'chil. In any case, rather
than me quoting RJFYS's posted translation, everyone can find it online at
https://mg.alhatorah.org/Full/Devarim/5/17 )

Related information:

Wikipedia has a useful table showing eight different ways of counting The
Ten. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments#Religious_traditions

The count which is most familiar to us, in which "Anochi" is #1 and the "Lo
Sachmod"s are combined to be #10, is the fourth in that table, labeled
"Talmud". Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not tell me *where* the Talmud
expresses this view.

The view of Ibn Ezra, where "Anochi" is not counted, and "Lo Sachmod" are
separate as #9 amd #10, is what Wikipedia called "Lutheran".

The view of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (on pages 529-531 of his new Chumash,
which is what caused me to start this thread), in which "Lo Sachmod" is
united as #10, but "Lo Yihyeh" and "Lo Saaseh" are separated as #2 and #3,
conforms to what Wikipedia labels as "Septuagint".

Akiva Miller
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.
This week, we read Tetzaveh, which tells us about the Choshen and the
twelve jewels placed in it. You may think you know how those jewels are
arranged, but the Torah is actually ambiguous, and the result is a
machlokes.

Shemos 28:17 tells us that there will be four "turim", and which jewels are
to be in the first "tur". The following pesukim tell us about the other
three turim.

Most translations render "tur" as "row", but very unfortunately, most
people read that without realizing that "row" is an ambiguous word. They
think that the four turim are horizontal rows, like in a chart or table,
with the first row on top, and the fourth on the bottom. But isn't it true
that the predecessor to the Shulchan Aruch, namely the Arbaa Turim, is
often depicted as four vertical *columns*?

Consider these two definitions of ?row?, from Wiktionary:

> 1) A line of objects, often regularly spaced, such as seats
> in a theatre, vegetable plants in a garden etc.

> 2) A horizontal line of entries in a table, etc., going from
> left to right, as opposed to a column going from top to bottom.

In our parsha, Onkelos translates "tur" as "sidra" - an orderly
arrangement, like Wiktionary's first definition, not related to rows or
columns. I believe this is also true of how "tur" is used in Melachim 1
7:12, Yechezkel 46:23, and Divrei Hayamim 2 4:3.

On the other hand, it is abundantly clear that these 12 jewels are to be
arranged in four groups of three each. The question is whether these
"turim" are rows or columns.

Encyclopedia Talmudit, volume 1, has an article titled "Avnei Choshen
v'Ephod", which brings two opinions at the top of column 93. According to
the Pesikta Zutresa (Parshas Tetzaveh, and Chizkuni there), the four turim
are horizontal rows, and the three jewels of each row are placed in the
Choshen from right to left. According to Minchas Chinuch 99, the four turim
are vertical columns; the first column being on the right, and the three
jewels of each column are placed in the Choshen from top to bottom.

Minchas Chinuch
10 - 7 - 4 - 1
11 - 8 - 5 - 2
12 - 9 - 6 - 3

Pesikta Zutresa
3 - 2 - 1
6 - 5 - 4
9 - 8 - 7
12-11-10

Just for the fun of it, I googled "choshen", and then selected "images".
The result was mostly jewelry of various kinds, and a few educational /
decorative posters too. Of the first 50 that I looked at, 44 had four rows
and three columns, and 6 had three rows and four columns.

Akiva Miller
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Moshe Rabbeinu?s continuing refusal to accept HKBH?s charge to go to Egypt
? maybe the way to think about it is maybe it tells us something about what
an interaction with HKBH is like (eg HKBH allows us to maintain our free
will ? similar to one explanation of why HKBH hardened paro?s heart during
the maakot)
Thoughts?
KT
Joel Rich
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