Treating Trees Treasonably - כִּי הָאָדָם עֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה - פרשת שופטים
Aug 12, 2026 · 19 min · 9 segments
Source sheet here In this shiur, we examine the prohibition of Bal Tashchit, which forbids the…
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Aug 12, 2026 · 19 min · 9 segments
Source sheet here In this shiur, we examine the prohibition of Bal Tashchit, which forbids the…
David SaltzmanHost
Well, we should look at how the earliest commentators handled the sheer weirdness of the translation.
Because if I'm reading a military manual and it tells me for man is a tree of the field, I'm just assuming there's been a translation error.
Yeah, a typo or something.
Right, right.
And that tension is exactly what drove classic commentators like Rashi and Onkelos to reevaluate the grammar entirely.
Well, they looked at the literal translation and determined it simply couldn't be a declarative statement.
I mean, ancient Hebrew didn't have punctuation marks, like there were no question marks.
So the tone of a sentence often had to be inferred just from context.
Exactly.
So Rashi, who is writing in the 11th century, argues we have to read the phrase with an implied incredulous tone.
Kind of.
He frames it as a question.
Is the tree of the field a man that it can hide inside the besieged city and suffer the terrible hunger and thirst of siege?
Right.
Rashi is positioning the tree as an innocent bystander.
His logic asks why an army would punish the natural environment for the sins of the city's inhabitants.
Well, we should look at how the earliest commentators handled the sheer weirdness of the translation.
Because if I'm reading a military manual and it tells me for man is a tree of the field, I'm just assuming there's been a translation error.
Yeah, a typo or something.
Right, right.
And that tension is exactly what drove classic commentators like Rashi and Onkelos to reevaluate the grammar entirely.
Well, they looked at the literal translation and determined it simply couldn't be a declarative statement.
I mean, ancient Hebrew didn't have punctuation marks, like there were no question marks.
So the tone of a sentence often had to be inferred just from context.
Exactly.
So Rashi, who is writing in the 11th century, argues we have to read the phrase with an implied incredulous tone.
Kind of.
He frames it as a question.
Is the tree of the field a man that it can hide inside the besieged city and suffer the terrible hunger and thirst of siege?
Right.
Rashi is positioning the tree as an innocent bystander.
His logic asks why an army would punish the natural environment for the sins of the city's inhabitants.
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