Conversely, One Who Reads the Torah Is Forbidden to Turn Away

"And the LORD said: Shall I hide?" (Genesis 18:17). May our master teach us: The one who translates the Torah, is it permitted for him to look into the Torah scroll and translate? Thus our Rabbis taught: The translator is forbidden to look into the Torah scroll and translate, so that people will not say that the translation is written in the Torah. And the reader is forbidden to take his eyes off the Torah, for the Torah was given only in writing, as it is said: "And I will write upon the tablets the words." And the translator is forbidden, when translating in public, to fix his eyes on the Torah. Rabbi Yehudah ben Pazi said: The verse is explicit, as it is said: "Write down these words," thus the translation that was given orally [is set apart from the written text]. Rabbi Yehudah bar Simon said: "For according to (al pi) these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel" (Exodus 34:27). By what means? By means of "write down for yourself" and by means of the oral. If you uphold what is in writing in writing, and what is oral orally, I have made a covenant with you. But if you change what is written into oral and what is oral into writing, I have not made a covenant with you. Rabbi Yehudah bar Shalom said: Moses requested that the Mishnah too should be in writing. But the Holy One, blessed be He, foresaw that the nations were destined to translate the Torah and read it in Greek, and they would say, "We are the [true] Israel." The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: I will write for him the greater part of My Torah, and if so, they would be reckoned as strangers. And why so much? Because the Mishnah is the mystery of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Holy One, blessed be He, does not hand over His mystery except to the righteous, as it is said: "The secret of the LORD is for those who fear Him" (Psalms 25:14). And likewise you find that even at the time the Sodomites provoked the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Holy One, blessed be He, sought to overturn them, He took counsel only with Abraham, as it is said: "And the LORD said: Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" (Genesis 18:17). And it is written: "And he shall find favor and good understanding in the eyes of God and man" (Proverbs 3:4), for there is no person who is beloved before the king and not beloved before his courtiers, and when he is beloved before the courtiers he is not beloved before the king. But the righteous are beloved before the Holy One, blessed be He, and they are beloved before the angels and before the creatures. From where? For so you find that when the angel came to Daniel, he called him "man greatly beloved" three times. "And he said to me: Daniel, man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you; and as he spoke this word to me, I stood trembling." And it is written: "And I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved; understand the matter and consider the vision." And why "man greatly beloved"? Happy is that man who heard this, that the angel brought him tidings and said to him "man greatly beloved," for you are beloved before the Holy One, blessed be He, and praised in the upper worlds, and you are beloved in your generation. And Bezalel too was praised before the Holy One, blessed be He, and praised in the upper worlds and the lower worlds, as it is said: "See, I have called by name Bezalel" (Exodus 31:2). "See" in the upper worlds, "see" in the lower worlds. Thus you say, "And he shall find favor and good understanding in the eyes of God and man." Another interpretation: "And he shall find favor," this is Abraham, who was beloved by the creatures, as it is said: "Hear us, my lord" (Genesis 23:6). And from where do we know that he was beloved by the Holy One, blessed be He, and by the angel? As it is said: "And the LORD said: Shall I hide from Abraham?" Rabbi Levi said: Why did the Holy One, blessed be He, reveal it to Abraham? Because he was pondering about the generation of the Flood, saying that it is impossible that there were not among them twenty righteous men, or ten, on whose merit the Holy One, blessed be He, would have spared them. Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, said: I will reveal it to him, so that he will not say that perhaps in Sodom too there were righteous men. Know that it is so, for it was not enough for Him to say to him, "And the LORD said: Shall I hide from Abraham?"; once He told him the entire matter, what did Abraham answer Him? "And Abraham drew near and said: Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" (Genesis 18:23). Rabbi Levi said: The matter that Abraham spoke is the same matter that Job spoke, except that Job swallowed it unripe, whereas Abraham swallowed it ripe. Job said: "It is all one; therefore I say, He destroys the blameless and the wicked" (Job 9:22). But Abraham said: "Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" Then he went back and said: "Far be it from You to do such a thing" (Genesis 18:25). Another interpretation: Why did the Holy One, blessed be He, reveal it to Abraham? Rabbi Yehudah bar Levi said: A parable of a king who had an orchard. He arose and gave it to his beloved as a gift. After some days the king needed to cut down five beams from within it. The king said: Even though it is mine and I gave it as a gift to my beloved, it is not right that I should cut anything from it until I take counsel with my beloved. So too the Holy One, blessed be He: when Abraham came up to the Land of Israel, He said to him, "Lift up now your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see, to you I will give it" (Genesis 13:14-15). Therefore, when He sought to destroy these five cities, He said: I will not destroy them apart from the knowledge of Abraham. And if you should say that they were not part of the land of Canaan, see what is written afterward: "And the border of the Canaanite was from Sidon, as you go toward Gerar, as far as Gaza, as you go toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha" (Genesis 10:19). Therefore, when He came to destroy them, He took counsel with Abraham, as it is said: "And the LORD said: Shall I hide?"