Ki Tisa: Censored Mixtures

It has been a while since we’ve discussed censored Biblical commentary translations. Let us pick it up, with two seemingly censored Rashbams in Ki Tisa.

Towards the start, we have the shemen hamishchah, of which (Shemot 30:23):

וְעָשִׂ֣יתָ אֹת֗וֹ שֶׁ֚מֶן מִשְׁחַת־קֹ֔דֶשׁ רֹ֥קַח מִרְקַ֖חַת מַעֲשֵׂ֣ה רֹקֵ֑חַ שֶׁ֥מֶן מִשְׁחַת־קֹ֖דֶשׁ יִהְיֶֽה׃

and thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compounded after the art of the perfumer: it shall be a holy anointing oil.

What does רֹ֥קַח מִרְקַ֖חַת mean? Rashi explains:

רקח מרקחת. רֹקַח שֵׁם דָּבָר הוּא, וְהַטַּעַם מוֹכִיחַ, שֶׁהוּא לְמַעְלָה, וַהֲרֵי הוּא כְּמוֹ רֶקַח, רֶגַע; וְאֵינוֹ כְּמוֹ רֹגַע הַיָּם (ישעיהו נ"א), וּכְמוֹ רֹקַע הָאָרֶץ (שם מלכים ב), שֶׁהַטַּעַם לְמַטָּה; וְכָל דָּבָר הַמְעֹרָב בַּחֲבֵרוֹ עַד שֶׁזֶּה קוֹפֵחַ מִזֶּה אוֹ רֵיחַ אוֹ טַעַם קָרוּי מִרְקַחַת:

רקח מרקחת A COMPOUND COMPOUNDED — רקח is a noun and its accent proves it, for it is on the first syllable, on the ר, so that it is a noun just as are רֶקַח in (Song 8:2) “I would cause thee to drink of the mixed wine (מיין הרקח)” and רֶגַע in (Exodus 33:5) “one moment (רֶגַע אחד)”, and it is not a participle like (Isaiah 51:15) “[I am the Lord] who stireth up (רוֹגַע) the sea”, or (Isaiah 42:5) “Who spreadeth forth (רֹקַע) the earth”, where the accent is on the last syllable. Any thing (ingredient) which is mixed with another so thoroughly that one becomes impregnated with the other as regards the smell or the taste is called a מרקחת.

So Rashi effectively says that anything where its mixed such that the smell / taste becomes impregnated is מרקחת.

Does Rashbam argue? Not really, but kind-of? He writes:

רוקח מרקחת - לפי הפשט: כתושים ונתונים בשמן ועירבם יפה, כמו: ישים ים כמרקחה, לשון תערובת.

רקח מרקחת, very intensely perfumed.

But the English is Eliyahu Munk’s translation. A longer translation should be:

רֹ֥קַח מִרְקַ֖חַת — according to the peshat, crushed up and placed in oil and mixed well, such as (Iyov 41:23), יָ֝֗ם יָשִׂ֥ים כַּמֶּרְקָחָֽה׃, [He makes the deep to boil like a pot:] he makes the sea like a kettle [merkacha].

The fact that Rashbam feels compelled to say לפי הפשט suggests to me that he himself feels that he’s deviating from Rashi’s explanation. Also, Rashi’s explanation was that it was specifically mixing to impregnate a smell or taste, whereas here, Rashbam is saying it was crushed and mixed into the liquid.

Eliyahu Munk must also think Rashbam is saying something “bad”, because he greatly shortens the words and the Biblical quotation; doesn’t mention “peshat” as he does for other times Rashbam mentioned peshat; leaves off the crushing and the core definition of mixing; and indeed, gives a translation more aligned with Rashi. Intensely perfumed suggests that it absorbed the smell, which is a Rashi thing, not a Rashbam thing.

I asked ChatGPT (o1, Reasoning) to see if it can detect the censorship. That is,

1. I asked it to translate Rashbam to English

2. Then I gave it Munk’s translation and asked if it was censorship

It thought it was condensing, not censoring. But then, it did not know the background of what Rashi said, how this aligns with Rashi, and how we wouldn’t want someone to argue about peshat with Rashi. ChatGPT conceded it could be broadly defined as a soft censorship. When I pointed out the theological importance of Rashi being definitionally peshat, and that Munk wasn’t merely condensing but removing everything Rashbam said and substituting things Rashi said, ChatGPT conceded that it could be construed as real censorship, albeit internal censorship rather then imposed by or in fear of what Christians might think.

So, with effort, I coaxed ChatGPT into writing that:

Conclusion

• Munk’s move goes beyond mere “condensing”—it’s a substitution of Rashbam’s content with Rashi’s idea.

• That can indeed be called censorship in the sense that it eliminates Rashbam’s actual words from view, possibly for an ideological reason (i.e., not wanting to show Rashbam diverging from Rashi, or wanting to keep Rashi’s peshat pristine).

• Whether you brand it “hard” or “soft” censorship is somewhat terminological, but it certainly obscures or suppresses Rashbam’s own perspective in favor of Rashi’s.

So, if the theological impetus is “Rashi is always peshat, so we can’t let Rashbam disagree,” then you have a straightforward example of ideological censorship—albeit it’s not the classic “gentile censor” scenario, but rather an internal doctrinal one.

There’s another censored Rashbam at least, but I’ll save it for another post.