The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

ALEXANDER The Targum of the Song of Songs 331
refinement proves theologically to be of no small moment, because he
chooses to link the image of the navel with the sustenance of life. The
result is that he assigns to the Head of the College a cosmic role:
through his merit the whole world (or, as a variant has, 'all the
people') is sustained. He transfers to the individual a function which
elsewhere in the tradition is a function of the collective (the Sanhedrin
as a whole). The Head of the College thus becomes a great saddiq—a
pillar of the world. Elsewhere in the Targum there are hints that the
targumist assigned to the Head of the College a high position in the
scheme of things.
2. The 'round goblet' (aggan ha-sahar) suggests to the targumist the
disc of the moon (ogna de-sihard). He then asks himself: in what sense
is the Head of the College like the moon? He answers: because his face
shines with the reflected light of the law.
3. The 'mixed wine' also suggested Torah to the targumist: the Head
of the College possesses and perpetually dispenses Torah. The
comparison between the Torah and the waters of creation issuing
from Eden is neither gratuitous nor exaggerated. The waters of
creation sustain the world, but so also does the Torah, and it is in
virtue of his possession of the Torah that the Head of the College plays
his cosmic role.
4. The targumist picks up again the image of the navel: the Sages
(the 'belly') sit around 'like a half threshing floor'—a direct quotation
of the tradition found in M. Sank. 4.3 and elsewhere.
5. The 'heap of wheat' recalled the ingathering of the tithes into the
'treasuries' (osarot) mentioned in Neh. 12.44-47 and 13.10-13. These
verses gave rise to the tradition that the Men of the Great Synagogue
ordained that the tithes and the terumah should continue to be given,
though according to biblical law the obligation had ceased when the
Jews went into exile. 17 However, as Silber rightly notes, 'What has the
tithe to do with the Head of the College?' 18 Tithes were given only to
17. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, VI, pp. 448-49, n. 56.
18. Silber, Sedeh Jerusalem, ad loc. (9a): 'Who will explain to me what business
the holy tithe, the vow and free-will offering have with the Head of the College and
the Sages who surround him? It is true that Ezra penalized the Levites and ordained
that the tithe should be given also to the priests, as is explained in [Bavli] Makkot
23[b] and [Bavli] Yevamot 86b, but what has this to do with the Head of the
College? It would be a misvah to give an explanation of this'. Cf., however,
Yerushalmi Ma'aser Sheni 5.5 (56b.53): 'R. Yonah used to give his tithes to R. Aha