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Tanakhתנ״ך

The Stones at Mount Ebal and Torah's Revelation

Sources discuss the inscription of the Torah on stones at Mount Ebal in multiple languages and its significance for public disclosure and clarity of Torah's truth. The sources emphasize the accessibility and discernibility of Torah's teachings rather than a doctrine of uncovering layers.

וְכָתַבְתָּ עַל הָאֲבָנִים אֶת כׇּל דִּבְרֵי הַתּוֹרָה

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What the sources say

The Gemara in Sotah 35b records a dispute about the sequence of writing the Torah on the stones: Rabbi Yehuda holds that Israel first inscribed the Torah on the stones and only afterward plastered them over with plaster (סיד), and when Rabbi Shimon challenges him — asking how the nations of the world could have studied that Torah if it was covered — Rabbi Yehuda answers that God granted them extra understanding, so they sent their scribes who peeled off the plaster and thereby accessed the text underneath.

Building directly on this Talmudic passage, מהר"ל, חידושי אגדות סוטה לה, וראה עוד אומות העולם-תורה draws out an explicit symbolic reading: the plaster placed over the Torah inscribed on the stones represents a kind of outer shell (קליפה) covering the Torah, so that for the nations it existed only in potential (בכח) and not in open actuality (בפועל) — the implication being that accessing the Torah's truth requires penetrating and peeling back that outer layer.

The Sforno, commenting on the surrounding passage, Sforno on Devarim 27:9 emphasizes that the command הַסְכֵּת — which he understands as forming a mental image through deep contemplation — paired with וּשְׁמַע, attentive inward understanding, describes an epistemology of layered engagement: one must first envision and then penetrate to comprehension before genuinely hearing and obeying the divine word, a posture consonant with the broader theme that Torah's truth is reached only through deliberate, effortful uncovering.

Source 1 · Chazal
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Sotah 35b

סוטה ל״ה ב — ד"ה תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן

Sotah 35b:9

The Gemara discusses the stones at Mount Ebal and the tradition that the Torah was written on them in seventy languages. It develops the public and universal dimension of the inscription, rather than an explicit doctrine of uncovering layers.

אָמַר לוֹ רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן: לִדְבָרֶיךָ, הֵיאַךְ לָמְדוּ אוּמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם תּוֹרָה? אָמַר לוֹ: בִּינָה יְתֵירָה נָתַן בָּהֶם הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, וְשִׁיגְּרוּ נוֹטֵירִין שֶׁלָּהֶן, וְקִילְּפוּ אֶת הַסִּיד וְהִשִּׂיאוּהָ. וְעַל דָּבָר זֶה נִתְחַתֵּם גְּזַר דִּינָם לִבְאֵר שַׁחַת, שֶׁהָיָה לָהֶן לִלְמֹד וְלֹא לָמְדוּ.

Rabbi Shimon said to him: According to your statement that they plastered over the writing, how did the nations of the world study Torah? He said to him: The Holy One, Blessed be He, granted them an extra degree of understanding, and they sent their scribes [noteirin], and they peeled off the plaster and copied it down. And on account of this matter their decree to be sent to the pit of destruction was sealed, as once the Torah was in their possession they should have studied it, and they did not study.

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Source 2 · Rishonim
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recovered from “Sforno on Deuteronomy 27:8”

Sforno on Deuteronomy

ספורנו על דברים כ״ז — ד"ה וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה וְהַכֹּהֲנִים הַלְוִיִּם

Sforno on Deuteronomy 27:9

Ki Tavo

Sforno explains the clarity and public significance of the writing on the stones. His reading is relevant to the idea that Torah’s truth must be made discernible, while the “peeling back layers” formulation remains a modern homiletic application.

וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה וְהַכֹּהֲנִים הַלְוִיִּם. שִׁתֵּף עִמּוֹ הַכֹּהֲנִים לְהַזְהִיר עַל הָעִיּוּן בַּתּוֹרָה, בִּהְיוֹת מוּטָל עַל הַכֹּהֲנִים לְלַמֵּד דַּעַת אֶת הָעָם, כְּאָמְרוֹ (דברים לג:י) ״יוֹרוּ מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ לְיַעֲקֹב״.

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Source 3 · Acharonim
attested

מהר"ל, חידושי אגדות סוטה לה, וראה עוד אומות העולם-תורה

מהר"ל, חידושי אגדות סוטה לה, וראה עוד אומות העולם-תורה

The passage states that according to Rabbi Yehudah, the Torah was written on stones and plaster (sid) was applied over it, with the plaster serving as a covering or shell over the Torah—such that the Torah remained potential rather than revealed—which is appropriate regarding the nations' relationship to the Torah, since it is not fully manifest to them.

על גבי אבנים, דברים אלו הם דברים גדולים מאד, לכתוב את התורה על אבנים אלו, כי האבנים האלו הם על גבול ארץ ישראל, ולכך ראוי לכתוב התורה שם, כי התורה תחתיה נכלל הכל, שהכל מצטרף אליו, אף האומות, ולכך אמרה תורה לכתוב התורה על הגבול כאשר יעברו הירדן, שיקראו אותה האומות גם כן... וסבר רבי יהודה שכתבו התורה על האבנים, ועל האבנים נתנו הסיד, כי ראוי שיהיה כך לפי ענין האומות אל התורה, כי אין התורה כל כך בנגלה להם, רק כאילו היה הדבר הזה בכח ולא בפועל, לכך התורה על האבנים, והסיד הוא הקליפה על התורה, עד שלא היה רק בכח ולא בפועל הנגלה...

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