Introduction to the Commentary on Numbers—Me’am Lo’ez by Isaac Magriso

To the Reader

The introduction to the first volume of this work,¹ which you already have, explains that one must know what mitzvot God commanded us to perform, and what he obliged us to avoid, to find out what sinful things one has done, unknowingly. We must learn more about the miracles God performed for our fathers, because in the weekly portions from the Prophets they are described very briefly, and, for the reason explained in the introduction to Exodus, many miracles are not related in the Law. One should also know about wars and battles that happened in the times of the kings of Israel and the prophets; the words they said to one another, why some people were killed, and what happened when. And one should also know the purpose of our holy and blessed Law, for you must not think that stories found in the Bible, and especially in the Torah, are there for the sake of telling tales, God forbid. Instead, it was the divine intention to couch all the secrets of the Law in the form of stories for the reason explained in that first introduction. Praise God, blessed be He, Jews, being children of a good father and sharing a good root, are great friends of our holy Law and eager to hear new things from it, because the sanctity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is upon them. And thus every hour and every minute, they want to know when the rest of the Bible [Me’am Lo’ez] will be printed. Some wish to learn better the precepts of Judaism, while others want to know about the miracles God performed for our fathers. And you will see that with God’s help, we will print an infinite number of books.

The reason we have not yet published the rest of the Bible [Me’am Lo’ez] is a lack of money. Our initial intention was to print Numbers after Leviticus, using the money made from its sales. But Leviticus was a financial failure. We lost a lot of money and many copies of the book, some of which, for our sins, perished because of fires, and others because of patrons who purchased a few installments² at first but then changed their minds and returned them. Those who returned their installments looking as if they had just been purchased did not cause much damage. But some brought back their installments ruined by rats, while others claimed they had lost theirs and wanted replacements. As a result, there were a great number of incomplete books that could not be sold and were sent to the genizah. But now—praise God, blessed be He—He inspired the hearts of some good people whose names will be listed in the introduction to this volume when it appears, with God’s help. They made donations to support this endeavor, may God bless them. Since it involves great expense due to the high cost of printing, it is essential that everyone contribute a little each week for the two or three installments that will be printed and distributed weekly.

This is why I ask everyone, rich and poor, men and women, to make an effort and save two or three paras³ from household expenses to pay for those installments each week. You must know that patrons participate in the mitzvah of publishing these books because without their weekly payments, this press would cease to print.

I also ask those who start buying these installments to continue doing so until the whole book is printed and to pay for them each week and not postpone till the following one, because it is difficult to pay five or six paras in one week, and because this way, the printer’s expenses will be covered weekly. Do not think that buying these installments is a small mitzvah, for one does more than just read, gain knowledge of the world, learn the precepts of Judaism, and thus save one’s soul from the pains of gehenom. In addition, one gets another great advantage: as a result of paying two or three paras per week, this person is marked as someone who “does virtue for many” [Pirke avot 5:21] during his whole life and after his death, since it counts as if he finished printing this book. When someone reads it, or learns about a precept of Judaism from it, or performs a mitzvah of which he did not know before, it is considered that this person who supported the printing participated in this mitzvah, because the Mishnah says: “If one does virtue for many, the virtue of many depends upon him” [Pirke avot 5:21]. This means that if one performs mitzvot for others, their mitzvot depend upon him, that is, count as if he performed them himself.

[ . . . ] In this world, everyone must strive to read what one is able to understand, the least of which is the weekly portion from Me’am Lo’ez, because reading it means reading all kinds of lessons, namely, the biblical verse, its interpretation, the Talmud, the halakhah, and the agadot,⁴ because these are all compressed in this book. If in the other world you are asked whether you have read this or that lesson, you will be able to say that you have read all of them, because, as was already said, this book contains everything. Those who read and do everything as was explained here will receive the blessings of the Law. “He who listens to us will dwell in safety, untroubled by the terror of misfortune” [Proverbs 1:33]. Amen, may it be so.