Faithful Delivery, Not Improvement
- WireNews
- 18 hours ago
- 3 min read
by Ram ben Ze'ev
The Talmud teaches with remarkable restraint. It does not thunder or dramatise; it places a mirror before the reader and waits. In Menachot 30a–b, that mirror is held up through a simple parable: a messenger entrusted with a sealed letter from a king decides to improve it. His intention may even be kind. Yet the recipient returns the letter unopened, recognising immediately that this is not the king’s voice.
The lesson is devastating in its clarity. Loyalty is not creativity. Faithfulness is not refinement. A messenger does not speak for the king; he carries the king’s words intact.
This parable does not belong to the ancient world alone. It speaks directly to our generation, and particularly to those who touch Torah, prayer, Tehillim, and the Holy Zohar. It warns against a danger that often disguises itself as scholarship, accessibility, or sensitivity: the urge to soften, adapt, translate culturally, or “improve” what was never ours to adjust.
Throughout my recent teachings and writings, and in the careful construction of the Hebrew Synagogue book collection, one guiding principle has become unavoidable. Foreign terms do not merely decorate Jewish texts; they reshape them. Borrowed language brings borrowed assumptions. Borrowed expressions import foreign theology, foreign metaphysics, and foreign hierarchies of meaning. Over time, the king’s voice becomes unrecognisable.
This is not a matter of aesthetics or preference. It is a matter of integrity. The Torah does not require help to survive. Tehillim does not need emotional enhancement. The Holy Zohar does not require philosophical scaffolding from outside systems. When we add, we do not elevate; we overwrite.
The messenger in the parable believed he was helping. That is precisely the warning. Most distortions do not come from hostility but from confidence. The moment a transmitter believes he understands the message better than its source, he ceases to be a messenger at all.
This is why our work is not innovative but restorative. Removing foreign terms is not an act of exclusion; it is an act of humility. It is the recognition that our task is delivery, not authorship. The king’s words carry their own authority, cadence, and power. When they are left untouched, they speak. When they are altered, even gently, they fall silent.
The recipient in the parable does not open the letter. That detail matters. Alteration is not something to be debated or analysed; it is detected instantly by those attuned to the king’s voice. Once the seal is broken by human intervention, the message has already failed.
Our generation has inherited layers of rewriting. Some changes were linguistic, others ideological, others well-intentioned attempts to make eternal texts acceptable to passing cultures. Each layer moved the message slightly further from its source. The result is confusion, dilution, and a growing sense that something essential has been lost.
The task before us is therefore not bold but disciplined. It requires restraint, not flair. It requires the courage to say: this is not ours to improve. Our responsibility is to remove what does not belong, to restore clarity, and to pass the letter on sealed.
When the king’s voice is preserved, it does not need explanation. It recognises its own recipients. And those who receive it know, immediately and without doubt, that it is authentic.
That is the difference between a messenger and an editor. And that is a line we must never step over.
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Bill White (Ram ben Ze'ev) is CEO of WireNews Limited, Mayside Partners Limited, MEADHANAN Agency, Kestrel Assets Limited, SpudsToGo Limited and Executive Director of Hebrew Synagogue
