Shabbat Gathering: Who was Onkelos and why should we care?

Brian D. Johnson

12 Dec 2025 • 4 min read

Gud Shabbos Khaveyrim, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. These are the coordinates:

Zoom
Meeting ID: 883 8469 4181
Password: 822665
Phone: +1 312 626 6799

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Here we go.
I share a “problem” with a dear friend: We can’t stop buying and reading books about Torah. We sometimes tell each other we should slow down our acquisitions but it's impossible for me to tell someone, even a dear friend, that they should slow down studying Torah. Recently, my own discipline wavered and I bought a brand new Chumash that was published just this year. A Chumash is a book that has the weekly Torah portions, the HafTorah, and commentary from all sorts of sources, especially Talmud. And there are many different types of Chumashim. This new Chumash I just bought has been put together from the work of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, who served as the chief rabbi of England. I’ve been a R.Sacks fanboy for many years. Forever, he offered clear and interesting drashes on the weekly portion and more, so buying this new Chumash was inevitable.

For this Chumash, R.Sacks translated the Torah and drew from a lifetime of his commentary. This Chumash includes Rashi’s commentary and the commentary of Onkelos. Confession: I didn’t know anything at all about Onkelos. I’ve heard that name before and have read some of his thoughts in the commentary of other Chumashim I have, but never ever took the trouble to learn how Onkelos earned such an exalted position. I decided that I needed to close that gap. It was high time to find out. So I did, and this is what I learned.

Onkelos: The convert.

Onkelos was a Roman (35-120 ce) and a convert to Judaism. It isn’t entirely clear if he was the nephew or brother of the emperor Titus. In Talmud, it says Onkelos was the nephew of Hadrian, another emperor. So the takeaway is that he was very high up in Roman hierarchy who, by converting, committed a major transgression. Just to place all this on the Jewish timeline, Titus was responsible for the destruction of the second Temple. Onkelos translated Torah from Hebrew to Aramaic and wrote commentary. He also might have translated the Torah to Greek. This is unclear too.

I don't know.

As Onkelos lived so very long ago, we don’t know all that much about him. I'm going to make the time to learn more about him and what he wrote.

And may it be for all of us a blessing.

See you tonight!
Mit vareme grusn,
(With warm regards,)

All my love,
brian.