“Search the Torah carefully, and do not rely on my opinion.”
Traditional wording
חפישו באורייתא שפיר ואל תשענו על דעתי
Modern Hebrew
חפשו היטב בתורה ואל תישענו על דעתי
This well-known saying is traditionally attributed to Anan ben David, an eighth-century Jewish religious leader whose followers became known as Ananites. Anan is sometimes described as the founder of Karaite Judaism, although the historical picture is considerably more complicated. His movement was one of several non-Rabbanite Jewish currents that contributed to the emergence of Karaism in the following centuries.
The saying is especially interesting linguistically because it is not entirely Hebrew. The first clause is Aramaic, while the second is Hebrew:
חפישו באורייתא שפיר — Aramaic
ואל תשענו על דעתי — Hebrew
Brief Glossary and Parsing Notes
חפישו
An Aramaic plural imperative: “search,” “investigate,” or “examine.”
באורייתא
Aramaic: “in the Torah.” The word אורייתא (oraita) corresponds to Hebrew תורה.
שפיר
An Aramaic adverb meaning “well,” “properly,” or “carefully.”
Thus:
חפישו באורייתא שפיר
“Search the Torah carefully.”
The second clause is Hebrew.
ואל
Hebrew וְ, “and,” followed by אַל, the negative particle commonly used to express a prohibition:
“and do not.”
תשענו
From the Hebrew root שען, “to lean upon.” Here, with אַל, the sense is:
“do not lean upon” or “do not rely upon.”
על
“Upon” or “on.”
דעתי
דעת with the first-person singular suffix:
“my knowledge,” “my judgment,” or, more naturally in this context, “my opinion.”
Thus:
ואל תשענו על דעתי
“And do not rely on my opinion.”
Who Said It?
The saying is traditionally attributed to Anan ben David, but some caution is necessary. It is better to describe it as attributed to Anan than as a securely documented quotation from Anan himself.
An important witness appears in the tenth-century Karaite biblical commentator Yefet (Japheth) ben Eli, who cites the saying in Anan’s name in his commentary on Zechariah 5:8.
There is a further textual complication. The familiar saying consists of two clauses:
חפישו באורייתא שפיר
ואל תשענו על דעתי
But the manuscript history raises questions about whether both clauses belonged to the earliest form of the saying. The second clause—
ואל תשענו על דעתי
“And do not rely on my opinion”
—is absent from the oldest manuscript witness to Yefet’s commentary and may represent a later expansion.
The first clause therefore has the stronger claim to antiquity:
חפישו באורייתא שפיר
“Search the Torah carefully.”
Whether the complete formulation goes back to Anan himself or developed within later Karaite tradition, the saying came to express an important principle of Karaite engagement with Scripture: the biblical text is to be investigated carefully rather than merely received through the interpretation of an authority.
There is something striking about the traditional expanded form. The authority to whom the saying is attributed is made to tell his students not to rest on his own authority.
Ad Fontes
There is an obvious reason this saying appeals to me in connection with Ad Fontes.
The old humanist expression ad fontes means “to the sources” or “to the fountains.” Whatever the precise origin of this saying, חפישו באורייתא שפיר expresses something essential to the idea behind this site: go back to the sources, examine them carefully, and do not allow someone else’s conclusions—even those of a respected teacher—to take the place of reading and investigation.
That does not mean dispensing with teachers, traditions, lexicons, grammars, commentaries, or scholarship. Quite the opposite. Such resources are valuable precisely when they help us read the sources more carefully.
A good lexicon should send us back to the Hebrew or Aramaic text. A good commentary should make us examine the passage again. A good teacher should help us see what we might otherwise have missed.
The goal is not to eliminate secondary sources but to keep them in their proper place: they should lead us toward the sources rather than become substitutes for them.
That is the kind of study I hope Ad Fontes will encourage.
חפישו באורייתא שפיר
Search the Torah carefully.
Sources and Further Reading
Daniel J. Lasker, “Biblical Exegesis as a Source of Jewish Pluralism: The Case of the Karaites,” TheTorah.com.
Daniel Frank, Search Scripture Well: Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the Jewish Bible Commentary in the Islamic East.
Haggai Ben-Shammai et al., “Karaites,” Encyclopaedia Judaica.
Yefet ben Eli, Commentary on Zechariah 5:8, for the attribution of the saying to Anan ben David.
