In Nisim B’chol Yom, one of the prayers praises Adonai who מתיר אסורים. This is mostly commonly translated as “frees the captive”.
Recently someone in my synagogue’s Religious Practices committee has been arguing that this is a poor translation and it should instead be translated as “permits the forbidden”. On the one hand, I can see how אסורים is obviously related to assur (forbidden). On the other hand, what could it possibly mean that Hashem permits the forbidden? Hashem forbids some things, and permits other things, but I’m struggling to think of an example of Hashem “permitting the forbidden” or even what that could logically mean.
I don’t have a whole lot of Hebrew, so I asked my Hebrew teacher and she said she agrees that “frees the captive” is an odd translation, but wasn’t sure what a better one would be. She suggested that אסורים could be translated as “exiles” but thinks it’s ambiguous.
Finally, I checked Pealim and found that they translate אסורים as ‘forbidden, prohibited’. They translate מתיר as “to loosen, to untie; to solve (a problem); to remove, to settle (doubt, argument); to allow, to permit”.
Does anyone have any insight on why we traditionally read this prayer as “frees the captive”? Or use an alternate translation/interpretation?
submitted by /u/priuspheasant
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Source: Reditt
