Quoting these words in agreement, Justice Y. Cohen added:
"A great rule in the law of contract interpretation is that it is the duty of the court to interpret the contract in a manner that reflects the intention of the parties, and although the examination of intention must be approached on the assumption that the parties intended what they wrote in the contract, more than once the courts give an interpretation of contracts that is inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of the words used by the parties" (Civil Appeal 46/74 [10], at p. 481).
Similar statements were repeated by the judges of this Court after the enactment of the Contracts (General Part) Law (see, for example, Civil Appeal 603/79 [21], at p. 737). We know the words of Justice Turkel, who wrote:
"It seems that the rulings of the courts in recent years point more and more to the same trend, to permit the morality of the written words and to arrive at the investigation of the true intention, which was before the eyes of the callers" (Civil Appeal 453/80 [9], supra, at p. 145).
In a similar vein, my colleague, Justice D. Levin, wrote:
"As far as possible, it is appropriate to interpret the document from within it according to what is said in it and according to its writing, language and spirit. However, there is no sanctity in the word as it is, and if it is necessary to take into account all the circumstances that surrounded the making of the contract in order to understand its purpose, it is permissible and proper to consider these as well, and thus to arrive at the intentions of the parties when entering into the agreement..." (Civil Appeal 655/82 A. Gruber et al. v. D. Farbshat Yin et al. [36], at p. 743).
See also Civil Appeal 627/84 [11], at p. 482.
President Shamgar also insisted on this central rule of contract interpretation. In one of the passages, he writes: "... Indeed, it is a rule that the intention of the parties is learned, first and foremost, from the language of the contract, but in the words of Professor G. Shalev, Law of Contracts (Law 5700) 311: 'In a conflict between the language of the contract and the intention of those who make it, the last hand has the upper hand. The proper exegetical tendency is 'to untangle the morals of the written words and to arrive at the study of the true intention.' Therefore, there may be cases in which