Various transliteration conventions (or a lack thereof) and dialectal differences make it very difficult at times to gather all possible variations for transcribing Hebrew words into English characters. This can make using search engines to find Hebrew terms in English sources very difficult, or could make it hard for a piece of software to identify what someone is referring to when they enter a string of text. For example, biblical book names each have a number of ways of being written, and my BibRef solves this by simply storing a list of alternative names and abbreviations.
Another way of identifying an entered string with one of many options is with regular expressions. As such, I have attempted below to devise regular expressions to match all expected spellings for each tractate (masechet, masekhet, maseches, meseches, etc.) of the Mishnah. Please note that this is only a draft: I expect to improve the regular expressions, and feedback is much appreciated.
Using this as a background study, it may be possible to automate the building of regular expressions for Hebrew words (with vowels given), although many of the expressions below also cover a number of irregularities that would be hard to incorporate into such a builder. Consequently, one could also build a list of all possible alternative spellings for a word, which could then be used with a search engine to make searches of these Hebrew words comprehensive. (Edit: the current expressions below overgenerate way too much and would probably be inappropriate for that task.)
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So Sarah sees Ishmael playing.
Rashi says:
this means worshipping idols
or it means performing forbidden sexual acts
or it means murder
Ibn Ezra says:
this is something children do
To redigest some stuff that’s been going around the blogosphere for years…
We all know the story of Lot’s wife who turned back during the destruction of Sodom and became a pillar of salt. Chazal even institute a beracha for when we see this pillar.
Nonetheless as I understand, some rishonim — Rabenu Hananel (990-1053), Hizkuni (13th century), Ralbag (1288-1344) — read the verse differently:
וַתַּבֵּט אִשְׁתּוֹ מֵאַחֲרָיו, וַתְּהִי נְצִיב מֶלַח.
They read “and it [the plain] was a pillar of salt” rather than “she became a pillar of salt”, working off the ambiguity of the third-person feminine subject. And a verse in Deuteronomy might agree in suggesting that sulfur and salt overturned Sodom.
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And priorities misaligned with “Torah”. [ click | click | click ]
Sad.
And it’s nowhere to be seen on Arutz Sheva.
Apart from beautiful poetic structure of Genesis 9:6 (”שֹׁפֵךְ דַּם הָאָדָם, בָּאָדָם דָּמוֹ יִשָּׁפֵךְ”, “the spiller of man’s blood, his blood by man will be spilled”), it seems to support quite radical capital punishment, or surely avengance at the hand of man. Most modern societies would not support such a simple policy; even early translations and interpretations do not take it literally; but Rabbinic Judaism tends to quite the opposite, possibly to a fault.
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I’ve finally found a good opportunity to write on this topic. Orthodox Jews too often fail to care about the environment and the world. Maybe this is because they associate environmentalism with the “left” and the “liberal”, or because it is too difficult to keep both torah and environment, or because it’s not torah, and therefore bittul torah, or they just assume that God will fix everything for them. But these are usually excuses for simple apathy, or laziness.
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On festivals, before Kohanim bless the congregation, Ashkenazim insert an alternative nusach for the “avodah” beracha of the amida prayer:
ותערב לפניך עתירתנו כעולה וכקרבן. אנא, רחום, ברחמיך הרבים השב שכינתך לציון עירך, וסדר העבודה לירושלים. ותחזינה עינינו בשובך לציון ברחמים, ושם נעבדך ביראה כימי עולם וכשנים קדמוניות. ברוך אתה ה’ שאותך לבדך ביראה נעבוד.
May our petition be pleasing before you as a sacrificial offering. Please, the Merciful, in your great mercy, return your presence to Zion your city, and the temple service to Jerusalem. And may our eyes see your return to Zion with mercy, and there we shall serve you in awe as in ancient times and earlier years. Blessed be you, Lord, for you alone will we serve in awe.
As well as being a beautiful prayer and, it seems, having an interesting history, I was alerted a few days ago to a variation in the vowels of the first word. We find:
- וְתֵעָרֵב – vetēʿārēv
- in Artscroll
- וְתֶעֱרַב – veteʿĕrav
- in “Adler”, “Birnbaum”, Hebrew Publishing Co. 1928, Koren, Meforash, Routledge, Shilo, “Singer”
The meaning is apparrently unaffected by the change of vowels. I have become used to the Artscroll version, and yet I prefer the alternative, and not just because it is much more popular. Rather, here’s why…
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Praying for the sick is deeply instinctive. Divine petition is closely tied to hoping for and requesting the recovery of the sick. And yet, when emails are forwarded with names of the ill, and occasionally a description of their affliction, and we are expected to add them into our prayers, I usually delete the email. Heartless? Perhaps. (more…)
I’ve been reading the Laws of Tefillin in the Mishna Berura, particularly its descriptions of the laws for scribes. It gives incessant detail for what makes a particular letter valid and what doesn’t. And then it prescribes that in cases of doubt, one should ask a “תינוק שאינו לא חכם ולא טיפש” (Shulchan Aruch Orach Chayim 32:16), a child that is neither clever nor stupid, to attempt to identify the letter.
In modern Hebrew, a תינוק is a baby (and etymologically is implied, deriving from ינק, to suckle). But in order to read, it obviously needs to be older than that. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (24:5) writes that such a child is one “שאין מבין את העניין, אבל יודע ומבין את האותיות”—he doesn’t understand the issue, but knows and understands the letters. Similarly, the Mishna Berura (32:49) explains that such a child-decisor is too clever if he understands the issues of when letters need to be fixed, but not too clever if he knows the letters well and can’t read the words. On the other hand, one too stupid cannot read the letters; all-in-all one who can read the letters, even if not proficient or expert in them, may judge in such a case (32:50).
So here comes the issue. Most children nowadays are not taught scribal letters first-off. Most would be taught the alphabets of modern printed Hebrews: either what we find in our siddurim, or in Modern Israeli printed texts. And these are all significantly different from the prescribed scribal art. Even I, for instance, might initially read a valid but thin scribal ך (final kaf) as a ן (final nun), because although the nun of the scribe is very different to their kaf, I am more familiar with a printed nun.
How is a child raised on one script meant to identify letters in another?
Is there a halakhic solution to this problem?