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The Third Commandment treats the matter of mistreating God’s name quite bluntly:

Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not acquit one who takes His name in vain.

Rashi follows the translation of Onkelos in suggesting that the repeated “taking in vain” is once an injunction against those who swear by the Name falsely, and once against those who swear needlessly.

Judaism abounds in traditions of protecting the sanctity of Divine Names in writing, and avoiding them in speech except when necessary. In fact, (להבדיל) the Rabbinic manner of protecting the divine name has taken on characteristics commonly found in linguistic taboo associated with swearing (the other type), euphemism, or political correctness. (more…)

Another upcoming wedding, another song. Erev shel shoshanim is a classic. Unfortunately, the first few results for translations of its lyrics are far too literal and hardly able to be sung to its beautiful tune.

The original song also approximately rhymes the 2nd and 4th line of each of its three stanzas, which none of those translations do. So here is my go at a singable translation of Erev Shel Shoshanim:

I just came back from the first in a series of close friends’ weddings. All in all it was beautiful and a lot of fun. As the bride entered, I and another three (including her grandmother) sang (two verses of) a setting of a 17th century poem, based on the Song of Songs, which I also had the opportunity to translate.

Having never tried to translate poetry before, it was an exciting challenge. Some poems require a literal translation; others need to have the right sense but also the rhythm and rhyme. In this case, I chose the latter.

With the help of others, especially Simon Holloway, this is what we came up with:

Chishki Chizki (חשקי חזקי) by Isaac Aboab da Fonseca (1605-1693)

Genesis reports Abraham being involved in a few very intense dialogues, and it is interesting to notice some of the phrases he introduces his speech with. In chapter 15, his address to God is “My lord, Hashem”. When bargaining with God over the lives of the people of Sodom (chapter 18), he is more elaborate:

• Here I venture to speak to my Lord, I who am but dust and ashes… (הנה-נא הואלתי לדבר אל אדני ואנכי עפר ואפר)
• Let not my Lord be angry if I go on… (אל-נא יחר לאדני ואדברה)
• And again: Here I venture to speak to my Lord… (הנה-נא הואלתי לדבר אל אדני)
• Let not my Lord be angry if I speak even this last time… (אל-נא יחר לאדני ואדברה אף-הפעם)

Appropriate language to speak with God? Maybe, but when it comes to negotiations with men, the relationship is more equal. Abraham discusses the purchase of a burial site for his late Sarah in chapter 23, and from both parties involved, the speech introduction is usually “my lord, hear me” (אדני שמעני) or “hear me, my lord” (שמעני אדני) or “no, my lord, hear me” (לא אדני שמעני) or “but if you will hear me” (אך אם אתה לו שמעני). Listening skills are in high demand, but…
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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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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 – v^etēʿārēv

in Artscroll

וְתֶעֱרַב – v^eteʿĕrav

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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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?

There was some strange Runic-looking graffiti along the southern entrance to Efrat that I saw a number of times on the way to the Trampiada before finally identifying it. I eventually recognised the rightmost symbol of the large text as being the Hebrew letter yod (י) in an ancient Hebrew script (כתב עברי). The script we use today is a variant of the Assyrian script (כתב אשורי; or “square script”) adapted from that borrowed from Imperial Aramaic around the Babylonian Exile.

After recognising the first letter, I realised that I could identify (with confirmation online) that this large text was actually the Tetragrammaton, in Judaism the ineffable and most sacred name of God, albeit that its letters were highly stylised. Altogether, we have the phrase “יראת ה’“, “fear of God”.

Now because, for those who can read it, the graffiti includes the Name of God, does this mean it cannot be erased as would usually be the case with this four-letter name? (more…)

In the parasha read this past shabbat, Parashat Pinchas, I noted a sentence fragment that is grammatically troublesome (Num. 26:55):

אַךְ־בְּגוֹרָל יֵחָלֵק אֶת־הָאָרֶץ; לִשְׁמוֹת מַטּוֹת־אֲבֹתָם יִנְחָלוּ׃

I can only translate it approximately while retaining some of the problematic detail:

Moreover, by lot will be divided (ACC) the land; according to the names of the tribes of their fathers will they inherit.

The first stark problem here is that יֵחָלֵק (will be divided) is a passive (נפעל) form, and so should not take a direct object as is marked by the אֶת (ACC) particle. In the present case, the verb seems to take “the land” as exactly this direct object it shouldn’t have. Semantically, one should expect “the land” to be the subject of the passive verb, and not to be marked as an object.

Moreover, it cannot be the subject either, because “the land” is a feminine noun, and the verb requires a masculine subject. I should say that there are a few cases where אֶרֶץ clearly is masculine in the bible (Gen. 13:6; Isa. 9:18 for instance), but this is far from the general rule for what is a fairly common word. (more…)

Part of proper Purim partying is the preparation and packaging (as presents) of triangular pocket pastries of poppy seeds or other pleasant puréed produce (jams; marmalades; honey and walnuts). You take a circle of cookie dough, drop a dollop of something sweet in the centre and fold in three sides to make this popular Purim delicacy. There are plenty of recipes available if you need more detail (but mum’s are the best).

As the Yiddish name “Hamentaschen” (hamentashen, hamantaschen, hamantashen, homentaschen, homentashen, hamentash, hamantasch, etc…) suggests, these are an exclusive tradition of European Ashkenazi Jewry, and yet they have been borrowed into Israeli (and thus international Jewish) culture as “אוזני המן” (Oznei Haman, “Haman’s ears”). It might seem predictable enough for something named after the infamous Book of Esther character Haman to become part of the Purim tradition, but it’s not quite so simple… (more…)