Volume 40 Number 01
Produced: Fri Jul 4 14:11:53 US/Eastern 2003
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Abra cadabra
[Stephen Phillips]
Abracadabra
[Bernie Hirsch]
Basilica (3)
[Martin D. Stern, Elaine G Robison, N Miller]
Basilica - King's Palace
[Bill Bernstein]
Beracha on dessert (2)
[Gil Student, Stephen Phillips]
Big Mitzvah (2)
[Ari Trachtenberg, Alan Friedenberg]
Exercise on Shabbos
[Carl Singer]
Lights and security systems on shabbat
[Bernard Raab]
Where do words come from
[Barak Greenfield]
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From: Stephen Phillips <stephenp@...>
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2003 11:52 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Re: Abra cadabra
> From: Yeshaya Halevi <halevi@...>
> Has anybody pointed out the possibly Hebrew origin of the
> English phrase "abra cadabra?"
> Those who say the phrase is Hebrew in origin say it stems from a
> kabalistic term, meaning "I have created as I have spoken."
I recall a passage in Pesachim p112a and checked it out. It reads:
Our Rabbis taught: A man should not drink water from rivers or pools at
night, and if he drinks, his blood is on his own head, because of the
danger. What is the danger? The danger of blindness. But if he is
thirsty, what is his remedy? If a man is with him he should say to him,
'So-and-so the son of So-and-so, I am thirsty for water.' But if not,
let him say to himself, 'O So-and-so, my mother told me, "Beware of
shabrire" : Shabrire, berire, rire, ire re, I am thirsty for water in a
white glass.'
The note in my Soncino translation says that the "Shabrire, etc." is:
"An incantation against the demon of blindness resembling an Abracadabra
amulet, in which each succeeding line is reduced by one letter."
There is a similar passage in Avodah Zarah p12b and the comment in
Soncino is:
"So Kohut, who calls attention to the resemblance of this incantation
against the demon of blindness to the amulet bearing the inscription
Abracadabra reduced by one letter on each succeeding line till the last
letter only remains, and used by Romans as an antidote to the influence
of evil spirits."
Stephen Phillips.
<stephenp@...>
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From: Bernie Hirsch <bernie06@...>
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2003 05:12:10 -0500
Subject: Abracadabra
In "The Word", Mozeson guesses it may be from either the Hebrew phrase
"Habrakha Dibra" ("the formula [blessing] is uttered") or from the
Aramaic "Abra K'Divra" ("I will create as has been spoken").
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From: <MDSternM7@...> (Martin D. Stern)
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2003 10:54:09 EDT
Subject: Re: Basilica
A final jeapardy answer recently dealt with Greek term for a church
(don't recall exact wording) The question was (what is) Basilica It
seems that Bais Elo-kha is close enough for guessing purposes.
Basilica comes from the Greek word Basileus meaning King and is a
royal (i.e. official) building.
Martin D. Stern
7, Hanover Gardens, Salford M7 4FQ, England
( +44 (0) 161-740-2745
email <mdsternm7@...>
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From: Elaine G Robison <cpaths@...>
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2003 18:41:05 -0400
Subject: Re: Basilica
"Basileus" is the Greek word for king & is the origin of the name
"Basil."
A basilica was in Roman times a type of public building & later came to
mean a church built on the model of the Roman basilica.
http://smac.ucsd.edu/cgi-bin/http_webster?basilica
--Elaine Robison
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From: N Miller <nmiller@...>
Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2003 18:18:01 -0400
Subject: Re: Basilica
Carl Singer's derivation of what he says is the Greek word for church is
most interesting. There are only two small objections.
First, it is not the Greek word for a church buiding: it is Latin. It
comes from Greek basilike from basilikos, royal, from basileus, king.
Second, for the word to derive from 'Bais Elo-kha' it would also have
been necessary for the Greeks or the Romans to have pronounced their
Hebrew in the manner of the Ashkenazim who came along many centuries
later. Since that is highly unlikely and since in any event the first
'a' in the word was (and is) pronounced like 'ah', one can only conclude
that Carl Singer was having fun. Which, in these parlous times, ain't
to be sneezed at.
Noyekh Miller
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From: Bill Bernstein <bbernst@...>
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2003 09:11:53 -0500
Subject: Basilica - King's Palace
Now that really seems like a folk etymology, similar to copacetic from
kol b'seder! I would take basilica to come from Basileus, king, in
Greek. A basilica is thus his palace, not an uncommon metaphor.
KT, BBN, TN
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From: Gil Student <gil_student@...>
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2003 10:43:55 -0400
Subject: Re: Beracha on dessert
>why should one be required to recite a seperate bracha over a cake
>dessert when he recited a bracha on hamotze
Because ha-motzi only covers food that is eaten as part of the meal.
Dessert is not part of the meal and therefore requires a separate
berachah. See Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 177.
Gil Student
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From: Stephen Phillips <stephenp@...>
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2003 11:52 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Re: Beracha on dessert
> From: <Danmim@...>
> question; why should one be required to recite a seperate bracha over a
> cake dessert when he recited a bracha on hamotze.
Is it nor because the Hamotzi only exempts brachot on the main part of
the meal, whereas the dessert is subsidiary only?
Stephen Phillips.
<stephenp@...>
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From: Ari Trachtenberg <trachten@...>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 11:51:27 -0400
Subject: Re: Big Mitzvah
Bernard Raab wrote:
>I think he was onto something in his suggestion, but I think this pair
>is a better fit to the idea of "easy and hard" than to "major and
>minor", and here is where I depart from the usual explanation: I suggest
>that honor of father and mother is "easy" in the sense that it is
>natural and universal, whereas the concept of shooing away a mother bird
>in order to take the eggs or chicks is most unnatural and unique. It may
>seem "easy" but have you done it yet? I strongly suspect that many
>tzadikim live their entire lives without ever performing this mitzvah.
Is the mitzva to go around looking for mother birds to shoo, or rather
if you are in the situation where you want the eggs, first shoo the
bird. My feeling is that the mitzva is based on the situation, not the
person, so that looking around for mother birds to shoo might (?) even
be an avera of tsa'ar ba'alei chayim (causing sorrow to animals).
Philosophically, I would like to extend this to other mitzvot (coercing
others to put on tfillin, daven, etc.) ... but I know of no halachic
basis.
Best,
Ari Trachtenberg, Boston University
http://people.bu.edu/trachten mailto:<trachten@...>
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From: Alan Friedenberg <elshpen@...>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 05:18:09 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Big Mitzvah
Irwin Weiss wrote:
"I think he was onto something in his suggestion, but I think this pair
is a better fit to the idea of "easy and hard" than to "major and
minor", and here is where I depart from the usual explanation: I suggest
that honor of father and mother is "easy" in the sense that it is
natural and universal, whereas the concept of shooing away a mother bird
in order to take the eggs or chicks is most unnatural and unique. It may
seem "easy" but have you done it yet? I strongly suspect that many
tzadikim live their entire lives without ever performing this mitzvah.
Which would you say is the "bigger" mitzvah; the easy or the hard?"
I heard a hashkafa shiur at YU about 23 years ago (I believe it was
given by a Rabbi Weiss, but I can't be sure). He pointed out that the
Torah singles out the reward for these two mitzvos becuase they are the
easiest (shooing away a mother bird is fairly effortless) and the
hardest (properly honoring parents requires patience, time, and money,
among other things) mitzvos to do. Thus, this shows that all the other
mitzvos in the Torah are equal, because there is no reward given.
Alan Friedenberg
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From: Carl Singer <csngr@...>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 08:03:32 -0400
Subject: Exercise on Shabbos
> It seems to me that bicycle riding is certainly in the realm of exercise.
An interesting tangent to original question -- but so is walking 5+
miles on Shabbos while going to 4 different shules to attend that many
(simcha) kiddishes.
I believe original poster wanted bicycle because it was easier and less
strenouous way to get to shule.
Carl Singer
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From: Bernard Raab <beraab@...>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 17:55:09 -0400
Subject: Re: Lights and security systems on shabbat
From: Stan Tenen <meru1@...>
>And of course, all electronic and digital timers are absolutely
>>un-adjustable, because every adjustment makes a minor spark.
It seems most Rabbis today rule against changing the settings on an
electronic or digital timer on shabbat, but not because of sparking, as
there is no sparking in these low-voltage solid-state devices. The
objection appears to involve both changes in circuit configuration, and
more significant, changes in the readout display.
>And if there is a power outage, unlike the plugged-in units which can
>include capacitors that hold a charge and make a spark, you can pull
>them completely out of the socket if necessary without making a spark.
This in fact is not assured as the clocks are 120 v and are always
drawing current.
B'shalom--BR
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From: Barak Greenfield <DocBJG@...>
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2003 18:24:18 -0400
Subject: RE: Where do words come from
Stan Tenen <meru1@...> writes:
> Regardless of the merits of current linguistic hypotheses -- the
> Indo-European language theories and several alternatives -- none of
> these is appropriate to Torah Hebrew, and in fact they are all
> antithetical to Torah Hebrew, Torah tradition, and halacha.
In what sense?
> Here is what Isaac Mozeson has to say in the Introduction to his English
> root-dictionary based on Hebrew roots, called "The WORD", about the
> development of modern linguistics:
>
> >"The new linguists never bothered to scientifically disprove the
> >time-honored belief in the primacy of Hebrew
On what was that belief based, that they needed to disprove it?
> >[various objections to modern linguistic theory]
> >Who would research Hebrew as the
> >root language when even the Ph.D's in Semitics hung Hebrew out on a limb
> >called West Semitic? Nobody uncovered a clay tablet of
> Proto-Semitic, but
> >surely, the argument went, Hebrew evolved from older more cumbersome
> >languages. [. . .]
But the same error is made by Mozeeson: where is the evidence that other
languages evolved from Hebrew?
> So, whether or not ordinary linguistic theories apply to ordinary
> languages, they don't apply to Hebrew.
No, if they are erroneous, then they apply to no language. If they are
correct, there is no reason they should not apply to Hebrew.
> Even more problematic is the fact that these ordinary linguistic
> theories are the main foundation of the anti-Torah Documentary
> Hypothesis, and School of Higher Criticism, neither of which would
> make sense if Hebrew were not an ordinary language.
Anti-Torah ideologies should be refuted in their own right, not by
rejecting otherwise valid ideas that can incidentally be used in their
defense. The fact that a theory can be misused does not invalidate the
theory, merely the misuse. Without opening up a whole other can of
worms, this is similar to the statement that the Big Bang and the
evolution of Man must be wrong become they MAY be used to deny God's
existence.
> Torah Hebrew roots are sentences, formed by the word-name meanings of
> each of their letters. This is not true of any other language. (Remnants
> of this permeate all of the languages derived from and related to Torah
> Hebrew.)
> [...]
> For example, "Pil" for "elephant" literally means "Mouth-Hand-Learning"
> (Pe-Yud-Lamed). [etc.]
That's very cute, but evidence appears lacking. Surely any letter
meanings can be demonstrated to somehow relate to the meaning of the
word they comprise. For example, one could postulate that the noun "gal"
(wave) is related to gimmel (meaning "action", as we are later informed)
and lamed (learning), so a wave is somehow related to the action of
learning. Or that pilpel (pepper; pe-lamed-pe-lamed) means
mouth-learning-mouth-learning. Or that pigul (taint, abomination;
pe-gimel-vav-lamed) derives from mouth-action-"to do"-learning. In
short, one can "demonstrate" how all words are related to the putative
meanings of their letters, but this fun game hardly convinces one that
this is how the language was derived.
> As Mozeson and others have pointed out, theories that letters carry
> individual meaning were prevalent in the mid-1800's, and roundly refuted
> and rejected throughout academia because no credible examples could be
> provided.
Possibly they were refuted because anyone can come up with cutesy
examples, but that doesn't mean that that's how the language
developed. For example:
> "O", of course, is short for the vowel-sound represented by our letter
> Vav. Vav means "to do".
>
> "Kay", of course, is Kaf, and Kaf means "to hold" (what the palm of a
> hand does). "Okay" means "to agree with," because it means "[I] do-hold"
> on to or with something, as in "who holds by this". The "y" at the end
> of "okay" is the possessive Yud meaning "I" or "my". Okay? <smile>
Surely no one would suggest that this is how the English language
developed. Or would one?
Barak
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End of Volume 40 Issue 1
