Volume 43 Number 63
Produced: Fri Jul 23 5:30:45 EDT 2004
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Aishes Chayel still needs Sleep
[Ilana Goldstein Saks]
Bashing Feminism Clarification
[Yisrael Medad]
Corrections
[Martin Stern]
Gegangen
[Carl Singer]
Initial consonant clusters
[Goldfinger, Andy]
Kedeisha
[Michael Poppers]
Nitl and Steimel
[Robert Schoenfeld]
Partial Pesukim
[Martin Stern]
Pinhas
[Shalom Carmy]
Roshei vs Rashei (4)
[David E Cohen, Jack Gross, David Feiler, Orrin Tilevitz]
Teaching about Pinchas
[<chips@...>]
Visual Arts/Nudes
[Roger Jefferson]
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From: Ilana Goldstein Saks <lonnie@...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 13:55:11 +0200
Subject: re: Aishes Chayel still needs Sleep
From: <FriedmanJ@...> (Jeanette Friedman Sieradski)
> Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 10:46:55 EDT
> My wife, a working mother to my two small children, often assures
> me that she somehow lives without sleep. However, this may be one
> of those apocryphal "tales of the tzaddikim" discussed recently
> on-list.
>
> Listen, if your wife goes without sleep, she is eventually going to
> crash and crash big time. Sleep deprivation is a major cause of anger,
> rage, and brings on all the symptoms of post traumatic stress, which
> often leads to divorce. I know, for many years we owned a bakery and got
> zero sleep. Life was unadulterated hell and no one functioned properly
> for years.
>
> so make sure your wife gets some sleep before she turns into the wicked
> witch of the west, no matter what she says.....
Thanks for your concern. They usually tuck me in before I pull out the
green face-makeup ;-)
Yours truly,
Wicked "aishes chayil" Witch
p.s. re-read the original post - I think it's supposed to be funny, But
I could be wrong....
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From: Yisrael Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 22:11:11 +0200
Subject: Bashing Feminism Clarification
As for Leah S. Gordon 's posting Volume 43 Number 58 Jul 22, I think
something went wrong "in the translation", so to write, and if it is my
fault, please excuse my lack of clarity. Perhaps my phrasing was not as
successful as it should have been.
As regards the selection quoted -
> ...and feminist issues can be ipso facto "pasul"
My intentions were just the opposite of Leah's conclusion.
I was carrying the position of the opponents to Yael (and to what is
defined as "feminism") to its extreme when I wrote what was quoted. It
was *their* view, that of the less-than-pro-feminists, that I was
criticizing by pointing out that they - not me - consider that feminist
issues can be ipso facto "pasul" and I was actually criticizing that
position. And, in fact, I later praised Yael's article in HaTzofeh (no
URL yet. seems their web site is not yet caught up to itself).
Since Leah herself wrote: "I ignored the previous bits of this thread",
maybe that was the problem.
Yisrael Medad
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:34:40 +0100
Subject: Corrections
on 22/7/04 in Vol. 43 #60, I wrote:
> There is a principle that one should not change the traditional
> formulation of berachot. "matbeiach shetav'u chachamim"
Since I tend to be somewhat pedantic, I must admit that, in it, I made a
silly 'misprint'. The word 'matbeiach' should have read 'matbei'a' which
is obviously from the same root as the word 'shetav'u', which I did
write correctly. I really must be more careful with my typing, but I
must admit I tend to write postings rather quickly and should check them
more carefully. I apologise for this sloppiness.
On the other hand, I deliberately changed the word from 'kenatul' to
'kenital' as a pun, when I wrote:
> Perhaps one could apply the dictum "Kol hayeter kenital dami", literally
> "any supernumerary [organ in an animal] is considered as if [that organ]
> were missing [making the animal treifah]", as a warning to us not to
> celebrate new festivals in addition to those in our traditional
> calendar.
Martin Stern
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From: Carl Singer <casinger@...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 07:21:56 -0400
Subject: Gegangen
> >gegangen, i think, means "walked about". there's another root for to be
> >dressed.
> It is idiomatic: "gegangen" used in this way means the way they dressed.
Yes -- consider the many ways in English that you might say the same or
similar thing:
He put on a red hat -- air ut ungutun a royteh hittel
He went with a red hat -- air ut GEGANGEN mit a roytel hittel
He wore a red hat -- air ut getrugen a royteh hittel
He carried a red hat -- air ut getrugen a rotteh hittel (same)
In Harkavy's (Yiddish-English) dictionary --
If you look up "wear" the first Yiddish equivalent listed is "trugen."
If you look up "carry" the first Yiddish equivalent listed is (also)
"trugen."
Carl A. Singer
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From: Goldfinger, Andy <Andy.Goldfinger@...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:51:15 -0400
Subject: Re: Initial consonant clusters
Perets Mett comments:
> Polish loves clusters of two three or four consonants at the beginning of
> a word.
Many people may be unaware of the, but the United States has announced a
new foreign aid program. Studies have shown that the Slavic countries
suffer from an acute shortage of vowels. The US has offered to provide
them with vowels, since it has an over supply in Hawaii.
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From: <MPoppers@...> (Michael Poppers)
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 22:43:38 -0400
Subject: Re: Kedeisha
In M-J V43#60, CHalevi replied to NLamm:
> > "Kedeisha" (or a masculine equivalent) implies a prostitute used for
> > religious purposes. Note that when Yehuda first sees Tamar, he
> > thinks she's a "zonah," but when describing her to his messenger, he
> > calls her a "kedeisha,"...as if she wasn't a "common" prostitute.
> Nachum is correct that a k'daysha is a temple prostitute. People gave
> money to the idolatrous priests and got the services of the "sacred
> prostitute".
Perhaps "Nachum is correct," perhaps not, but p'shat in Ex 38
(especially see verses 14-16, 19-21, and 24) doesn't appear to prove the
point. Was there a temple "b'fesach ainayim"/ "bo'ainayim al hadorech"?
Why would a temple prostitute try to avoid identification if she wasn't
(quoting Nachum) a "common" prostitute? And shouldn't her "fee" be
going to the temple, not to her? And wouldn't she be guilty of AZ, not
just z'nus, once her pregnancy became visible? For the root behind
"k'dayshah" and why it's used to refer to certain zonos, see RaShY on
verse 21. Last but not least, Chirah called her a "k'dayshah" --
Y'hudah never used that word in the narrative. In sum, I don't see any
evidence from the story of Y'huda and Tamar that "k'dayshah" means a
"temple prostitute" rather than a "prostitute," someone who dedicates
time to behavior which breaks down moral barriers in society (a/k/a/
p'ritzus...and isn't the naming of one of the twins interesting [perhaps
on a level other than the p'shat of verse 29] when you consider what his
mother did once in order to "get together" with his father). The word
may have been placed into Chira's mouth because he thought Y'huda was
serviced by a "dedicated" woman -- we, hearing and/or reading the
narrative in retrospect, know that Tamar was in no manner "dedicated" to
z'nus.
All the best from
-- Michael Poppers via RIM pager
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From: Robert Schoenfeld <frank_james@...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 21:09:34 -0400
Subject: Nitl and Steimel
The word nitl comes from the latin natal or birth Goyim simply use Xmas
as sorthand for Christmas
In the past in Eastern Europe (Poland) Jews would dress similar to the
poretz (nobleman) because he dealt with him on a daily basis usually as
the person who ran his estates or the tailor who made his clothes
Bob
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 21:59:32 +0100
Subject: Re: Partial Pesukim
on 22/7/04 11:21 am, Shmuel Himelstein <himels@...> wrote:
> A classic example of the use (albeit in abbreviated form) of a partial
> Pasuk is BILU, the name of a pre-World War I Chalutzic group intent on
> moving to Eretz Yisrael.
>
> The name BILU stood for the first letters of the Pasuk "Beit Yaakov
> Lechu Veneilecha" ("House of Jacob, come and let us go"), which dropped
> off the last two words of the Pasuk: "Be'or Hashem" - "In the Light of
> Hashem".
Unlike the "Let my people go", on which I mentioned that the omission of
"to serve Me" raised a suspicion of anti-religious feelings which
incurred the wrath of Steven White in 43#56, there is little doubt that
the BILU movement made their omission quite deliberately and for
ideological reasons.
Martin Stern
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From: <carmy@...> (Shalom Carmy)
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 16:44:15 -0400
Subject: Pinhas
> I think the first problem we have here is explaining Pinchas to adults.
> If you can succeed in that, then you might be able to explain it to a
> child. How are we to understand the fact that a previously unknown (to
> us) zealot named Pinchas takes the law into his own hands, commits
> double murder without due process of law, and Gd rewards him for this
> very generously. Rashi, from a passage in Sanhedrin, suggests that
> Pinchas reminds Moshe of a halacha which allows zealotry in certain
> circumstances which Moshe seems to have forgotten!
See Netziv on verse "et briti shalom." He recognizes that to act the
zealot is to play with fire.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: David E Cohen <ddcohen@...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 10:06:08 -0400
Subject: Roshei vs Rashei
Martin Stern wrote:
> I am sorry to be pedantic but Sholom has made a serious mistake
> in his transliteration of the Hebrew word for "Heads of" which
> should be "Roshei" with a short kamats not "Rashei" with a long
> one. In this case the kamats is a shortening of the cholam found
> in the base word "Rosh".
I forwarded this to Uri Cohen, a friend with whom I have discussed this
in the past, who is not a mail-jewish subscriber. I am posting his
reply on his behalf.
The grammatical rule for kamatz katan is as follows:
It appears in CLOSED, UNACCENTED syllables.
Hebrew has 2 kinds of syllables: OPEN and CLOSED.
OPEN=consonant + vowel
CLOSED=consonant + vowel + consonant.
The word is RA-Shei. 2 syllables. Reish + kamatz. That's it. the ALeph
has no vowel, and is therefore silent and doesn't count. Shin + tzerei +
vowel yod. 2 syllables, the first one is OPEN. Therefore it CANNOT be
kamatz katan.
The other word is chodsheiKHEM. 3 syllables: chet + kamatz + dalet
(closed). shin + tzerei + vowel yod (open). chaf + segol + mem (closed).
The first syllable of the second word (CHOD) is closed and unaccented.
THAT is a kamatz katan.
The first syllable of the first word (RA) is OPEN. that is NOT kamatz katan.
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From: Jack Gross <ibijbgross2@...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 20:56:54 -0400
Subject: Re: Roshei vs Rashei
No. Were the kamatz of Rashei short, the Shin would be meduggeshes.
It's Rashei Chodashim, not Roshshei.
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From: David Feiler <dfeiler@...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 23:29:55 -0400
Subject: Roshei vs Rashei
As a regular Baal Keriah in havarah Sefaradit I lein Revi'i on Rosh
Chodesh as "Uvrashei Chodsheichem" and have occasionally been challenged
by one of the mitpallelim in the same way as Martin is indicating.
However, I have always been guided by two authoritative sources that
distinguish between the kamatz katan and kamatz rachav and both use the
kamatz rachav in this passuk (i.e. Uvrashei). These sources are the
Siddur Rinat Yisrael (weekday leining at the back) and two separate
editions of the new Tikkun Korim Simanim. So maybe the issue is not
quite as clear-cut as Martin indicates. Is there some rule that allows
the cholam to be converted to a kamatz rachav when in the smichut form?
The fact that Rashei with an aleph sounds like rashei without an aleph
(destitute as in kivsat harash) does not, in of itself, imply that we
need to use a kamatz katan. After all every language has homonyms.
Hope somebody can shed some light on this
David Feiler
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From: Orrin Tilevitz <tilevitzo@...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 08:17:03 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Roshei vs Rashei
This is an error of overcorrection. It's counterintuitive, but "Rashei"
is correct. The general rule is that a kamatz becomes a kamatz kattan
(what Mr. Stern calls a "short kamatz") in an unaccented, closed
syllable. Normally, the accented syllable is the one with the trop.
Some examples are "vayakom", not "vayakam" (the second syllable is
closed because there's nothing after it) and "Mordechai" (or
"Mordochai"), not "Mardechai" (the first syllable is closed because the
reish has an unpronounced sh'va). The aleph in "rashei" causes the first
syllable to be closed.
The Siddur Rinat Yisrael and a blue-covered tikun lakor'im published a
few years ago (I forget its name) both indicate a kamatz kattan by
lengthening the vertical line, and both have a kamatz kattan under the
reish in this word.
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From: <chips@...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 17:54:29 -0700
Subject: Re: Teaching about Pinchas
> >Does anyone have any good solutions to offer here? I suppose one end
> >of the spectrum would be not to teach the story at all in case you
> >get into this kind of discussion, but that does not sound very
> >appealing.
>
> Why not just tell the kids that Pinchas and Cozbi were worshipping
> idols?
umm, Because that would be wrong ?
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From: Roger Jefferson <rogerjefferson1975@...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 12:58:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Visual Arts/Nudes
though it is a correct point that he does not say viewing immodestly
clad woman, nor do I avocate seeing them either. HOwever, the reason
that I brought the Rambam was to demonstrate the point that if one has a
different purpose in the viewing, for art class, which was the original
question, in that context it may be permitted
Roger
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End of Volume 43 Issue 63
