Volume 48 Number 75
Produced: Thu Jun 30 6:08:33 EDT 2005
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Enterprising
[Carl A. Singer]
gimel/jimel (3)
[Joshua Hosseinof, Mark Steiner, Ira L. Jacobson]
Lo Tachmod (Don't Covet)
[Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz]
Meaning of Ayin-Pay-Lamed
[Michael Poppers]
Skirts (3)
[Robert Israel, Mike Gerver, Richard Schultz]
Yiddish etymology
[Bernard Raab]
Yitgadal-yitgadell
[Eitan Fiorino]
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From: Carl A. Singer <casinger@...>
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 06:43:22 -0400
Subject: Enterprising
This appeared in a local Jerusalem eMail group:
> A kollel fellow will learn the entire Shas Mishnayos (Six Orders of Oral
> Law) for the Yahrtzeit (Memorial) of a dear departed relative or friend.
> Or if you know of someone who has Shloshim coming but cannot complete
> Shas Mishnayos in time, we will try to get it done!
> Has also been helpful for other Yeshuos!
> Limud Gemorah or Kaddish also available.
> Fees acording to amount of work, and time factors.
Certainly people have a right to attempt to earn money in many different
ways. Several organizations, perhaps catering to people with no living
progeny offer "perpetual kaddish" for a fee or endowment.
Re: learning, I've attend several shiva homes where a sign-up list has
been present so friends of the ovel can combine to learn and make a
siyum at shloshim. I believe THIS is a great idea.
Carl Singer
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From: Joshua Hosseinof <JHosseinof@...>
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:02:39 -0400
Subject: gimel/jimel
Ira Jacobson wrote:
> "Those who distinguish between gimel degusha and gimel refuya pronounce
> the former as jimel."
I would have to disagree with you there, as one who does distinguish
between gimel degusha and gimel rafeh, I can say that the pronunication
is not at all like jimel. Gimel degusha is pronounced the way we are
all familiar with. Gimel rafeh is pronounced halfway between a gimel
and a resh . The yemenites are unique in that they do things in the
reverse - gimel rafeh they pronounce the way we are all familiar with,
and gimel degushah they pronounce as jimel. I have heard Tunisians as
well as many Eidot Hamizrach who do distinguish between gimel with a
dagesh and without and none of them pronounce it as jimel.
Besides the reasons that Mark Steiner gave in his earlier responses, I
would also add that changing gimel to jimel is also incorrect because it
changes the categorization of the letter from a "cheich" letter to a
"shinayim" letter. The five types of letters are:
Garon (throat) - Alef, 'Het, Heh, 'Ayin
Cheich (palate) - Gimel, Yud, Khaf, Quf
Sefatayim (lips) - Bet, Vav, Mem, Peh
Lashon (tongue) - Dalet, Tet, Lamed, Nun, Tav
Shinayim (teeth) - Zayin, Samech, Shin (Sin), Resh, Tzadi
(The sources for this classification include the Zohar Parashat Pinchas
228a, as well as Otzar Midrashim (Eisenstein) p 238 "Perek Sheni", and
Sefer Yetzirah 2:3).
Try all the BGDKFT letters with your mouth and you will see - with a
dagesh and without a dagesh they are all pronounced from the same part
of the mouth. (I know you're going to tell me Tav/Sav changes category
- it does not because it's really Tav/Thav with the th sound as in the
word "thin"). In case you're wondering about Dalet rafeh, my
understanding is that it's pronounced like th in the word "then", though
I have not met anyone who makes this distinction when they read hebrew.
For what it's worth, see also the wikipedia
http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%92
If you would like to hear a sample of some pesukim with the gimel rafeh,
please go to
http://www.hoss.net/audio/gimel.mp3
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From: Mark Steiner <marksa@...>
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 20:50:34 +0300
Subject: RE: gimel/jimel
> In case you're wondering about Dalet rafeh, my understanding is that it's
> pronounced like th in the word "then", though I have not met anyone who
> makes this distinction when they read hebrew.
I hope to meet you some time--I read the daleth as thaleth when I read
the word "ehod" in the shma, because only in that way can you elongate
the daleth according to Hazal...
Mark Steiner
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From: Ira L. Jacobson <laser@...>
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:44:01 +0300
Subject: RE: gimel/jimel
I had stated:
Those who distinguish between gimel degusha and gimel refuya
pronounce the former as jimel.
As Joshua Hosseinof correctly pointed out, this should have been stated
as "Some of those who distinguish between gimel degusha and gimel refuya
pronounce the former as jimel."
Indeed, as I added:
On the other hand, many Sefardim who do not pronounce the
gimel degusha as jimel do pronounce the gimel refuya
gutturally. Most Ashkenazim do not pronounce the gimel
refuya that way.
I do not claim that an entire `eda mispronounces any sound--not
Teimanim, not Hassidim, and not Americanim.
IRA L. JACOBSON
mailto:<laser@...>
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From: Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz <sabba.hillel@...>
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 07:49:31 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Lo Tachmod (Don't Covet)
I have seen shiurim in which the point is raised that indeed it is a
matter of what the desire has you do (or want) that matters, as in the
example of a car. If it makes you want to go and earn the money so that
you can afford a car just like it, then it is not coveting. On the
other hand, if it makes you want to take what the neighbor has away from
him, then it is coveting.
I have seen this given as the difference between capitalism and
communism. Capitalism is like the first case. Communism is when a
person wants to ensure that his neighbor is forced to have a car as bad
(at most) as the one that the coveter has.
I have also seen that this is the reason that "jealousy of a talmid
chacham is allowed. Such a feeling would cause one to work and study
and raise himself to the level of the talmid chacham. On the other
hand, jealousy of physical objects can tend to cause one to want to
force the other person down to a lower level.
Consider the story of the Butcher and the Brisker Rav. THe butcher had
no problem when a very expensive animal was ruled nonkosher. But he got
very upset when he lost a minor court case (for much less money). It is
not the loss that matters but the other person gaining that grates.
Hillel (Sabba) Markowitz | Said the fox to the fish, "Join me ashore"
<Sabba.Hillel@...> | The fish are the Jews, Torah is our water
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: <MPoppers@...> (Michael Poppers)
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:19:56 -0400
Subject: RE: Meaning of Ayin-Pay-Lamed
In M-J V48#69, RJHendel writes:
> Note that the sister root Aleph-Pay-Lamed means thick darkness. <
Rabbi M Clark's "Etymological Dictionary" concurs that Ayin-Pay-Lamed
and Aleph-Pay-Lamed are related, but (based on RSRH's commentary) he
sees the relationship as one of "restraining." Re Ayin-Pay-Lamed,
"vaya'pilu" tells us that bnai Yisrael were obstinate (one could say
that they restrained any tendency to listen to/heed hQbH and/or Moshe);
the fortress restrains/discourages entry; and the painful hemorrhoid
likewise restrains/discourages movement. Re Aleph-Pay-Lamed, the
darkness of "afailah" restrains light (and, one might add, discourages
movement -- cf. makkas choshech, the 9th of the 10 Makkos), and "afilos
hainah" can be explained as saying that those crops (chittah and
kusemes, usually translated as wheat and spelt) ripened late due to, and
accordingly were restrained by, darkness (i.e. they're not as influenced
by sunlight as crops which ripen earlier).
All the best from
Michael Poppers
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From: Robert Israel <israel@...>
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:48:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Skirts
<DTnLA@...> (Dov Teichman) wrote:
> FYI the word skirt "skurtia" is found in the Mishna in Keilim 16:4 and
> Ohalos 8:1,3. Many commentators describe it as a leather, apron-like
> garment. Maybe this is a Greek word that somehow made its way from/to
> the Old Norse skyrta.
The Oxford English Dictionary traces "skirt", "shirt" and also "short" to
Old Teutonic adjective "*skurto-". Beyond this point there's a
disagreement:
-------------------
The Teut. adj. is commonly regarded as a popular L. *excurtus (f. L. ex-
+ curtus). On this view it would be parallel in origin with the synonymous
OFris., OS. kurt, Du. kort, OHG. (MHG., mod.G.) kurz, a WGer. adoption of
L. curtus. The Rom. langs., however, afford no evidence of a popular Latin
*excurtus, and it is unlikely that such a form existed. It is possible
that Teut. *skurto- may be an altered adoption of L. curtus, with prefixed
s either due to some Teut. analogy or attracted from the ending of a
preceding word in some Latin context. Some scholars, however, regard
*skurto- as a native Teut. word, f. a root *skert- (supposed to be
evidenced in MHG. scherze, scherzel small piece): pre-Teut. *skerd-, an
extension of *sker- to cut (see SHEAR v.).]
-------------------
No mention of Greek. I looked in the Liddell-Scott-Jones Lexicon
<http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/lexindex> and did find a classical
Greek root "skirt" (skirtao^, skirte^ma, etc), but it means to leap. So
there doesn't seem to be a connection here, unless the Mishnaic word
comes from the Latin curtus.
Robert Israel <israel@...>
Department of Mathematics http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel
University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada
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From: <MJGerver@...> (Mike Gerver)
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 16:56:18 EDT
Subject: Skirts
Dov Teichman writes, in v48n70,
FYI the word skirt "skurtia" is found in the Mishna in Keilim 16:4
and Ohalos 8:1,3. Many commentators describe it as a leather,
apron-like garment. Maybe this is a Greek word that somehow made
its way from/to the Old Norse skyrta.
According to Jastrow, "skurtia" comes from the Latin word "scortea,"
which Smith's Smaller Latin-English Dictionary lists as short for
"vestis scortea," meaning a leather garment (with "vestis" meaning
"garment," and "scortea" being an adjective meaning "made of
leather"). The adjective in turn comes from the noun "scortium" meaning
"skin or hide." Both Latin "scortium," and Norse "skyrta" (the source of
"skirt," which, like "shirt," originally meant a short garment) come
from the Indo-European root "sqer-" meaning "cut." So the two words are
indeed related, but in a rather round-about way, and it is somewhat
coincidental that Mishnaic Hebrew "skurtia" and Norse "skyrta" are so
close in sound and meaning.
Mike Gerver
Raanana, Israel
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From: Richard Schultz <schultr@...>
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:54:49 +0300
Subject: Re: Skirts
In mail-jewish 48:70, Dov Teichman writes:
: FYI the word skirt "skurtia" is found in the Mishna in Keilim 16:4 and
: Ohalos 8:1,3. Many commentators describe it as a leather, apron-like
: garment. Maybe this is a Greek word that somehow made its way from/to
: the Old Norse skyrta.
Not quite -- "scortea" is a Latin word meaning "leather (or hide)
garment." While "scortea," "shirt," and "skirt" all ultimately derive
from the same Indo-European root (sker) (along with a variety of words
including "carnivorous," "shears," and "shrub"), "scortea" is not
directly related to "shirt" and "skirt." In fact, "excoriate" (which
literally means "to remove the hide from") is more closely related to
"scortea" than "skirt" is.
Richard Schultz
<schultr@...>
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From: Bernard Raab <beraab@...>
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:36:10 -0400
Subject: Yiddish etymology
>From: N Miller
>Bernard Raab writes:
> >Or it was a neologism invented at the time to describe a species of
> >Zionist which no longer exists, and so neither does the word in its
> >original meaning...
>It's becoming evident that the whole recent shemozzle (a British term
>that illustrates neatly how language can take unexpected turns) over
>shtadlan is due to the notion that it's a modern term, that it has
>something to do with Zionism, and that somewhere somehow the modern
>German word 'staat' is involved. In Yiddish this sort of conceit is
>known as an aynredenish.
Thanks to Noyekh Miller, I am now aware that the word "shtadlan" has a
far longer and more distinguished history than the early 20th century
Zionist pleaders, and was in fact used to describe a semi-official
emissary of the Jewish community to the local or regional governments of
medieval Poland. Which makes it all the more likely to be based on the
Yiddish word for State, which is "Shtat", which is almost certainly
derived from the German "Staat".
Still think this is an "aynredinish"?
b'shalom--Bernie R.
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From: Eitan Fiorino <AFiorino@...>
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 07:47:24 -0400
Subject: Yitgadal-yitgadell
From: Mark Symons <msymons@...>
> I seem to recall hearing/reading (I can't remember where) that, although
> it sounds like it, the Aramaic grammatical form yitkadash is not the
> equivalent of the Hebrew hitpa'el (reflexive) form yitkadesh (which much
> of the discussion so far on MJ has seemed to imply/assume) - but is
> rather the equivalent of the Hebrew nif'al (passive) form YIKKADESH
> (paralleling the phrase in Leviticus v'nikdashti b'toch b'nei yisrael -
> I will be sanctified amongst the children of Israel) - I think the
> Aramaic form is called something like nitpaa'l. So that saying yitkadash
> or yitkadesh would give a subtle change of meaning - ie yitkadash
> (Aramaic) would mean may He be sanctified (by others), whereas yitkadesh
> (Hebrew) would mean may He sanctify himself (whatever that difference
> really means!)
Yes, this is discussed in The Scholar's Hagada by Guggenheim (a truly
fantastiic piece of scholarship that will enhance almost anyone's
seder). He claims that those who say "yitgadel veyitkadesh shme raba"
are actually making the preposterous and theologically problematic
statement "may His great name magnify and sancify itself" rather than
what is intended, "may His great name be made great and sanctified."
-Eitan
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End of Volume 48 Issue 75
