Blog
6
Jan
Very commonly people refer to Shabbat as a “Queen” and the famous song “Lekha Dodi” uses the female imagery under the word “Bride”. However, the word “Queen” is probably a mistake, and is based on a mishearing when words sound the same. We also find in our case an attempt to reconcile two different parts of the Talmudic text which are the origins of this word formulation.
21
Dec
Ezra chapter one presents to the reader a text in which Cyrus, king of Persia, gave the Jews of his kingdom the right to return to Jerusalem, and revive the worship of the God of Israel and the city:
“Thus said, Cyrus king of Persia – for all the kingdoms of the earth, has given me the YHWH God of heaven; and He commanded me to to build for Him a house in Jerusalem which is in Judea”.
This statement raised with scholars a number of questions:
6
Dec
It is very cold at the moment here in Israel, and I was thinking of a small anecdote for today:
The word for cold in Hebrew is קר-Qar. What is interesting is that another word for cold in Biblical Hebrew is קרח-Qerach (ice) as Ya’akov states:
4
Nov
For the past couple of months I have been friends with several vegetarians/vegans and have learnt a lot from them. Some of these friends are also Torah practicing Jews who insist that the Torah/Judaism preaches their ideals. This obviously developed into a discussion due to the fact that there is no such thing as this at all.
8
Sep
A very long time ago I saw a post about the word ברכה Berakha–Blessing–which made me wonder about the origins of the word. The post claimed that because the root ברך is the same for bless and knee, that the words are related. The logic was that because people presumably blessed God while they were on their knees, that the association was created between the speech and the kneeling. Hence blessing was a knee-associated act.
Though the idea is interesting, I have very serious doubts about this.
17
Aug
Unfortunately, people write very long posts on subjects which are more of a dictionary entry when written by an expert. This is the case for this subject, which has been presented in a very obscure and incorrect way by quasi-Hebrew scholars. I am not going to speak about anyone in particular, but I do want to set the record straight about one specific word.
27
Jul
Yoqne’am is a less known Tel (artificial mound) which sits just outside of the modern Yoqne’am of today near the eastern slope of Mount Carmel in the land of the tribe of Zevulun. The city can be dated to the Early bronze age, and is mentioned in Egyptian writings under the name ‘aqne’am. The city sat next to the ancient “Way of the sea” (now road 70) which was one of the main roads which connected the east and the west.
2
Jul
The debate is up regarding Leviticus 18 and the context it is in. Due to the request of many for me to speak on this matter, I will be dealing with material that some might find offensive. However, we need to remember that we are dealing with an aspect of life, and nothing which is said here is outside of this scope.
23
Jun
I will admit that this post is a response to a post I saw about a Hebrew word. It is very common for people who are not experts in the field to offer their idea on a subject, but in many cases they lack the tools to explain things correctly. I keep on seeing this in my field, and I do my best to correct the problem.
A very difficult word in Hebrew is the word אישון- Ishon; Pupil. Due to the fact that Hebrew uses roots we assume that what we have in front of us is the root, or at least most of it. The problem here is that the root of this specific word is not clear, and many tend to take it to a root of another word assuming they are linked. It is very common for speakers to do analogies which lead to the creation of new words, but in this case I am not sure it is true.
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