shiur and shaar

In the previous post, I mentioned how achuz אחוז means "percent", while shiur שיעור means "percentage". However, you might be more familiar with another meaning of shiyur (also pronounced in Yiddish, via reduction, as shi'er or shir) - "lesson, class". This leads to a cute joke my son told me:

למה פאה וביכורים משחקים בחצר? כי אין להם שיעור
Why were Peah and Bikkurim playing outside during school?
Because they don't have a shiur...
(based on Peah 1:1, where shiur means "fixed measure")

The meaning "measure" came first, and only in medieval Hebrew did shiur come to mean lesson - "a set measure of learning" (that sense is preserved in shiurei bayit שיעורי בית - "homework"), followed by the modern Hebrew sense of "class". The word shiur derives from the root שער meaning, "to calculate, to estimate, to measure". The verb form only appears once in Tanach, in Mishlei 23:7. The noun form also only appears once, but for me in a surprising location, Bereshit 26:12

וַיִּזְרַע יִצְחָק בָּאָרֶץ הַהִוא, וַיִּמְצָא בַּשָּׁנָה הַהִוא מֵאָה שְׁעָרִים
Yitzchak sowed in that land and in that same year found meah she'arim

Meah shearim is a sign of blessing, and gave its name to one of the oldest neighborhoods in Jerusalem outside of the Old City. I had always thought that she'arim here meant gates (from sha'ar שער - "gate") and the meaning was poetic - "100 gates." But nearly every translation and commentary I've found said the phrase means "hundredfold" - literally "one hundred measures" - or "one hundred estimates". (Tur Sinai in his commentary Peshuto Shel Mikra, follows the Septuagint, and understands Onkelos in the same vein, and says that the word actually was se'orim שעורים - "barley". However, the footnote in Ben Yehuda's dictionary - which I believe were generally written by Tur Sinai - rejects this approach).

Is there a connection between שער - "measure" and shaar - "gate"? Horowitz (page 107) says no - that this one of those cases where "shin is a twin letter". He points out that while in Aramaic shaar meaning "price" (deriving from the root meaning "measure") is spelled with a shin, the Aramaic cognate for shaar meaning "gate" is תרעא - spelled with a tav.

Klein mentions this theory, but then mentions an alternate one:

However, Zimmern sees in the Aramaic words like Jewish Palestinian Aramaic שערא (=market price), etc., Hebraisms, and derives שער from שער, so that the original meaning of שער would be 'the price established at the towngate', the place where the markets were usually held, whence the meanings 'market place', 'price', 'value', 'measure' would have developed gradually.

I don't know where Zimmern wrote this (I don't actually know who Zimmern was, but I'm guessing it was probably the Orientalist Heinrich Zimmern, 1862-1931). I imagine that one possible source for this theory was the usage in Melachim II, 7:1

כָּעֵת מָחָר סְאָה-סֹלֶת בְּשֶׁקֶל וְסָאתַיִם שְׂעֹרִים בְּשֶׁקֶל--בְּשַׁעַר שֹׁמְרוֹן
This time tomorrow, a seah of choice flour shall sell for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate (shaar) of Shomron

Here we see price and gate being used together. 

While in most cases it's clear whether shaar means "gate" or "price", I did find one set of phrases which are confusing:

• הבקיע שער - to score a goal (shaar, "gate" can mean "goal", in soccer)
• הפקיע את השער  - to profiteer, raise the price

I imagine that in the recent World Cup games, both of those phrases were appropriate...

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teomim

We've discussed ach and achot - brother and sister. Now lets look at a word for a subset of siblings - twins. The Hebrew word for twins, teomim תאומים - appears four times in the Tanach: twice in Bereshit (25:24, 38:27) and twice in Shir HaShirim (4:5, 7:4). The singular form - תאום teom - never appears. According to Ben-Yehuda, it never appears in the singular in Talmudic Hebrew either - but that's much harder for me to confirm, since I don't have a complete concordance of Talmudic Hebrew as I do for Biblical Hebrew. Jastrow does mention the singular feminine form - teuma תאומה - but not the singular masculine teom. Ben-Yehuda also notes that it isn't clear from the Biblical usage whether the word only meant two children born at the same time, or if it would be used for triplets or quadruplets as well.


The parallel verbal root תאם finds its way into a number of verbs:

• תאם - to be duplicate, to be similar, to resemble, to correspond
  
• תיאם - to coordinate, so tium תיאום is coordination
  
• התאים - to suit, fit, match. According to some, the Biblical use (Shir HaShirim 4:2, 6:6) meant "to give birth to twins". Jastrow writes that in Talmudic Hebrew "to be twin-like, joined, adjoining." Klein adds that in Medieval Hebrew, this form of the verb was causative, and meant "he fitted, suited, conformed, adapted". In Modern Hebrew it took on the passive form, and began to mean "was fit, was suited, was adapted". The expression matim li מתאים לי means "it suits me" or, better, "it works for me".

One English word is related to the Hebrew word teom: the name Thomas. The Online Etymology Dictionary shows how the name came from the cognate Syriac תאמא:

from Gk. Thomas, of Aramaic origin and said to mean "a twin" (John's gospel refers to Thomas as ho legomenos didymos "called the twin;" cf. Syriac toma "twin," Arabic tau'am "twin"). Before the Conquest, found only as the name of a priest. After 1066, one of the most common given names.

Horowitz (p 284) adds that:

Tom like Jack is used to indicate the male of the species. Thus we have "tom Turkey" or "tom cat", the male and tougher variety of those interesting animals. A "tomboy" is a girl who acts like a boy.

(It should be noted that there are other explanations for "tomboy" - there are those that connect it to the word "tumble", because the girl dances - tumbles - around like a boy.)

Interestingly, a popular name for boys in Israel is Tom תום (pronounced "tome"). I'm guessing that Israelis like it because it has only one syllable (very common in secular Israeli first names) but also because it sounds more like an English name. I wonder how many of them know that this word too has Hebrew origins...

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hachi

The Hebrew preposition ki כי has many meanings. Resh Lakish in Gittin 90a (and other locations) says it has four meanings:

ריש לקיש כי משמש בד' לשונות אי דלמא אלא דהא

These can be translated as "if" (according to Soncino, "or" according to Steinsaltz), "perhaps", "but, rather", and "because". However, there are other possible meanings as well. For further discussion, see (the very long) Rashi here, as well as Tosfot.

What I want to focus on today is ki as an "intensifier or asseverative" as discussed in this article by Prof. James Kugel.

This sense appears with the prefix ha as hachi הכי once in last week's parasha (Toldot) and once in this week's (Vayetze). In Bereshit 27:36, Esav says וַיֹּאמֶר הֲכִי קָרָא שְׁמוֹ יַעֲקֹב .

According to Rashi , hachi is an incredulous question - "Is he not rightly called Yaakov?". However, Ibn Ezra here says that hachi means "truly" - "He is truly called Yaakov". Radak says it is the "ha" that gives it the sense of "truly".

We see a similar discussion on Bereshit 29:15. Lavan says: הֲכִי-אָחִי אַתָּה, וַעֲבַדְתַּנִי חִנָּם

Based on his commentary here, Rashi would translate the verse as "Is it because you are my brother that you should work for me without charge?", for hachi is, according to him, interrogative. But other commentaries (Radak, Rabbeinu Bachye based on Onkelos) say that hachi shouldn't be viewed as a question, but as an affirmation: "Since you are my brother, why should you serve me for nothing?"

Both interpretations still connect ki, or particularly hachi, to the sense of a superlative - either as "Are you truly?" or "You are truly".

Today in Hebrew, hachi means "most" - as in הכי טוב hachi tov - "the best". Even Shoshan claims it belongs to Modern Hebrew, and it is considered to be less formal than another word meaning "most" - ביותר - b'yoter. However, from what I can tell, the use of hachi precedes that of b'yoter.

We find in Shmuel II 23:19 the phrase מִן-הַשְּׁלֹשָׁה הֲכִי נִכְבָּד . Based on our previous understanding of hachi, we can translate it as "He was truly honorable among the three". But most translations have it as "He was the most honorable of the three" - and the meaning really doesn't change with the adjustment in translation.

While I was able to see the early uses of b'yoter (it seems to be first seen in the Gemara, but not the Mishna), I couldn't really do a similar search for hachi - since it is a very commonly used word in Aramaic. Hachi (or hachei according to Klein) in Aramaic means "so, thus" and according to Jastrow and Klein is a combination of the Aramaic ha הא - this and ki. It is used in such Talmudic phrases as blav hachi בלאו הכי - "without that, in any case", and "in hachi nami" אין הכי נמי - "yes that is the case" (used when conceding a point).

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bracha

Last week we discussed the concept of nisayon, and I mentioned that I have a problem where the verb נסה would have one meaning from God to man, and an entirely different one from man to God.

Well, another verb that has that same issue, and has interested me for many years is ברך - the root of the word ברכה bracha - blessing. In this weeks parasha, we find God blessing man (Bereshit 24:1, 25:11), man blessing God ( 24:48), and man blessing man (24:60). God is also described as ברוך baruch (24:27).

There are those that describe bracha from God to man, or man to man as bestowing something on the recipient, but bracha from man to God is considered "thanks" (JPS on Devarim 8:10) or "praise" (Chizkuni on Bereshit 24:27, Abarbanel on Bereshit 27).

However, there are a large number of sources that do not take this approach, and rather say that when man blesses God, there is something "given". (See for example, Sefer HaIkkarim 26, Rabbeinu Bachye's intoduction to Zot HaBracha, Teshuvot Rashba 23, HaEmek Dvar Shmot 18:10, Harchev Dvar Bereshit 24:27). Perhaps the best description is by Rav Hirsch on Bereshit 9:58, discussing the word baruch:

The understanding of this term has been confused because people have objected to take this word "to bless" referring from man to God, in the same meaning as it has when used from God to man. It has been taken to be adjectival like חנון, רחום, so that, like these, it designates the active source, the holder of blessing as of pity and grace. But that does not get us much further, we are constantly called upon לברך את השם ... If the man is active is blessing God, then God must be blessed in a passive sense, He must be receiving blessing from man, one can not get away from it. And why should one have to try and get away from it? At the moment that God made the fulfillment of His Will on earth dependent on the free decision of Man He said to them ברכני , bless me...The whole Torah teaches us nothing else than how we can מברך את השם and that we are to do so. To take it to mean praise or thank God, by which one has lost the true conception of ברך את השם ...

Two other words that some scholars connect to the root ברך are berech ברך - knee, and breicha בריכה - pond, pool. Steinberg says bracha is related to berech, since bowing at the knee is part of prayer. Stahl connects breicha to berech by writing that animals kneel down to drink at the pool, as do people washing clothes.

And for those that missed it, we've previously discussed how perhaps the English word "broker" and the phrase "break a leg" derive from bracha...

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tzchok

We find the root צחק - "to laugh" a number of times in the story of Yitzchak (which isn't surprising, considering it is the source of his name.) The verb appears in both the kal form - צחק tzachak and the piel form - ציחק tzichek. Just as laughter itself can be interpreted many different ways (are you laughing at me or with me?) - so to does the verb have different connotations: joy (Bereshit 17:17, 21:6), surprise / disbelief (18:12-15), jesting (19:14), mocking / teasing (21:9) and intimacy / foreplay (according to Chizkuni) in Bereshit 26:8.

The root שחק is closely connected to צחק - both in meaning and form. As Al Silberman wrote in Mail-Jewish:

The verbs "tzachak" and "sachak" appear many times in Tanach. "Tzachak"occurs 15 times and "Sachak" occurs 51 times. Both have the same meaning; a"tzaddi" and "seen" are interchangeable consonants since they are formed from the same part of the mouth. I would like to offer up the following observation:

The form "tzachak" is used exclusively until the time of the Shoftim (Judges). The form "sachak" is used exclusively in the seforim written during the first Temple. Both forms appear in the seforim written after the destruction of the first Temple.

Thus, the subject name appears in the Torah and Yehoshua as Yitzchak. It appears exclusively as Yischak in Tehillim, Amos and Yirmiyahu. It appears again as Yitzchak in M'lochim (Kings) and Divrei Hayomim (Chronicles).

The following are to be noted:

1. Both forms are used in the same posuk in Shoftim (Judges) 16:25. See Malbim for his explanation.

2. There is a dispute in Bava Basra 14b (and following folios) dealing with Iyov's era (when he lived or when the sefer was written). Iyov uses "sachak" exclusively.

3. Tehillim 105:9 and 1 Divrei Hayomim 16:16 are the same exact posuk with variant spellings of the subject name.

In Modern Hebrew שחק means "to play", and צחק retained the meaning "to laugh".

Kutscher writes that the origin of tzchok is onomatopoeic- it imitates the sound of laughter. (The English word "laugh" is said to have similar origins.) He also writes that the Aramaic roots גחך and חייך are related to צחק and שחק , and that the original Semitic root was probably close to the Arabic צחך (dahak). Why did all these various forms come about? Through a process called dissimilation, where "similar consonant sounds in a word have a tendency to become different over time, so as to ease pronunciation." (For a good description of the process in Hebrew, see here. I should have looked at that post when I wrote about keshet.) So for example, by changing from צחק to שחק - we end up with only one emphatic consonant, which is easier to pronounce.

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tiras

I enjoy food. (Does anyone not?) I think it's likely that food will be a common topic for posts here, particularly since names for food have an interesting way of passing from one language to another.

Today we'll start with the Hebrew word for corn, tiras.

The grain we call corn was first discovered by Europeans in Central America. So why then do some older translation of the Bible translate dagan as corn? See Genesis 27:28 - "plenty of corn and wine".

Well, originally corn meant any grain - which matches well the Hebrew word for grain, dagan. When the settlers to the New World found a crop grown by the Indians - which they called maize (the scientific term is Zea mays.) Europeans still use that term. The British also called maize Indian corn, but the new immigrants to America called it simply "corn." (Read more here.)

Once corn became almost exclusively identified with maize, the Bible translators began to use the word "grain" for dagan. This confusion also had halachic consequences, particularly for those of us Ashkenazi Jews who don't eat corn on Pesach. How did this come about? Rabbi Zushe Yosef Blech explains in Kitniyos in the Modern World:

The cornucopia of new foods from the New World brought new items – such as maize and potatoes – to the fore. Both quickly became staple foodstuffs in the Old World, and although clearly not technically legumes, the question arose as to whether they should nevertheless be included in the category of Kitniyos. As it turns out, maize is generally considered to be Kitniyos whereas potatoes are not. Interestingly, the etymology of the names of these foods may give us some insight into this dichotomy. While the common name for maize (from the Tahino word “mahis”) is “corn” – and in the United States this usage is quite clear –the origin of the word “corn” is something quite different. The word “corn” can be traced back to the ancient Indo-European word “grn”, which literally meant a small nugget. In German, this word became “korn” and in Latin it became “grain”, both of which include any edible grass seed. In practice, these terms refer to whatever the predominant grain happens to be in a given country. In the Americas, it referred to maize. In Scotland, it referred to oats, and in Germany it referred to wheat or rye. Indeed, old English translations of Pharaoh’s insomniac premonitions refer to "seven sheaves of corn". Columbus had not yet discovered America during the time of Pharaoh, so Pharaoh was clearly not dreaming of corn on the cob. The "corn" to which he referred was rather one of the five grains. Yiddish speakers are similarly prone to this confusion, since they often use the term "Korn" to refer to grain. It seems, however, that the popularity of corn – and its resulting assumption of this sobriquet – was sufficient for the minhag of Kitniyos to extend to this new “grain”. Potatoes, on the other hand, were never regarded by people as a grain, and therefore generally considered to have escaped the Kitniyos categorization. [It is interesting to note that the Chaye Adam was of the opinion that potatoes should indeed be considered Kitniyos. Much to our general relief, however, this opinion was definitely not accepted.]

So now the question remains. Why did the Jews in Europe adopt the term tiras for maize/corn?

Rabbi Ernest Klein, in his "Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language" (which I'll be referring to often), has an interesting history:

In the Bible תירס is the name of one of the sons of Japhet. Far and forced is the way in which this proper name came to denote 'maize' or 'corn'. The Talmud renders תירס by בית תרייקי. In the period of the Haskalah (1750-1880) it became customary to identify תרייקי - merely because of the similarity in sound between תרייקי and תורקיה - with Turkey. Furthermore, since maize is called in many languages 'Turkish wheat' (cp. e.g. Ger. turkischer Weizen - whence Yiddish Terkische weiz - It. granturco, Hungarian torokbuza, etc.) תירס was and still is used to denote maize in Hebrew. The identification of תירס with maize on the basis of the above reasoning cannot be accepted. Before all בית תרייקי cannot be identical with Turkey, because the Babylonian Talmud was concluded about the end of the fifth century and the Talmud Yerushalmi, in which תירס is rendered by תרקא, was concluded even earlier, whereas the Turks appear in history for the first time in the thirteenth century. Furthermore, the Biblical name generally used for Turkey is תוגרמה (the modern name is טורקיה). In consideration of all this I suggest to call maize in Hebrew either חטת-טורקיה or חטת-תוגרמה, i.e. 'Turkish wheat', which are a simple loan translation of Ger. turkischer Weizen, etc.

Unfortunately, Klein, who passed away in 1983, did not succeed in his fight for a new Hebrew name for maize. However, the childrens song "bim, bam, bam, tiras cham" would certainly have less rhythm as "bim, bam, bam, chitat turkiya chama"...

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