Al Ha veDa על הא ודא

This is the title page of the Pentateuch in the British Foreign and Bible Society edition of the Hebrew bible:

I led a session at the Tikkun Leil Hoshaʿana Rabba at Ellul on Thursday night, which also included readings from the Writers’ Beit Midrash on Shemitta (the sabbatical year) two years ago.

For my session I developed an idea that I had already presented rather briefly in the Beit Midrash. While learning the topic Shemitta, I wanted to be more aware of the cycle of sabbatical years as part of life, rather than having the sabbatical year suddenly appear and go away more or less out of the blue. (I would also like to be more conscious of the agricultural element by actually cultivating something during the six years, and not cultivating during the sabbatical year, but that’s another topic).

As a way to make the concept of cycles of seven circulating within one another more vivid, I used Garage Band to make a musical composition based on cycles of seven beats, and put together various texts relating to the same theme.

In the image above, from last week’s Achbar Ha`ir there are 11 Hebrew diacritics. I count 4 mistakes. Does anybody spot others?

Via Ralph the Sacred River and Tyler Williams at Codex, I came across this article from Biblica by Professor Hugh Williamson on the Oxford Hebrew Bible Project.

There seem to be problems downloading the samples from the project site, so I haven’t been able to form much of an informed opinion, but I did want to mention two things that struck me in the short sample from Deuteronomy.

Like the earlier Biblia Hebraica editions which claim to conform as closely as possible to the Leningrad Codex, this edition makes no attempt to reproduce the distinctive layout of Deuteronomy 32 in Masoretic manuscripts.

Professor Williamson mentions a number of anomalies created by the editorial policy of reproducing the MS text with vowels and accents, but letting emendations to the text appear unvocalized. An additional effect of this policy appears in verse 5 in the sample: . The editor has chosen to emend the text by omitting the word מוּמָם, but the other words of the verse are left with their original accents. The result is nonsense, because the accent system of the Hebrew Bible operates with longer units than single words. I’m not sure myself that the emended text improves the reading*, but that is beside the point. In terms of the accent system, omitting one word implies an emendation to the surrounding words as well. In this case “בָּנָיו” has become the last word of the clause, but the editor has left it with a conjunctive accent. This may seem like a quibble to people unaccustomed to reading the Bible with the accents, but I personally was unable even to parse the result until I had worked out what was intended by reading the critical notes.

* I suppose that I belong to the group of whom Professor Williamson says “some may be wedded to a conservative textual approach for religious or similar reasons, and they would be likely either to use another edition or to pick out the unemended text of their choice without full understanding of the issues anyway.”

Jim Davila wonders how one would say Sic transit gloria mundi in Aramaic, a challenge that I can’t resist.

A literal translation would be something like כדין יעבר שבהורא דעלמא, but what might be a more idiomatic rendering? In modern Hebrew, אֵיךְ נָפְלוּ גִבּוֹרִים is used in almost exactly the same way as sic transit gloria mundi, so I looked up the Targum for that verse: איכדין איתקטלו גיבריא.

However, I’m not quite sure that that works: I think that the ambiguity of נפלו in the Hebrew is what allows the expression to be used in wider contexts, but by translating it as איתקטלו, “were killed”, the Aramaic limits its possible applications. The same is not true of the Peshitta, so if we were looking for a Syriac translation I would suggest ܐܝܟܢܐ ܢܦܠܘ ܓܢܒܪܐ

Going back to Aramaic, perhaps one could borrow a phrase from the Zohar (I 4a): כל עמודי נהורין דעלמא תיכול ותידוק.

If I wasn’t an expatriate Brit readapting to life in Israel after two years in California, I would love to be Canadian. I’ve never yet been to Canada, but that’s soon going to change: at the end of this month I’ll be in Whistler, BC.

Jim Davila was wondering whether the following quotation from Anglican minister Martin Palmer was really Talmudic:

“The Talmud says that the angels went to God and said, ‘You just created this wonderful world and now you’ve created these human beings who will only go and mess it up. Are you start staring mad?’ And God says, ‘I know what I’m doing. I know what I’m doing.’ And then the earth spoke, and the earth was afraid. And the earth said, ‘These creatures, they will only rebel against me and harm me.’ And God answers, ‘I promise you that they will never be allowed to destroy you.’”

I think that Iyov is right that this is derived at some distance from Talmud Bavli Sanhedrin 38b or its parallels:

אמר רב יהודה א”ר בשעה שבקש הקב”ה לבראות את האדם ברא כת אחת של מלאכי השרת אמר להם רצונכם נעשה אדם בצלמנו אמרו לפניו רבש”ע מה מעשיו אמר להן כך וכך מעשיו אמרו לפניו רבש”ע (תהילים ח) מה אנוש כי תזכרנו ובן אדם כי תפקדנו הושיט אצבעו קטנה ביניהן ושרפם וכן כת שניה כת שלישית אמרו לפניו רבש”ע ראשונים שאמרו לפניך מה הועילו כל העולם כולו שלך הוא כל מה שאתה רוצה לעשות בעולמך עשה כיון שהגיע לאנשי דור המבול ואנשי דור הפלגה שמעשיהן מקולקלין אמרו לפניו רבש”ע לא יפה אמרו ראשונים לפניך אמר להן (ישעיהו מו) ועד זקנה אני הוא ועד שיבה אני אסבול וגו’

Rab Judah said in Rab’s name: When the Holy One, blessed be He, wished to create man, He [first] created a company of ministering angels and said to them: "Is it your desire that we make a man in our image?"

They answered: "Sovereign of the Universe, what will be his deeds?"

"Such and such will be his deeds," He replied.

Thereupon they exclaimed: "Sovereign of the Universe, What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou thinkest of him?" [Psalm 8:5]

Thereupon He stretched out His little finger among them and consumed them with fire. The same thing happened with a second company.

The third company said to Him: "Sovereign of the Universe, what did it avail the former [angels] that they spoke to Thee [as they did]? The whole world is Thine, and whatsoever that Thou wishest to do therein, do it."

When He came to the men of the Age of the flood and of the division [of tongues] whose deeds were corrupt, they said to Him: "Lord of the Universe, did not the first [company of angels] speak aright?"

"Even to old age I am the same, and even to hoar hairs will I carry," [Isa. 46:4] He retorted.

However, the classic Rabbinic source for environmentalism is Ecclesiastes Rabbah on 7:13:

בשעה שברא הקב”ה את אדם הראשון נטלו והחזירו על כל אילני גן עדן ואמר לו ראה מעשי כמה נאים ומשובחין הן וכל מה שבראתי בשבילך בראתי, תן דעתך שלא תקלקל ותחריב את עולמי, שאם קלקלת אין מי שיתקן אחריך

When the Holy One, Blessed be He, made the first human, he led him past every tree in the Garden of Eden, saying, “Look at what I have made! See how beautiful and excellent they are! Everything that I created I created for you; take care not to damage or destroy my world, because if you damage it there is nobody else who can repair it after you.”

My youngest daughter has been a vegetarian for some months now, and her brother and sisters have not always been, let’s say, as supportive as they might be.

My son is sure that she will never make it through the annual Independence Day barbecue at my sister-in-law’s without cracking and eating meat, so they made a bet: if she eats any meat she will have to eat some of every kind of meat there (and if that sounds like not such a big deal, you don’t know my sister-in-law); and if she doesn’t eat any meat, he will be vegetarian for a week.

So I said, “That sounds like a good bet.”

Drum roll…

Wait for it…

“Do you want me to hold the steaks?”

Via Jim Davila, a fascinating account of two readings of the name on a seal discovered in the Temple Mount excavations in Jerusalem. There’s a large image of the seal here.

Eilat Mazar’s original reading תמח was based on reading the name from the seal itself:

𐤕𐤌𐤇

The revised reading שלמת takes into account that one should read the name from the seal impression. Let’s try to simulate that by flipping the image:

𐤔𐤋𐤌𐤕

See also here.

As before, to see the text below the images correctly, you will need a font that supports “Phoenician” and a browser that supports Unicode 5.0.

I really didn’t think that Yehuda Halevi was within my range as a translator, but this came out quite well:

יְפֵה נוֹף מְשׂוֹשׂ תֵּבֵל קִרְיָה לְמֶלֶךְ רָב.
לָךְ נִכְסְפָה נַפְשִׁי מִפַּאֲתֵי מַעְרָב!
הֲמוֹן רַחֲמַי נִכְמָר כִּי אֶזְכְּרָה קֶדֶם,
כְּבוֹדֵךְ אֲשֶׁר גָּלָה וְנָוֵךְ אֲשֶׁר חָרָב.
וּמִי יִתְּנֵנִי עַל כַּנְפֵי נְשָׁרִים, עַד
אֲרַוֶּה בְדִמְעָתִי עֲפָרֵך וְיִתְעָרָב!
דְּרַשְׁתִּיךְ, וְאִם מַלְכֵּךְ אֵין בָּךְ וְאִם בִּמְקוֹם
צֳרִי גִּלְעֲדֵך – נָחָשׁ שָׂרָף וְגַם עַקְרָב.
הֲלֹא אֶת-אֲבָנַיִךְ אֲחוֹנֵן וְאֶשָּׁקֵם
וְטַעַם רְגָבַיִךְ לְפִי מִדְּבַשׁ יֶעְרָב!

Fair hill-top, world’s rejoicing, city of the Mighty King,
I long for you with all my soul from distant Western lands!
It grieves me to remember how you were in days of old:
Your glory, now in exile, and your temple which is ruined.
Let me fly on wings of eagles till I come to you and water
Your dry dust, and mix it with my tears!
How I searched for you! Even though you have no king,
And scorpions and snakes instead of balm of Gilead,
I will stroke your stones and kiss them, and your earth
Will be sweeter than the taste of honey in my mouth!

From Talmida (and I’m sorry if it looks as if I cribbed a lot of the entries from her. There are reasons why we’re friends, you know):

8 interests in my life

• Indonesian music
• Biblical interpretation
• Languages and scripts
• Cryptic crosswords
• Spirituality
• Mountains
• Theatre
• Food and drink

8 things to do before I die

• Visit the Far East
• Get a part in a movie
• Give up smoking
• Take a skin-diving course
• Learn sofrut
• Read (at least some of) the Mahābhārata in the original
• See the Canadian Rockies
• Learn blues piano

8 books I read recently

This one is going to be a bit dull, because I have this habit of taking an author and working through him or her, especially when I’m unwell. Comfort reading.

• G K Chesterton The Innocence of Father Brown
• G K Chesterton The Wisdom of Father Brown
• G K Chesterton The Incredulity of Father Brown
• G K Chesterton The Secret of Father Brown
• G K Chesterton The Scandal of Father Brown
• G K Chesterton The Club of Queer Trades
• James Kugel How to Read the Bible (working my way gradually through this one)
• Joan Peters From Time Immemorial

8 films that mean something to me

• Princess Bride
• Chariots of Fire
• Pulp Fiction
• Brother Sun, Sister Moon
• The Parent Trap (1998 version)
• The Shawshank Redemption
• Wings of Desire
• Dead Poets Society

8 songs that mean something to me

…though frankly I think a more accurate rating would have been “Sad Geek”.

Ever since support for bidirectional languages was implemented in Mozilla by me and my colleagues at IBM. and through all the improvements and bug-fixes that have been made since, one thing that we never got quite right was text with diacritics, aka nikkud, aka harakat, especially in justified text. This was a real obstacle in the way of my recommending Mozilla or Firefox to my friends, many of whom heavily use sites like Mechon Mamre that feature vocalized Hebrew.

I am happy to say that this is now fixed in trunk builds and the beta of Firefox 3 that will appear RSN. Here are some screenshots of a chapter from Mechon Mamre. Since they are in Hebrew, the “before” shots are on the right, and the “after” shots on the left. Click on the images to see full-size versions.

Linux

OSX

Windows

I’m very excited to read on PaleoJudaica that the Siloam Inscription is likely to be returned to Israel for at least a limited period. There is a translation and images of the text at the English Wikipedia article, a transcription in both Ancient and Modern Hebrew characters from the Jewish Encyclopedia and a transcription and translation into Modern Hebrew at the Hebrew Wikipedia article, but as far as I know the original text is not available anywhere online in text format. Here it is:

𐤄𐤍𐤒𐤁𐤄𐤟𐤅𐤆𐤄𐤟𐤄𐤉𐤄𐤟𐤃𐤁𐤓𐤟𐤄𐤍𐤒𐤁𐤄𐤟𐤁𐤏𐤅𐤃
𐤄𐤂𐤓𐤆𐤍𐤟𐤀𐤔𐤟𐤀𐤋𐤟𐤓𐤏𐤅𐤟𐤅𐤁𐤏𐤅𐤃𐤟𐤔𐤋𐤔𐤟𐤀𐤌𐤕𐤟𐤋𐤄𐤍	𐤏𐤟𐤒𐤋𐤟𐤀𐤔𐤟𐤒
𐤀𐤟𐤀𐤋𐤟𐤓𐤏𐤅𐤟𐤊𐤉𐤟𐤄𐤉𐤕𐤟𐤆𐤃𐤄𐤟𐤁𐤑𐤓𐤟𐤌𐤉𐤌𐤍	𐤅𐤋𐤟𐤅𐤁𐤉𐤌𐤟𐤄
𐤍𐤒𐤁𐤄𐤟𐤄𐤊𐤅𐤟𐤄𐤇𐤑𐤁𐤌𐤟𐤀𐤔𐤟𐤋𐤒𐤓𐤕𐤟𐤓𐤏𐤅𐤟𐤂𐤓𐤆𐤍𐤟𐤏𐤋	𐤓𐤂𐤍𐤟𐤅𐤉𐤋𐤊𐤅
𐤄𐤌𐤉𐤌𐤟𐤌𐤍𐤟𐤄𐤌𐤅𐤑𐤀𐤟𐤀𐤋𐤟𐤄𐤁𐤓𐤊𐤄𐤟𐤁𐤌𐤀𐤕𐤉	𐤋𐤐𐤟𐤀𐤌𐤄𐤟𐤅𐤌
𐤕𐤟𐤀𐤌𐤄𐤟𐤄𐤉𐤄𐤟𐤂𐤁𐤄𐤟𐤄𐤑𐤓𐤟𐤏𐤋𐤟𐤓𐤀𐤔𐤟𐤄𐤇𐤑𐤁

You will need a font that supports “Phoenician” and a browser that supports Unicode 5.0 to see the text correctly

This one is probably also pretty easy, but it should require a little more leg work at least.

What tractate of the Mishna is this:

U+24CA

I’ve been enjoying the Kri and Ketiv games at Balashon, and also the pun quizzes at ADDeRabbi, so here’s one of my own.

Which biblical book is this:

((ק))

In my email inbox this morning:

Dear Al Ha veDa

A gift Crossword subscription has been purchased for you.

Please visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/crossword to activate your subscription

Regards

Guardian Unlimited

This clearly has some connection to the fact that next Monday is my birthday, and this is absolutely and totally the best birthday present I could have wished for (though strong self-discipline will be called for if I’m going to get any work done if I have hundreds of Guardian crosswords available every time I sit down at the computer). The frustrating part is that it doesn’t name the generous person who gave me this present!!@#$!

I can narrow it down quite a lot: it has to be someone who knows that the Guardian Crossword, especially Araucaria, is one of the things I most miss about not living in the UK; it has to be someone who knows my email address; and it has to be someone who loves me enough to splash out on a birthday present for me.

I know who I think it was, and that person reads my blog, so if it was you, thank you so much!

I was walking home the other day when a car passed me with a bumper sticker like this: . He pulled in and parked ahead of me so I waited for him to get out and said politely צַפְרָא טָבָא, and told him that I liked the sticker, and where could I get one? He immediately pulled two more out of the car and presented them to me.

We spoke for a few minutes, and it turns out that he is a native Aramaic speaker, and that the stickers are put out by an organization that has just opened an office in the centre of Jerusalem (in Ben Yehuda Street, appropriately enough), and they are planning to start holding classes in spoken Aramaic.

My only question is, why doesn’t it say אנא מליל ארמיא?

From the International Herald Tribune (hat-tip: Lisa Goldman):

Britain’s biggest journalists’ union, The National Union of Journalists, has criticized Israel’s “military adventures” and voted narrowly in favor of a boycott of Israeli goods…The timing of the ballot was particularly delicate since a BBC journalist, Alan Johnston, has been held for more than a month in Gaza, making the boycott call seem one-sided.

No shit.