Friday Night Cholent Archive
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2 January 2009: Parashat Vayigash
umekayeim emunato lishnei afar (near the beginning of the Amidah)
If dust comes in twos, there might not be a problem here (other than a syntactic one). Or perhaps we have a Yiddish-Hebrew mishmash, and Hashem is described as sustaining his faithful who end up in the snowy dust.
Rather, insert another syllable and go with umekayeim emunato lisheinei afar - in this case, those who sleep are quite correct.
26 December 2008: Parashat Mikeitz
V'yiftechu vekha yode'ei shemekha ... (end of Uva letziyon)
Hinei eil yeshuati eftach v'lo efchad ... (start of Havdalah)
Baruch hagever asher yiftach ... (end of Birkat Hamazon)
You may know the correct pronunciations, but it takes some care to enunciate them that way.
In all these cases, the first letter of the root vet-tet-chet comes out sounding like a fei, which changes the meaning from something about "trust" to something about "opening." (Now, openness and trust often go together, but that's an interpretation rather than a license for attempting to improve on the words of Tehillim, Yishaya, and Yirmiyahu, respectively.)
The question is how this transformation happens. It's actually fairly common. In all these cases, our friend the vet finds herself a little too close to her neighbor tet, with no vowel to keep the peace between them. The tet is in a stronger position and rubs off some of its tet-ness on the vet. More specifically, the only difference between a vet and a fei is what happens in the throat while the sound is produced; the mouth does exactly the same thing for both. That difference, however, is part of the tet sound. So in getting ready to make the vet, what often happens is that we jump into tet production a bit early, and so a fei is born.
Now the question is: so what? Isn't this just the way we talk? Well, if the meaning is clearly changed (because it does sound like the root fey-taf-chet), then perhaps a few extra milliseconds would be time well spent opening your mouth wider and trusting in Hashem and the actual words of His prophets.
19 December 2008: Parashat Vayeshev
Yiru et adonai kedoshav ... (last paragraph of Birkat Hamazon)Sounds familiar, right? But no matter how many times you may have heard it this way, it can't be Yiru, since there is a shva rather than a chirik under the first letter. Thus, it should be Yeru.
The difference in meaning is clear as well. Yiru ... would mean "They saw G-d"; the correct Yeru ... is a command and so means "Fear G-d."
We have a similar problem with the pasuk before Az Yashir every morning, as mentioned in an earlier post. This one's even clearer because you don't have to worry about different kinds of shvas. Here, just remember that two dots are better than one.
12 December 2008: Vayishlach
Modim anachnu lakh she-ata ...
This is what we might like to say, or like to think it says, at the top of the Modim paragraph in the Amidah. That would match our expectations. But it really does say sha-ata.
The question is why. If she- as a prefix means "that," why does it here appear as sha-?
It turns out that she- is not the prefix all by itself. In this regard it is like the familiar ha- prefix that means "the." Actually, ha- is only one part of the prefix; the other part is a dagesh (dot, in the English vernacular) that is placed in the letter afterward. But if that letter is one of those that by rule may not take a dagesh, something has to give. In the case of ha- the most common alternative is that the short patach vowel changes to a long kamatz (what makes them "short" and "long" isn't important here; we can think of it as merely a way of distinguishing some vowels from others). Those who do not pronounce a patach and a kamatz differently may not notice the change, but it's there as a form of compensation for the fact that the dagesh can't go in, for instance, a guttural letter.
One of those guttural letters, of course, is aleph. So she- (with a segol, a short vowel) lengthens to sha- (a kamatz, long vowel), and voila, sha-ata. (Changing to tseire, also long, as we see between et and eit, apparently isn't different enough for our kind of change. Sue me.)
But wait a minute. At the end of the Modim de'rabbanan paragraph, as elsewhere, we have she-anachnu - and that's an aleph after she- just as much as sha-ata is - so what's going on here?
Look underneath. Atah begins with a patach vowel, while anachnu begins a chataf patach. Any chataf vowel is essentially like a shva, which is the first part of the vowel. A shva can't have a dagesh either, just like a typical guttural (yes, there are a whole three or four instances of aleph with a dagesh in Tanach). So what we have here with anachnu is not just one (aleph) reason for not having a dagesh, but two (chataf patach being the second): thus the compensation itself is essentially blocked and we revert to the segol we came in with, and, voila, she-anachnu.
5 December 2008: Vayetze
... mimelekh malakhei hamelakhim, hakadosh barukh hu.
While you're singing Shalom Aleichem and pondering various meanings of the above words, rest assured (there's good Shabbos advice) that the above line doesn't mean "from the king of angels of kings, the Holy One, Blessed is He."
In whatever nigun you favor, one may still hear the above mispronunciation, in which malakhei ("angels of") takes the place of malkhei ("kings of"), no doubt inspired by the presence of malakhei as the third and fifth word of each verse.
The line may be variously translated as "from the King who rules over kings" or "of the Supreme King of kings"; we should not sing that the angels serve many kings and yet select one above the rest. The Jewish heavenly hierarchy is a lot simpler.
28 November 2008: Toledot
Hodu al eretz veshamayim . . .
For all you Americans out there, past, present, and future, we acknowledge Thanksgiving this week with the preceding gem. It should, of course, be Hodo ...
Hodo is "His glory" or "His majesty." Hodu is "give thanks to." Hodu is also an extremity of Achashverosh's empire, identified as India. Tarnegol hodu is the poultry of the week. Does it bear this name because of the bird's identification with Thanksgiving?
Almost certainly not. Several other languages identify turkeys with India, as in Yiddish (indik), Polish (indyk), French (dinde), and German (kulkutische huhn -- Calcutta hen). Since turkeys are New World birds, the connection is probably derived from the natives having been called Indians. Hodu also is in all likelihood directly related to "Hindu," with the nun dropping out in Hebrew, just as the heh-equivalent dropped out of many an Indo-European language, giving us in English "India."
So we have no relation here between hod (majesty) and derivatives of the familiar modeh (thank). Rather, what we have in the above mispronunciation is an unintentional reference to India as reigning over earth and heaven, because in this blooper people generally use the first-syllable accent of HOdu rather than the second-syllable stress of hoDU that means "[you, plural] give thanks." Thus the other relevant mispronunciation to avoid here is
HOdu ladonai ki tov
unless, of course, you're a Hebrew-speaking Indian.
Note: This was written before this week's tragedies in Mumbai.
21 November 2008: Chayei Sarah
...umavdil bein yom uvein layla, adonai tzevaot shemo. (first paragraph of Maariv)
Looks right to me--what's the problem here?
Maybe no problem. There are no mispronounced words, but often one hears a misgrouping of words:
...umavdil bein yom uvein layla, adonai [pause] tzevaot shemo.
Sometimes it is the nigun that leads us astray: since "adonai tzevaot" is "shemo" (that is, "the Lord of Hosts" is "His name"), it only makes sense not to break up "Lord of" and "Hosts." Thus, keep in mind the meaning of the words as a sentence in order to group them more properly:
...umavdil bein yom uvein layla, adonai tzevaot [pause] shemo.
There are many such potential misgrouping situations in davening; another, perhaps less egregious, also occurs with shemo -- from Shacharit of Shabbat and Yom tov:
Shokhein ad, marom, vekadosh shemo.
("He Who abides forever, exalted, and holy is His name.")
It is much the better if grouped as follows:
[Shokhein ad] [marom vekadosh shemo.]
("He Who abides forever, exalted and holy is His name.")
This can easily be fitted onto the standard Shabbat nigun by elongating "ad" into (what is often assumed to be) the next word's notes - making it linger a little closer to "forever."
14 November 2008: Vayera
hatov ki lo chalu rachamekha vehamerachem ki lo tamu chasadekha ... [end of Modim in the Amidah]
The above is correct -- if you accent the correct syllables. Problem is, chalu and tamu are two different sorts of words and are accented on opposite syllables. It should be chaLU and TAmu. And it's easy to get one of these wrong.
How are the words so different? To answer this, we first need to look at the shorashim.
The first word's shoresh is khaf-lamed-heh. This is the normal one of our two words. Most verbs in most situations are accented on the syllable that contains the second of the three root letters. Thus chaLU is both correct and just what we would expect.
The second word's shoresh is taf-mem-mem. That's right--two mems. We don't use both of them in most verb conjugations, but we do see both in related words such as temimah. This sort of shoresh, with identical second and third root letters, where one of them often drops out, has a few special properties. It even has its own name--a kefulah (double) verb or an ayin-ayin verb, signifying that the second letter (or ayin letter of the shoresh, where each letter corresponds to the three letters of the word for "verb," po'al) is the same as the third.
So the relevant special property for our kefulah verb is that the accent is moved back a syllable, and we get TAmu.
And note that this means that an incorrect accentuation here (taMU) very much implies that the shoresh is taf-mem-heh, in which case this prayer of thanks might sound as if it could be translated as "... and O Merciful One, your kindnesses never astounded...."
Well, maybe you thought you always had it coming anyway, but it's probably not what Chazal had in mind.*
* This is the case even though taMU would be spelled taf-mem-heh-vav, since for this root the heh would not drop out.
7 November 2008: Lekh Lekha
...Vayiru ha'am et adonai vaya'aminu ... [immediately before Az Yashir]The above is at once the most common pronunciation of this pasuk and yet one that is indisputably wrong. It means, "The nation saw G-d and believed ..." - when it is supposed to mean, "The nation feared G-d and believed ...."
What is the difference in pronunciation that accounts for this difference (one that violates the Rambam's Principle no. 3 about corporeality)?
Simply put, it is an extra syllable, or a lack thereof. Compare:
* "they saw" is vayiru, while "they feared" is vayire'u.
* the shoresh of "see" is resh-alef-heh; the shoresh of "fear" is yud-resh-alef.
So, when conjugating the verbs as above, we insert a yud before the shoresh. In the case of "they saw," it's the only yud in town, and it leads straight into the resh, beneath which sits a shva nach, a syllable-stopper: va-yir-u.
But in the case of "they feared," the inserted yud indicating a third-person verb precedes another yud from the shoresh. The result is that the shva vowel beneath the resh (the second, not first, letter of the shoresh) is a shva na, meaning that an extra syllable (as that term is commonly understood) is mandated: va-yi-re-u.
This situation arises frequently in Tanakh, and it should be clear why the change in meaning resulting from this mispronunciation is to be avoided like the Ten Plagues. Even if we cling to platitudes like "seeing is believing" (though it seems to contradict Shemot 33), there is no denying that seeing isn't fearing.
31 October 2008: Noach
While the subject of precipitation is in the air, let us discuss what must seem like a yearly topic: Is it Mashiv haruach umorid hageshem or hagashem?One thing we can say for sure: it is the next-to-last syllable that is accented (GEshem or GAshem--not geSHEM or gaSHEM) -- the reason being that any word that ends in a segol vowel before a consonant and that does not have a chataf vowel (two extra, vertically aligned dots) or a shva vowel in the next-to-last syllable is accented on the next-to-last syllable. Thus eretz, lechem, and many others with the accent on the next-to-last; but Mosheh and sadeh (which don't end in a pronounced consonant) with accents on the last, and similarly emet, asher, and shechem (a chataf vowel or shva before the segol).
OK, that's not an answer to our question. Which is correct, geshem or gashem? Or -- which is more correct?
You may just want a short answer, but you're going to have wade through some stuff first. Hold on.
First, as anyone who remembers the hamotzi can testify, we take words of this sound-shape (like eretz) and change them (aretz) when they occur at the end of a sentence or at a major pause. Geshem does exactly this a few times in Tanach (as in Melachim Alef 18); it is not an exception that doesn't make the switch.
So the question comes down to, in part, whether or not Mashiv haruach umorid hagXshem- concludes a sentence; if it does, we might consider gashem to be the inevitable pronunciation.
Here's where the heavyweights take their stand. R. Moshe Feinstein favored gashem, R. Yaakov Kaminetzky geshem. Each had his reasons.
Rav Moshe takes the above approach: it is the end of a sentence (Igrot Moshe OC 4:40). And there is a parallel proof in Sefer Sha'ar HaKollel: non-nusach-Ashkenazim say, from Pesach to Shmini Atzeret, Morid hatal. The word tal is normally spelled with a patach vowel; a patach, like a segol, will switch to a kamatz at the end of a sentence or at a pause. Since in Morid hatal the latter word is spelled not with a patach but a kamatz, we should consider this the end of a sentence. If it is, then it only makes sense to say hagashem the rest of the year.
Simple, right? Nope.
Rav Yaakov holds that the sentence is actually continuous during the winter months (when we say Mashiv haruach), with no pause intended, because rain belongs with the following paragraph of Mekhalkel chayim, based on the Tur's view that rain can bring both kalkalah (destruction) and parnasah (sustenance). This is in contrast to Morid hatal, which doesn't refer to the parnasah-providing aspect of dew but to the tal that is related to techiyat hameitim (resurrection of the dead; discussed in Sanhedrin 90a/b), the subject of the preceding sentence: Atah gibor leolam adonai, mechayei meitim atah, rav lehoshia. So only in the case of tal is the pause appropriate.
What's more, single-syllable words behave differently than two-syllable words when it comes to changing vowels to kamatz at a pause, and a patach changes more readily than a segol anyway. For instance, gan in last week's parashah is spelled most frequently with a kamatz even when not at a pause, but the word itself is normally spelled with a patach. In other words, the patach in single-syllable words can change in places where the patach in a two-syllable words doesn't. (I might add that Rav Yaakov was known for his expertise in dikduk.)
And the topper is that in a work called Sefer Mechalkel Chayim, the author reports that Rav Moshe later changed his mind on the subject.
So I say geshem. You can say whatever floats your ark.
24 October 2008: Bereishit
In honor of the last Rashi in Torah, it is worth noting that when you wish to remark to someone that he has done a bang-up job as shaliach tzibbur or ba'al kriah or ba'al tokeia, the correct phrase is not "yasher koach." Rashi renders it in binyan piel, thus "yeyasher kochakha," but plain ol' binyan kal is good, too (and more common, and just maybe less ostentatious in your shul): "yishar kochakha." In his dictionary Alcalay really does translate this as "Bravo!" or "Well done!"--but note that it comes from yashar (to go straight) and koach (strength, in this case with the vowel under the chet flipped [see discussion of patach ganuv in the FNC archive]) and with the suffix "your" attached, making it "your strength." So a somewhat literal "Your strength goes straight" is colloquially more like "This is right up your alley!"
Once you have this down, make sure you know the proper response. It is emphatically not "Thank you." Rather: "barukh tihyeh" or (to a woman) "brukha tihyi"--you shall be blessed.
17 October 2008 : Shabbat Chol Hamoed
... ki mocheil ve'soleiach ata. Barukh ata ...
These two atas are not the same. The first is Ata (stress on the first syllable), the second aTA (stress on the second). What's the reason?
Stress often shifts from its normal last-syllable position when the word sits at a major pause, such as at the end of a sentence. The first one is like that. The second one isn't. You will notice that the vowels are different too, which is part of the same change here: Ata features two kamatz vowels, while aTA is a patach and then a kamatz. If you pronounce these vowels differently, you need to make that clear as well (as "Otoh" and "aTOH").
10 October 2008: Haazinu
Just in time for Sukkot and Hallel (but not in time for Yom Kippur and all those Al Chets) is this frequent miscue:
milifnei adon chuli aretz milifnei eloHA yaakov.
That penultimate word should be eLOahh, where the second syllable is accented and the last letter is a mapik heh--preceded by a vowel.
(Thus in Al Chet, extra points to those of you who said Ve'al kulam eLOahh selichot....)
Two issues to discuss here, and neither one is which syllable gets the accent (though that is part of the mistake).
1. A mapik heh is a heh with a dot in it. A mapik is not the same thing as a dagesh (a regular dot in a letter); it gives the heh the sound of the letter itself, that is, as a consonant, whereas normally when a words ends in heh the letter is silent. A mapik heh gives a hard h sound, hence eloahh with two h's. It normally means the possessive "her," as in ishahh (her man/husband), or the object "her," as in bahh (in her/it).
2. The more important thing here is that the vowel precedes, not follows, the heh. This is called a patach ganuv and is well known from its use in common words such as ruach, luach, Noach, and so forth. Patach ganuv means "stolen patach" (the name of the horizontal line vowel that goes "ah") and is so called because it steals its place before rather than after the letter under which it appears. We are familiar with this when it occurs under a chet, but heh, like chet, is a guttural (gronit) letter and the rule applies here as well. We just don't see it with a heh very often. (It also applies to the guttural letter/sound ayin in words like shavua, but if you don't pronounce ayin as a consonant, as most of us do not, the point is moot.)
The Koren siddur/machzor/chumash makes this clear by placing the patach ganuv not under the heh or chet but in the space between and below the last two letters of the words, not under the last letter.
3 October 2008: Vayeilekh
Last week we again discussed the vav that can change time. The rule has plenty of applications, but it gets more confusing when compared with the familiar vav meaning "and."
Here's an example: in Aleinu, it should not be veyekablu khulam et ol malkhutekha. Rather, vikablu (long v sound) ... not vayekablu, not ve'kablu or anything else but vikablu.
What happened to our nice ve prefix meaning "and"? It turns out that Hebrew doesn't allow a word to begin with two shva vowels in a row. When this might happen, several changes may be enforced depending on the main word that follows the prefix. Before letters vet, mem, and phay, the ve changes to u. That change isn't going to be mispronounced (except by Torah readers, perhaps). But if the first letter after the vav is a yud, then we change ve to vi and erase the vowel under the yud.
There are many examples of this rule. Next week we'll get off the vav kick and (just in time for Sukkot) look at an excruciatingly common mispronunciation in Hallel.
26 September 2008: Nitzavim
Last week we discussed the rule of vav hahipukh (sometimes called conversive vav), which changes the tense of a verb from past to future or from future to past. We saw that when we go from past to future, the syllable that gets the accent moves as well.
A great example comes in Birkat Hamazon, but it's just a bit more complicated. We say, in the third paragraph, kakatuv, ve'akhalta vesavata uverakhta ("as it is written [in Devarim 8:10], 'You shall eat, and be satisfied, and bless...'").
A number of things are going on here. First, we have three examples of vav hahipukh. This means that what would otherwise be past tense verbs become future verbs (or imperatives/commands, since they refer to what you should do in the future). So far so good.
Therefore, the stress must shift as well to the final syllable: ve'akhalTA ... uverakhTA.
Next, it is important to notice how our standard singing version gets this all wrong. (It was shocking for me too.)
But the trick here is that the middle verb is actually accented on the next-to-last syllable, the same syllable that is accented in the past tense version: vesaVAta.
Why is that? Didn't we just say that the accented syllable changes as part of the rule?
Not so fast. If you look at the original verse, you will see that vesaVAta appears with the note called etnachta, which represents a pause in the verse. And that etnachta falls right under the third syllable, not the final one. This is because in most cases, a pause (with this note or with the sof pasuk at the end of any verse) will cause its own shift in accent.
So here we say to our rule of vav hahipukh, essentially, never mind.
Still, you should be vigilant in looking for this rule in your davening, because in non-pause situations (which is most of the time), the accent indeed shifts, and the meaning changes if you get it wrong.
Here are some signs of what to look for.
1. The Siddur or Machzor quotes a verse from Tanakh. (No surprise, since we are discussing a rule of biblical Hebrew.)
2. A verb begins with vav and a shva vowel (a pair of vertically space dots, pronounced ve), and is either a command or a reference to future action. (There are some other possibilities here -- as in vahavioTIM and utehi --but this is the most common. We'll get to why this can vary next week, g.w.)
Thus, in your Selichot and throughout the Yamim Noraim, be careful to say, for example, vesalachTA ("and pardon": referring to what we hope is future forgiveness) or vezakharTI et briti ("and I will remember my covenant").
19 September 2008: Ki Tavo
This week's mispronunciation: Ve'aHAVta eit (eis) adonai elohekha bekhol ... [first paragraph of Shema].
Very common. Very wrong.
It should be Ve'ahavTA eit (eis) ....
What difference does a little stress make? A lot. (You knew that already.)
Biblical Hebrew frequently exercises a rule known as vav hahipukh, sometimes translated as "conversive vav": the vav prefix converts a future tense verb to past tense, or a past tense verb to the future. For an easy example, let's look at the first verse in the Torah that uses this rule.
Vayomer Elohim: "Yehi or!" Vayhi or. [And Elohim said: "Let there be light!" And there was light.]
The first word, Vayomer, is a perfectly typical example, but let's look instead at yehi and vayhi, because here it's quite clear. If yehi means "Let there be," then how does vayhi mean "and there was"? Isn't all that's added here the prefix meaning "and"?
This is where our rule kicks in. Va isn't exactly "and." Attached to a future tense verb (or quasi-future, as in "Let there be"), va changes the verb's tense to past.
So how does this apply to Ve'ahavTA?
In this example, we are going from past to future, unlike with vayhi. In making the trip from past to future, there are two main differences in the rule: we use ve instead of va (with some exceptions, never mind right now) and we change the stress from the syllable of the second letter of the three-letter root (heh in this case) to the last syllable. The past tense verb is correctly pronounced aHAVta. Thus if you say in Shema Ve'aHAVta, you are actually attaching the common "and" prefix ve to a past tense verb, and instead of saying "And you shall love the Lord your G-d" you end up with "And you loved the Lord your G-d."
It's no longer a commandment; it's more like a bad Country & Western verse.
12 September 2008: Ki Tetze
barukh hu eloheinu shebaranu likhvodo (as in Uva leTziyon).
If this is how you say it, you owe G-d an apology (not that you didn't already). It should be barukh hu eloheinu shebera'anu likhvodo: the first rendering means, "Blessed is He, our G-d, whom we created for his glory," instead of "who created us for his glory." A common mispronunciation, I am sure, but a major davening faux pas nonetheless.