Tuesday, September 29, 2009

יה As Source

The question was asked to me from a young boy oleh from South America (~12 yrs old) , why in Hebrew (as well as Spanish he says) alot of store-type names end in יה (-ia), as in פיצריה, מאפיה,קצביה, ?

It came to me that all things that are the source of the item's creation are given the "-יה" ending.

כי ביה יהוה צור עולמים

I love Israel. בני ציון היקרים המסולאים בפז

Burning Down The House

With all the many references in the Torah uniquely defining a man's wife as his בית (house) it then struck me as a real difficulty how the Torah is able to write

ושלחה מביתו ויצאה והיתה לאיש אחר

... how can it still be called ביתו if she's now gone??!

[Note as an aside, the connection between the latin femina/familia, and it's derivations in english feminine/family and french famme/famille]

[possible answer: see Yevamot 103b  שאני התם דאמר קרא (ויקרא יג) ושרף את הבגד אפילו בשעת שריפה קרוי בגד]

Sunday, September 20, 2009

To Be Existentially Hated

Sometimes you've really done nothing wrong to the girl.

She starts out building up emotion for you (or more correctly the projection she makes of you), as you simultaneously start growing emotion for her, and as time goes by emotions grow stronger and deeper until at some point along the path of getting to know you you express to her a part of your inner thoughts that doesn't "jive with her".

Let's just say for example it's the idea of wanting your wife to cover her hair and not work closely alongside other men. You've done nothing wrong. You didn't even say it in the form of a command but just an expression of what your needs are "I can't feel comfortable being married with such and such" -- totally non-assertive, just expressing your own existential feelings.

So the relationship ends. It becomes evident to both that the divides just can't be bridged. It's not practical.

Here's the jewel of an insight - She'll hate you.
(atleast for some amount of time before she can move on)

She must hate you. Your very being is a constant source of her pain. Something which draws her inner emotions into an utter fruitless frustration. Every aspect and quality of you that all along aroused in her a sense of love are now the very same knives paining her. And so she hates you. She existentially hates you. She doesn't hate you for anything you've done or said. She hates that you exist. Ouch.

And I found that my response to those silent words of "I Hate You Danny" were strangely enough - "I hate me too" -- that my being what I am existentially should distance me so from those I'd like to be close to... but what can I do, that's just honestly who I am.....

and so then I thought, maybe I'm getting somewhere in understanding the concept

חטאת לה' --הביאו עלי כפרה על שמעטתי את הלבנה

[Afterwards, I saw the same concept is to be found in the early part of Khaleed Hosseini's book "The Kite Runner" as the pain of Amir in Hassan's complete loyalty to their friendship.]

וקנא את אשתו

Told a girl I was dating that were I to be married I wouldn't want my wife in a workplace requiring her to work closely with other men.

(my logic being, although not necessarily necessary for this post, that I've always found that the closest connections I've made with girls was when working with them over long periods of time)

response received in hebrew: "מה אתה איש קנאי או משהו?"

my response to that essentially being "yes. when it comes to things that are dear to me and personal, yes. I want them to be intimately unique to me and not "out there" floating around with others". Essentially a concept of הרי את מקודשת לי ,מיוחדת לי

but only then realized the connection of קנין to קנאות. A קנאות that stems from a sense of קנין. Something that you feel is yours. Also then a sense of קן , nest, home.

Behooves us then to understood how this all connects to קין. Particularly as we've already demonstrated that קין and קנין are related in other aspects.


[P.S.: Zohar Breishit רמה עמוד ב

"קשה כשאול קנאה" -- כל מאן דרחים ולא קשיר עמיה קנאה, לאו רחימותיה רחימותא. כיון דקני -- הא רחימותא אשתלים. מכאן אוליפנא, דבעי בר נש לקנאה לאנתתיה, בגין דיתקשר עמה רחימותא שלים, דהא מגו כך לא יהיב עינוי באינתו אחרא. 

]

Saturday, September 12, 2009

נער / נערה

Looked it up in a Concordance after learning מסורת המסורה.

If I haven't made a mistake it comes out that there are 22 mentions of נערה in the Torah (14 of which are adjacent to each other in Pr' Ki Tetzei).

All are written חסר as נער except for one of the four written by מוציא שם רע :
וְעָנְשׁוּ אֹתוֹ מֵאָה כֶסֶף, וְנָתְנוּ לַאֲבִי הַנַּעֲרָה

Fascinating. Particularly interesting to contrast this pasuk with that of אונס :
וְנָתַן הָאִישׁ הַשֹּׁכֵב עִמָּהּ, לַאֲבִי הַנַּעֲרָ--חֲמִשִּׁים כָּסֶף

Friday, September 11, 2009

Quote Of The Day

A dozen girls have loved you but none want to marry you.

If life's not cruel, it's at least funny.

[Later I saw a nice related quote from Adlai Stevenson quoting Abraham Lincoln:

"It hurts too much to laugh, but I'm too old to cry" ]

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Sensitivity

I've come to discover over time that some relationships of love can be so rich in nature that the lovers can be talking openly in the midst of a group and the meaning of the words heard by the average joe participating in the discussion is a world apart from that which the lovers hear in their own ears;

so that what is on the surface an innocuous mention of something trivial can be laden with heartbreaking or heartwarming comfort to those sensitive enough to understand.

For me it sheds a new light on many of the bizarre accounts found in תורה שבכתב

(e.g. in Shmuel I, הקבה 's displeasure at Bnei Yisrael's request for a king, when after all, it's an explicit passage in Devarim)

which to the average joe (i.e. myself) it's hard to pick up what the heck is going on in the continuity of the conversation.

But for the lovers involved, they know.

[עיין זוהר משפטים צט א -- אורייתא מלה נפקא מנרתקה ואתחזיאת זעיר ומיד אתטמרת ע"ש
מתל למה הדבר דומה לרחימתא דאיהי שפירתא בחיזו... ואיהי טמירתא בטמירו...ואית לה רחימא יחידאה דלא ידעין ביה בני נשא ... ע"ש באורך]