Origin of the words "Erev" and "Boker"

From RRW
Guest Blogger: Mitchell First   

                      What is the Origin of the Words “Erev” and “Boker”?

                   “Erev” (evening) and “boker” (morning) are words that are well-known to us. How did these words develop these meanings”?

                 The root Ayin-Resh-Bet has several meanings, one of them is “mix.” See, e.g., Psalms 106:35: “va-yitarvu va-goyim.” The “mix” meaning very likely lies behind the term “erev rav” (=the mixed multitude that lacked a common identity and left Egypt with the Israelites). The “mix” meaning may also underly the use of the root Ayin-Resh-Bet  in connection with weaving, as weaving combines both vertical and horizontal directions. Also, the “mix” meaning is usually assumed to underly the name of the plague of “arov.” E.g., the plague was a mixture of wild animals or of very small harmful creatures. (But I did write an article in this paper last year mentioning an entirely different explanation: “Arov” was the scarab beetle which the Egyptians worshipped. The Hertz Pentateuch, p. 240, bottom, follows this explanation.)

                 The “mix” meaning also underlies the word “eruv” of Rabbinic Hebrew. This term typically relates to the “mixing/joining” of areas.

                I had always thought that the “mix” meaning was the explanation for erev/evening as well. Indeed, two such explanations are often presented in traditional Jewish sources. One is that “erev” is the time when there is a mixing/confusion of objects to the human eye due to the lack of light. (This is in contrast to “boker,” where items can be inspected and distinguished.) The other is that “erev” is the time when the conditions of light and dark begin to mix. For these suggestions, see, e.g., the concordance of Solomon Mandelkern, p. 912, and the commentaries of Ibn Ezra, Radak,  S. D. Luzzatto, and Rav S.R. Hirsch to Gen. 1:5. 

                 I was therefore surprised to learn that modern scholars take a different approach. In Akkadian (a Semitic language that was the language of Assyria and Babylonia), they have an Ayin-Resh-Bet root that means “to enter.” Most modern scholars believe that “erev” is called this because it is the time when the sun has set and early man viewed it as having entered into its resting location. See, e.g., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 11, p. 335.

                  This “set/enter” meaning also explains the related word “maarav” (=west). The maarav is the place where the sun sets. (This is in contrast to mizrach, the place where the sun begins to shine, derived from the root Zayin-Resh-Chet.)  The “set/enter” meaning of the verb Ayin-Resh-Bet is perhaps seen in the Tanach at Proverbs 7:9 and Judges 19:9. (It may be implicit in the Ayin-Resh-Bet of “weaving” as well.)

                On the subject of Ayin-Resh-Bet, these letters have many other meanings in Tanach. For example, an “aravah” is a desolate, wilderness area. Also, an “aravah” is a willow, and an “orev” is a raven.  I have seen the speculation that “orev” for raven derives from it being a bird of the aravah/wilderness, or from it being a dark bird (=from the “evening/dark” meaning of “erev”). Alternatively, the name may derive from the sound that the bird makes.

               The verb Ayin-Resh-Bet also means to be a surety/guarantor (see, e.g., Genesis 43:9: “anokhi e‘ervenu”). There are also related nouns, “eiravon” and “arubah,” that mean “pledge.” It has been suggested that these meanings come from the “enter” meaning and are related to entering under the authority of another.

                        

             An unusual use of Ayin-Resh-Bet is found at Psalms 68:5 (and in the zemer “Baruch Kel Elyon”) where God is described as “rokhev ba-aravot.” Here, the scholarly consensus is that this A-R-B should be viewed as deriving from an original root A-R-P and that the meaning is “God who rides on the clouds.” (“Arafel” is a word in Hebrew that means “clouds,” and most likely that final lamed is not a root letter but a suffix. I wrote a lengthy column about this last year.)

               To conclude this section on a positive note, there is also another meaning of A-R-B in Tanach. The last sentence of the Amidah is: “ve-arvah...minchat yehudah vi-yerushalayim.” This phrase comes from Malachi 3:4. The root A-R-B here means “pleasant, sweet.”  The root A-R-B  has this meaning elsewhere in Tanach as well. I have seen the suggestion that this originated from the “mix” meaning and originally meant “mixed well.” But this suggestion is not found in the more recent scholarly works, so I suspect that for some reason this suggestion is no longer accepted.

              Hopefully, I have not mixed you up too much, as now it is time to deal with “boker.”

            The verb B-K-R only appears a few times in Tanach. It generally has a meaning of “inspect” or “investigate.” As mentioned earlier, a common view in our commentaries (e.g., Ibn Ezra and Radak) is that “boker” is the time when items can be inspected (unlike “erev,” when they are mixed and hard to distinguish.)

            However, two other approaches to the origin of “boker” deserve mention. One is the approach of S.D. Luzzatto (commentary to Genesis 1:5) who notes that B-K-Ayin  means “split” or “break.” Luzzatto then suggests that “boker” is simply a contraction of “baka or” (=the light broke through). To support his position, he cites Isaiah 58:8:  “az yibaka ka-shachar orekha.”

           The other approach to “boker” is one supported by many modern scholars. This approach observes that in Arabic, “bakara” means “to split” or “to open.” The suggestion is that this was the original meaning of the verb B-K-R in Hebrew as well.  “Inspect/investigate” was just a later expansion, since this is what you did after you split something open (e.g., a sacrificial animal). See Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 2, p. 219. If the original meaning of the verb B-K-R was “split,” then “boker” can be the time when the light first breaks through. (A parallel is our English word “daybreak.”) Moreover, under the assumption that the original meaning of B-K-R was “split” or “open,” we can suggest why “bakar” were called by this name. These animals plow, thereby making openings in the ground. See, for example, Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, p. 81. He writes that “bakar” means “the plowing animal.”

               Finally, I will make a point about another time-related word, shachar/the morning light.  We all know that shachor, with the same three root letters, means “black.” To explain this anomaly, some have suggested that shachar really means “the blackness just before the dawn.” Others have suggested that shachor/black derives originally from a different root, chet-resh-resh, which means “burn.” But both of these suggestions seem farfetched. Most likely, it is just coincidence that the root Shin-Chet-Resh has two opposite meanings.

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Mitchell First is a personal injury attorney and Jewish history scholar. He does his best writing in the very early morning before boker and shacharit.  If you need to disturb him then, he can be reached at MFirstAtty@aol.com.

Mishnah Yomit

From RRW 

https://www.mishnahyomit.com/

How the U.S. Holocaust Museum’s New Calendar Distorts the Holocaust

From RRW

As published by the History News Network - Sept. 16, 2018

 by Rafael Medoff  

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/169903

Simchat Torah 5779 - The Knock Upon the Door

From RRW

Rabbi Eliyahu Safran -- hope you enjoy

 https://baltimorejewishlife.com/news/news-detail.php?SECTION_ID=45&ARTICLE_ID=108317

Mussar: The Long Spoons

From RRW

The Allegory of the Long Spoons

Legend has it that Rabbi Haim of Romshishok, Lituania, an itinerant preacher, was granted permission to visit both heaven and hell. Upon his return to earth, he traveled from town to town sharing his journey.

With an angel for his guide, the Rabbi is first ushered through the gates of Hell, which, he is surprised to find, are made of finely wrought gold. The gates are exquisitely lovely, as is the lush green landscape that lies beyond them. He looks at his angelic guide in disbelief. “It’s all so beautiful,” he says. “The sight of the meadows and mountains ... the sounds of the birds singing in the trees ... the scent of thousands of flowers ... ” And then the tantalizing aroma of a gourmet meal catches his attention.

Entering a large dining hall, he sees row after row of tables laden with platters of sumptuous food; yet the people seated around the tables are pale and emaciated, moaning in hunger. Coming closer, he sees that each man is holding a long spoon, but that both his arms are splinted with wooden slats so that he cannot bend either elbow to bring the food to his mouth.

The angel then took the rabbi to Heaven, where he encountered the same beauty he had witnessed in Hell. Entering the dining hall there, he saw the same scene, except in contrast to Hell, the people seated at the tables who had their arms splintered with wooden slates were sitting contentedly, cheerfully talking with each other, as they enjoyed their sumptuous meal.

As the rabbi came closer, he was amazed to watch how each person at a table would feed the person sitting across from him. The recipient of this kindness would express gratitude and then return the favor by leaning across the table to feed his benefactor.

The rabbi urged his angel to bring him back to Hell so he could share this solution with the poor souls trapped there. Racing into the dining hall, he shouted to the first starving man he saw, “You do not have to go hungry. Use your spoon to feed your neighbor, and he will surely return the favor and feed you.”

“‘You expect me to feed the detestable man sitting across the table?’ the man said angrily. ‘I would rather starve than give him the pleasure of eating!”

It was then that the rabbi understood. Heaven and Hell offer the same circumstances and conditions. The only difference is in the way that people treat each other.

Sukkah Sensitivity - A Paradigm for Communing with the Outside World

Sukkah Sensitivity

originally posted Sept. 23, 2013 

Sukkah Sensitivity (c) 2000 by Rabbi Richard Wolpoe

 
One of the laws of the Sukkah roof {aka SCHACH} tells us if the shade is less than 

50%  it is invalid. And on the other hand, any thatched SCHACH that is so thick that 

rain cannot permeate is also not valid.

So the cover must be more shade than Sun, yet not so shady that neither rain nor the 

Starlight can penetrate.

This can be considered a metaphor for how a Jew should deal with the outside world.

A protection or barrier of less than 50% is invalid,it is too prone to assimilation.
It is by definition more outside than inside, it is too permeable to be considered valid 

protection. However, any barrier that does not allow rain drops or Starlight, that is so 

thick-skinned as to be totally insensitive to the outside world, is also no good.  IOW, 

avoiding assimilation does not entitle us to erect barriers that completely eliminates 

sensitivity to the outside world at large.

-->

--
Kol Tuv- Best Regards,
Rabbi Richard Wolpoe
RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com

Did Moses Have a Speech Impediment?

From RRW
Guest Blogger: Mitchell First   

                   Did Moses Have a Speech Impediment?

                  I wrote about this topic before, but in revising my article for my forthcoming book, I came across a scholarly article that made me change my mind. Since we are in the midst of Devarim, this is a timely topic.

                  Moses tells God that he is “khevad peh” and “khevad lashon” (Exodus 4:10). But what exactly do these terms mean? 

                  To explain the first of the above expressions, Rashi uses a word from the French of his time. The word is usually translated as “stutter” or “stammer.”  (Rashi does not make any comment on the second expression.)  But where did Rashi get his explanation from? No such view is expressed by the Tannaim or Amoraim.

                   James Kugel, The Bible As It Was (1997), p. 297, points out that there was a Hellenistic Jewish writer from the 2^nd century B.C.E., Ezekiel the Tragedian, who wrote that Moses stammered. So Rashi was not the first to give the stammer interpretation.

                   It is possible that Rashi’s source was a story that eventually made its way into Exodus Rabbah 1:26. There a story is recorded about a test put to the infant Moses and that Moses’ mouth and tongue ended up being burned by a piece of coal and that this is what made him “khevad peh” and “khevad lashon.” But I have seen it suggested that burning to a mouth and tongue would more likely cause lisping than stuttering/stammering.  More importantly, Rashi does not cite any such a story in his comments to Exodus 4:10.

                Most likely, Rashi was just interpreting “khevad peh” and “khevad lashon” and offering a reasonable interpretation without any connection to the coal story. (Strangely, Rashi only makes his comments on “khevad peh.” Perhaps he interpreted both “khevad peh” and “khevad lashon” the same way. See his comment at Isaiah 6:8.)

                  How have other commentators understood “khevad peh” and “khevad lashon”? Rashbam thought that the eighty-year old Moses was telling God that he was not familiar with the Egyptian language anymore, having left there when he was young. Ibn Ezra, in his early commentary on the verse (his shorter commentary) agreed with Rashbam. But years later, when he wrote his longer commentary on the verse, he suggested that Moses was telling God that he had difficulty with certain letters. He then suggests that God’s response at 4:11-12 implied that God agreed to provide him with words without the difficult letters! A similar idea was suggested earlier by R. Chananel (quoted in R. Bachya). R. Chananel had written that Moses had difficulty with the letters that were difficult for the teeth: zayin, shin, resh, samekh, and tzade, and with the letters that were difficult for the tongue: dalet, tet, lamed, nun, and tav. 

                 Others have focused more on Moses’ oratorical and persuasive abilities. For example, S.D. Luzzatto suggested that Moses was arguing that he was not a “powerful orator who could speak at length before any audience and not cringe before anyone.” Luzzatto explained that this is alluded to at Numbers 12:3 which refers to Moses as the most modest man on the earth. Luzzatto explained further that having spent so many years as a shepherd it was difficult for Moses to go before a great king and argue with him. Similarly, Umberto Cassuto explained: “the meaning is only that he did not feel within himself the distinguished talents of an orator, and in his humility, he expressed the thought with some exaggeration.”  

            Finally, to give one more example, the Daat Mikra commentary suggested that “khevad peh” meant that Moses “spoke slowly” and “khevad lashon” meant that his “voice was not pleasant.”

            We can evaluate the various suggestions by looking at God’s response. At verse 12, God says: “ve-anokhi ehiyeh im pikha, ve-horeitikha asher tedaber.”  The key phrase is the second one: “I will instruct you what to say.” This phrase fits Rashbam’s approach and the Luzzatto-Cassuto oratorical approach better than it fits the other approaches. But the Rashbam’s approach is problematic because it does not fit well with Moses’ statement. Moses refers only to a general problem of “khevad peh” and “khevad lashon.” He does not say anything about inability to speak Egyptian. Based on this analysis, it would seem that the Luzzatto-Cassuto oratorical approach has the most merit.

             But after I wrote all the above and my earlier column on this topic, I came across an  article on our topic by the scholar Jeffrey Tigay in  Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 231 (1978). He defends the “speech impediment” approach. He points to Genesis 48:10 which describes Jacob’s eyes and records: kabdu mi-zoken, lo yukhal lirot. This suggests that K-B-D reflects a medical difficulty. He then looks at evidence from Akkadian and Arabic. He observes that “heaviness,” with respect to a body part, is a medical difficulty in these languages. His evidence from Akkadian is particularly persuasive since it is from kabātu, a cognate of the Hebrew K-B-D. (He admits that the evidence from these languages is not sufficient to pinpoint precisely what medical difficulty was involved.) 

           Most importantly, Tigay advises us to focus on Moses’ entire statement at 4:10: “lo ish devarim anokhi gam mitmol gam mi-shilshom…ki khevad peh u-khevad lashon anokhi.”  “Lo ish devarim” seems to be the complaint of lack of eloquence or ability to persuade and the like, and “ki khevad peh u-khevad lashon” seem to be adding something more specific. A speech impediment fits perfectly here. Tigay makes the reasonable assumption that “ki” means “because” in the above statement.

              So while God’s response at verse 12 supports the Luzzatto-Cassuto oratorical approach, Moses’ entire statement at verse 10 supports the speech impediment approach.

             But there is a response for the Luzzatto- Cassuto approach. It can interpret “ki” in verse 10 so that it means something like “rather.” This is how the Daat Mikra commentary interprets “ki” here.

             Nevertheless, looked at overall, Tigay’s arguments are strong ones and perhaps his approach, essentially the approach of Rashi, wins the day. It wins the day, despite the fact that it does not fit as well with God’s response at 4:12.

                                                          -------

              We still have a little more to discuss. At Exodus 6:12 and 6:30, Moses describes himself as aral sefatayim. We now have to ask whether this is a different flaw, or merely another way of referring to the flaw of Exodus 4:10. Rashi on Exodus 6:12 explains that it means that Moses’ lips were blocked. Although he does not refer to his comments on Exodus 4:10, the simplest approach is to view Rashi as understanding aral sefatayim as another way of describing the stuttering/stammering problem of Exodus 4:10. Rashbam does not comment at all on 6:12. Perhaps he would view aral sefatayim as another idiom for inability to speak Egyptian. Ibn Ezra (shorter commentary) writes that this is just another way of referring to the articulation defect he described earlier.  Luzzatto and Tigay also believe that aral sefatayim is just another idiomatic way of referring to the flaw described earlier, even though they disagree as to what the earlier flaw was.

                   On the other hand, some commentators believe that what we have here is a description of a new flaw. For example, Cassuto believes that aral sefatayim  reflects Moses’ doubting his oratorical capacities in a new and more drastic form. Daat Mikra  believes that the idiom here is that Moses’ lips were closed, and the meaning is that he could not speak words that penetrated to others.

                    But since most commentators are reluctant to attribute to Moses a new flaw, we can conclude that whether or not Moses had a speech impediment depends on how one interprets the flaw (or flaws) of verse 4:10.         

                                                                -------        

                  Tigay concludes as follows: “History has known other creative geniuses and national leaders, from Demosthenes to Felix Mendelssohn and Churchill, who worked their effect on humanity despite speech impediments. The Bible viewed Moses as an agent of God whose success owed nothing to his natural endowments, but only to the persuasion worked by the words and deeds he uttered and performed under divine direction.”    

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Mitchell First does not recall the Hollywood producers giving Charlton Heston any difficulties in articulation. 

Supreme Court Justice recalls ‘very strange Jewish upbringing'

From RRW

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/251943