Grammar

Found 7 Search results

  1. Seeing God or Being Seen By God (Audio)

    Rabbi Elyakim Krumbein | 7 minutes

    Who is being seen during the Temple pilgrimage sacrifices—God or the members of Bnei Yisrael? The grammar and vocalization of the phrasing is strange and unclear. This tension is explored by examining momentous instances in Tanakh where there is a phrase relating to "seeing God's face"—such as the place of the Akeida and where Yaakov wrestles with the mysterious figure.

  2. Seeing God or Being Seen By God

    Rabbi Elyakim Krumbein

    Who is being seen during the Temple pilgrimage sacrifices—God or the members of Bnei Yisrael? The grammar and vocalization of the phrasing is strange and unclear. This tension is explored by examining momentous instances in Tanakh where there is a phrase relating to "seeing God's face"—such as the place of the Akeida and where Yaakov wrestles with the mysterious figure.

  3. Short Thoughts on Korach - What Did He Take?

    Rabbi Ezra Bick | 12 minutes

    The parasha begins with a statement that Korah "took" - but there is no direct object, and "took" is a transitive verb. What did Korach take? He took himself outside of the comunity, in order to stew and plot.

  4. The Letter Lamed and Akeidat Yitzhak

    Dr. Avigail Rock

  5. Rabbi Yona ibn Janach

    Dr. Avigail Rock

    Although R. Yona ibn Janach (Ribag) did not author even one full volume dedicated to biblical commentary, his contributions to parshanut have proven momentous.  For Ribag, biblical exegesis represented both the most fundamental basis and the ultimate application of the study of Hebrew language and grammar. His grammatical innovations lay the foundation for biblical exegetes who came after him, thus he should be viewed as an important exegete who influenced parshanut both in his time and in the following generations. He wrote Sefer Harikma and Sefer Hashorashim.

    Ribag had three distinct impetuses for writing Sefer Harikma:

    • Basic understanding of the Hebrew language is an urgent concern.
    • Understanding language is the basis of all knowledge.
    • One cannot understand the Torah without understanding its language.

     

    Some of the grammatical topics that Ribag discusses include:

    • The Lamed of Substitution
    • Derekh Ketzara – various abbreviations used in biblical Hebrew
    • Synecdoche – a type of metonymy in which a general term is used in place of the specific one
    • Syntactic Inversion
    • Roots of Hebrew Words

  6. R. Avraham ibn Ezra

    Part 2

    Dr. Avigail Rock

    Ibn Ezra describes his commentary as “the book of the straight,” - a reference to following the way of peshat. Ibn Ezra explains the work as a commentary based on the fundamentals of grammar, language, and stylistic sensitivity and conforming to the requirements of logic and reason.

    Ibn Ezra declares that he is not obligated to previous commentaries, referring both to Midrashic sources and the commentaries of his predecessors.  However, in his commentaries to the halakhic part of the Torah, Ibn Ezra sees himself as bound to the Sages’ exegesis.

    Similarly, Ibn Ezra distinguishes between two types of Midrashic sources: tradition and speculation.  The Ibn Ezra feels compelled to accept a tradition but not an interpretation that they concocted of their own accord.

     

    Ibn Ezra formulates a consistent set of linguistic and grammatical rules in his commentary:

    • The formulation of rules which are adequate for all circumstances. For example he explains the word "Na" as always meaning "now".
    • The meaninglessness of trivial changes; the verse uses synonyms frequently, and there need be no justification for interchanging them. Similarly, there is no reason necessary for variations in spelling. This is applied to differences between the Ten Commandments in Shemot vs. Devarim.
    • The verse will often use a word to refer to multiple items, even though it appears in the text only once.
    • The Torah is written generally according to chronological sequence. Despite this, sometimes there are some divergences from chronological sequence.
    • The juxtaposition of the passages in the halakhic sections of the Torah is significant, not a capricious sequence of laws.

  7. Radak - Rav David Kimchi

    Dr. Avigail Rock

    The Radak — R. David Kimchi — was born and active in Provence, in southern France, near Spain. The Radak was a member of a family of Spanish grammarians and exegetes. Like R. Avraham ibn Ezra, the Kimchi family brought the fundamentals of linguistics and grammar from Spain to France.

    Despite the fact that Radak sees himself as a pashtan, he does not hesitate to cite derash. However, when the Radak quotes these sources, it is obvious that he has a distinction between peshat and derash.

    Two principles guide the Radak in citing Midrashic sources:

    • When it is difficult to resolve the peshat without the derash.
    • For the lovers of derash - in order to explain the text and engage his readers.

    The view of the Radak is that the Torah is not a historical tome. Those stories of the Patriarchs which have been selected to put into the Torah with all of its details must fulfill one criterion: teaching a moral lesson.

    Just as one may learn from the positive acts of the forefathers, so one may learn from their negative acts. The Radak does not engage in apologetics; instead, he writes explicitly that the narratives which describe the negative acts of the Patriarchs have been written in order to help us avoid this sort of behavior.

    The Radak points out consistently that the Torah often uses repetitious language, not because each word introduces new meaning, but because the verse seeks to stress the significance of a given issue. This view stands in stark contrast to that of Rashi, who argues that generally speaking, one must assign meaning to every word, as there cannot be any redundancy in the biblical text.