Avodah Mailing List

Volume 33: Number 27

Wed, 18 Feb 2015

• 1. Re: Jewish jokes ()
• 2. Re: How Did Rashi Make a Living? ()
• 3. Re: Different Ways of Pronouncing Hebrew ()
• 4. Re: Jewish jokes (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: How Did Rashi Make a Living? (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Different Ways of Pronouncing Hebrew (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: Jewish jokes ()
• 8. Re: Jewish jokes (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: Jewish jokes (Zev Sero)
• 10. Re: Jewish jokes ()
• 11. Re: Jewish jokes (Micha Berger)

 
 
From:  Eli Turkel via Areivim <_areivim@lists.aishdas.org_ 
(mailto:arei...@lists.aishdas.org) >
>>  connected with a recent parsha

--quote--
Rabbi  Samson Raphael Hirsch found humor in what, on the surface, seems to
be  outrageous blasphemy. In*Parashas Beshalach, *Pharaoh's army is  closing
in  on the Children of Israel at the Red Sea. They cry out to G-d. And  then
they  say to Moshe, "Was it for a lack of graves in Egypt that you brought
us  here to die in the wilderness?"

Rabbi  Hirsch says, "This sharp irony even in a moment of deepest anxiety
and  despair marks the sense of wit that is characteristic of the
clearheaded  Tribe of Jacob."

--end  quote--
 
for  more see

_http://hamodia.com/features/http://hamodi_ 
(http://hamodia.com/features/die-laughing/) 

--
Eli  Turkel





>>>>>
 
 
There are several places in Tanach where people are  sarcastic.  "Do they 
lack graves in Egypt?" is one of them.   Another is when Yosef's brothers 
say, "We'll see what will become of his dreams  now."  Another is in Tehillim 
(Hallel) when Dovid Hamelech says, "They  worship gods that have eyes but 
can't see, that have ears but can't hear --  may those who make them become 
like them!"  
 
There's also King Achish, when they bring in Dovid (pretending to be  
crazy), and the king says, "Am I lacking meshuga'im that you had to bring me  
another one?"  (Metzudas Dovid says his wife and daughter were insane so he  
meant it literally -- he already has enough meshuga'im!)
 
Strangely, Rashi does not seem to recognize sarcasm when he sees  it. If 
this is quintessential Jewish wit, it's strange that he didn't  recognize it.  
About Yosef's brothers he says (admittedly quoting some  Tanna), "Ruach 
hakodesh said, 'We'll see what will become of his dreams' " --  IOW the 
Authorial Voice, not the brothers, says this.  
 
Rashi adds, "It's impossible that the brothers could have said this because 
 if he's dead then of course his dreams won't come true."  Every year when 
I  get to this pasuk I wonder how Rashi could have been so clueless, not to  
recognize the sarcasm.  Didn't they have sarcasm back then?  It  strikes me 
that Hebrew lacks a word for "sarcasm" so people back then may not  have 
recognized something that they lacked a word for.  They did have words  for 
mocking and joking. And Tanach does have sarcasm in a number of  places, as I 
said!
 
 
While we're talking about Biblical humor, there's another place in the  
Chumash that I wonder about every year.  When Yosef interprets the butler's  
dream he says, "Yisa Pharaoh es roshecha -- Pharaoh will lift up your head and 
 return you to your position."  Then when he interprets the baker's dream 
he  uses the exact same words, "Yisa Pharaoh es roshcha -- Pharaoh will lift 
up your  head" but adds a bitter twist, one fateful word, "me'alecha -- from 
off of  you!"  It seems a mean joke, letting the baker think for a moment 
that he  is going to be saved like the butler, only to have his fortune  
reversed by the addition of one word.  I always wonder what did the baker  do to 
deserve this jab from Yosef?
 

--Toby Katz
_t613k@aol.com_ (mailto:t6...@aol.com) 
..
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From: Micha Berger via Avodah  <avo...@lists.aishdas.org>

: I recall learning a gemara in which a  rectangle 50 by 100 is to be
: made into a square.  What is involved is  dealing with the square
: root of two.  RASHI presents way of getting  the square by cutting it
: into strips.  Is this not mathematics?   Is this Torah? [--RYL]

Indeed that was how much of geometry was done back  then. Thus the
expression "squaring the circle" as a reference to finding its  area.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha






>>>>>
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_circle
 
It turns out of course that finding the area of a circle this way leads to  
a close approximation, but it is not actually possible to find the exact 
area  this way.  Thus the expression "squaring the circle" in common 
conversation  refers to trying to do something that is logically impossible.
 

--Toby  Katz
t6...@aol.com
..
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From: "Mandel, Seth via Avodah" _avodah@lists.aishdas.org_ 
(mailto:avo...@lists.aishdas.org) 


>> But most people are unaware of the changes as they  happen.  I am an old 
curmudgeon, and I still remember when I heard the  idiom "she's like, 
"really?" and I'm like, "sure."  O-hoh, I said to  myself, a neologism using 
"like" in the meaning of "say."
This is relevant to  Avodah-ness in that masorah means that, a change that 
is made by the community  unconsciously. <<


Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
e-mail _mandels@ou.org_ (mailto:mand...@ou.org) 

 
>>>>>
 
It seems to me that the idiom you mention (using "was like" to mean  
"said") is really a shortened form of "he said something like...."  
 
"She said something like, 'really?' and I said something like,  'Sure.'"   
This is a way of indicating that you are giving the gist of  a conversation, 
paraphrasing it rather than quoting exactly.
 
I think there is a somewhat similar use of the word "like" in Ber 19:15  
when the angels urge Lot to get out of town already and the pasuk says, "Ukemo 
 hashachar alah" -- i.e, it was something like dawn, somewhere close to 
dawn but  not there yet.
 
As to RSM's larger point, he is correct -- if I understand him correctly -- 
 in saying that a community's pronunciation (and vocabulary, too) changes 
all the  time, most of the time unconsciously.  
 
Here are some contemporary examples.  Yiddish borrowed a lot  of words from 
Hebrew.  A lot of those words became a natural,  unconscious part of the 
day-to-day vocabulary of frum English speakers.   Today, because Hebrew is 
becoming another common second language for English  speakers, we now find that 
Hebrew is influencing Yiddish-Hebrew, so to  speak.  A natural, 
unselfconscious vocabulary is becoming a slightly less  natural, more self-conscious 
and more formally "correct" vocabulary.  A few  examples:
 
 
Shabbosim => Shabasos or Shabatot
shalashudis => seudah shlishis
balkorei => baal kriyah
simchas => semachos
 
PS. I suspect that if we were transported back to Moshe Rabeinu's time we  
would hardly understand a word he was saying.  We would be like,  "Huh?"
 
 

--Toby  Katz
t6...@aol.com
..
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On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 12:29:40AM -0500, via Avodah wrote:
: There are several places in Tanach where people are  sarcastic...

Are there any places where the "Narrator" or narrator (depending on
Ta- vs -Nakh) employes sarcasm?

This go to the question of whether there is ever an apprpriate time
for this form of expression, or whether it only appears in Tanakh in
a way that may be someone's slip-up.

: While we're talking about Biblical humor, there's another place in the  
: Chumash that I wonder about every year.  When Yosef interprets the butler's  
: dream he says, "Yisa Pharaoh es roshecha -- Pharaoh will lift up your head and
: return you to your position."  Then when he interprets the baker's dream 
: he  uses the exact same words, "Yisa Pharaoh es roshcha -- Pharaoh will lift 
: up your  head" but adds a bitter twist, one fateful word, "me'alecha -- from 
: off of  you!" ...

Such word play, though, seems to be common in nevu'ah and might not be
for humor effect. Rather, the human mind may attach a similar word to
a signon.

For example, from the beginning of Yirmiyahu: "maqel shaqeid ani ro'eh" --
"ki shaqeid Ani la'aso".

Or Chazal's (rishonim's?) explanation that Ninveveh, was nehepeches
after all, but with teshuvah rather than the physical desctruction it
could have meant.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             What you get by achieving your goals
mi...@aishdas.org        is not as important as
http://www.aishdas.org   what you become by achieving your goals.
Fax: (270) 514-1507              - Henry David Thoreau

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 11:04:55PM -0500, RnTK via Avodah wrote:
:> Indeed that was how much of geometry was done back  then. Thus the
:> expression "squaring the circle" as a reference to finding its  area.

: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_circle

: It turns out of course that finding the area of a circle this way leads to 
: a close approximation, but it is not actually possible to find the exact 
: area this way. Thus the expression "squaring the circle" in common 
: conversation  refers to trying to do something that is logically impossible.

This is because pi is not only irrational (there is no ratio of integers
that comes to pi) it is transcendental (cannot be the solution of a
1-variable polynomial). So, there is no way to get pi by multiplying
sides of rectangles and adding the results together (nor in 3D volumes, 4D
whaterver-you'd-call-its, etc...), and the project is indeed impossible.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man can aspire to spiritual-moral greatness
mi...@aishdas.org        which is seldom fully achieved and easily lost
http://www.aishdas.org   again. Fulfillment lies not in a final goal,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      but in an eternal striving for perfection. -RSRH

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 10:48:56PM -0500, via Avodah wrote:
: As to RSM's larger point, he is correct -- if I understand him correctly -- 
: in saying that a community's pronunciation (and vocabulary, too) changes 
: all the  time, most of the time unconsciously.  
:  
: Here are some contemporary examples.  Yiddish borrowed a lot  of words from 
: Hebrew...

: Shabbosim => Shabasos or Shabatot
: shalashudis => seudah shlishis
: balkorei => baal kriyah
: simchas => semachos

But we were talking about havarah, and whether these changes are halachic.

Is someone yotzei lekhat-chilah if the baal qeri'ah says the Yiddish-
influenced "Shabbes" rather than giving the beis its proper qamatz?

Many changes are unconscious, and reflect the surrounding
language. Perhaps even including this example. In general Yiddish and
European languages tend to put the emphasis earlier in the word. Which is
what makes the long vowel qamatz at the end of "Shabbos" or the cholam
of "Yom-Tov" odd to their speech patterns, yeilding their slurring
into schwas.

And in the converse, why some parts of Eastern Europe ended up rounding
words like "Melekh" into "Meilikh" -- because the rounder tzeirei better
fits the emphasis their ear expected to be put on that syllable.

Is that evolution accepted as part of mesorah? Or should we try to
reservse such changes?

Then you get to the choilam / chaulam / cheilam, etc... Or the lack of
ayin or the sav instead of tav in Ashkenazi Hebrew. More recent examples
are the American reish and cholam. All changes to match the sounds we
got used to hearing and saying. Or are they? In the older cases, it's
hard to be sure. There are Teimanim who come from towns where the mesorah
for cheilam was also quite close to the Litvisher version?

"Shabbosim", however, is unquestionably not the Hebrew of Tanakh or
the cofifiers of the siddur. If a modern paytan composing a shir to
celebrate Eliayahu's arrival bimheirah beyameinu, or perhaps someone
writing a qinah for the Shoah, were to use the word, I would see
no question in using it. But then, he could have written the whole
piyut / qinah in Yiddish.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Good decisions come from experience;
mi...@aishdas.org        Experience comes from bad decisions.
http://www.aishdas.org                - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable
Fax: (270) 514-1507

 
In a message dated 2/18/2015, mi...@aishdas.org writes:

>>  Are there any places where the "Narrator" or  narrator (depending on
Ta- vs -Nakh) employes sarcasm?

This goes to  the question of whether there is ever an appropriate time
for this form of  expression, or whether it only appears in Tanakh in
a way that may be  someone's slip-up. <<

 
>>>>>>
 
 
When Dovid Hamelech says in Tehillim "kemohem yehiyu oseihem -- may those  
who make them be like them" -- this is not a slip-up.
 
Chazal even say that mockery against A'Z is appropriate.
 

--Toby Katz
t6...@aol.com
..
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On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 11:28:14AM -0500, via Avodah wrote:
: When Dovid Hamelech says in Tehillim "kemohem yehiyu oseihem -- may those  
: who make them be like them" -- this is not a slip-up.
:  
: Chazal even say that mockery against A'Z is appropriate.

I don't see the sarcasm, though. To me, it's just a straightforward
qelalah.

The sugya is on Sanhedrin 63b (c.f. Megillah 25b)
    Amar Rav Nachman: Kol leiasnusa asira,
    chutz mileitzenusa deAZ, desharia
R Nachman brings Yeshaiah 46:1 and Hosheiah 10:5 as examples.

Similarly, someone asked me off-list if anyone had mentioned Eliyahu's
ridicule of Ba'al and his followers beHar haKarmel. Well, we did now!

And Qiddushin 81a
    Rabbi Meir hava mislotzeitz be'overei aveirah...
    Rabbi Aqiva hava mislotzeitz be'overei aveirah...

But in both cases, the declaration is followed by a story in which the
satan appears as a woman to tempt the scoffer, the tana goes halfway,
and the satan stops the scene by declaring, "Had they not called out
in the raqi'a "Be carefull with ... and his Torah', I would have valued
your blood at to ma'eh."

A cautionary tale against.

Arguably the gemara is AGAINST targeting leitzanus about people who sin
sexually, but AZ is okay.

Or, as Rashi understands the gemara in Qiddushin, it differs in another
way. Rav Nachman spoke of ridiculing AZ. Rashi explains R' Meir and R'
Aqiva as ridiculing the lack of self control of the sinners. Which is
why the satan showed them that it's not so easy after all. (And IMHO
that explains why the satan didn't let them acutally sin; the point of
the challenge was to learn about self control, not about zenus itself.)

R' Mordechai Kornfeld (Rosh Kollel, Kollel Iyun haDaf) suggested that
the difference is that one should not mock the sinner, only the sin.

(Notably, RMK cites both Rav Tzadoq (Tzidqas haTzadiq 260) and Rav
Hutner (Pachad Yitzchaq, Purim 1:4) as saying that ridiculing any
sin is appropriate, not just AZ. RYH says that AZ is mentioned simply
because it's the aveirah for which leitzanus is a particularly effective
counter-measure. Rav Tzadoq notes that since Anshei Keneses haGdolah
locked up the yh"r for AZ, someone who ridicules AZ doesn't have to worry
about the satan's reprisal. It is the one sin for which it's possible
to have absolutely zero taavah.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow
mi...@aishdas.org        man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries
http://www.aishdas.org   about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On 02/18/2015 12:29 AM, via Avodah wrote:
> While we're talking about Biblical humor, there's another place in
> the Chumash that I wonder about every year.  When Yosef interprets
> the butler's dream he says, "Yisa Pharaoh es roshecha -- Pharaoh will
> lift up your head and return you to your position."  Then when he
> interprets the baker's dream he uses the exact same words, "Yisa
> Pharaoh es roshcha -- Pharaoh will lift up your head" but adds a
> bitter twist, one fateful word, "me'alecha -- from off of you!"  It
> seems a mean joke, letting the baker think for a moment that he is
> going to be saved like the butler, only to have his fortune reversed
> by the addition of one word.  I always wonder what did the baker do
> to deserve this jab from Yosef?

You may as well ask what he did to deserve the bad interpretation in the
first place.  After all, dreams go after the interpretation, so it was up
to Yosef to say whatever he liked.

Malbim points out that logically, since these were not the wine-waiter
and baker themselves, but the ministers in charge of them, the minister
of wine-waiters should have been executed and the minister of bakers
should have been let off after a year in prison.  All the minister of
bakers did wrong was not to keep a close enough eye on his department,
so that an incompetent underling allowed a stone to be baked into a loaf.
Once it was there, what was the minister to do?  How could he have known
it was there?  X-ray vision?!  A year in prison seems enough to teach him
a lesson in ministerial responsibility.  The minister of wine-waiters,
though, was grossly negligent; he didn't pour the cup himself, but when
it was handed to him, before handing it on to Par`oh he should have
looked at it, and he would have seen the fly and sent it back.  The
underling who poured it was probably not at fault, because the fly
probably fell in after he poured it, but the minister deserved hanging.
So if Yosef had said the minister of waiters will be hanged and the
minister of bakers will go free, they would have assumed he was just
saying the logical thing, and he would make no impression on them.
He wanted to go free, so he decided to reverse the interpretations,
predicting something not logically predictable, so that when it happened
the surviving minister would remember him and get him out.

Another explanation I heard from my father: When the minister of waiters
started his story with "gefen", Yosef was immediately reminded of the
coming geulah: "Gefen mimitzrayim tasia`", and decided to reward him.
The minister of bakers started his story with "Af ani", and when Yosef
heard him invoke "Af", anger, he took this as a sign to kill him off.

 
In a message dated 2/18/2015, mi...@aishdas.org writes:

>>  Rav Tzadoq notes that since Anshei Keneses haGdolah
locked up the yh"r for  AZ, someone who ridicules AZ doesn't have to worry
about the satan's  reprisal. It is the one sin for which it's possible
to have absolutely zero  taavah.) <<


-- 
Micha  Berger              



>>>>>
 
 
Yet every once in a while some Jew goes off to India and ends up in ashram  
or something!
 
Also we have so many isms that are similar to A'Z in many ways, e.g.,  
Communism, socialism, feminism, environmentalism....
 
And mockery is indeed often an effective weapon against them, often more so 
 than any attempt to engage them intellectually or logically!
 

--Toby Katz
t6...@aol.com
..
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On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 03:23:04PM -0500, via Avodah wrote:
:> Rav Tzadoq notes that since Anshei Keneses haGdolah
:> locked up the yh"r for  AZ, someone who ridicules AZ doesn't have to worry
:> about the satan's  reprisal. It is the one sin for which it's possible
:> to have absolutely zero  taavah.)

: Yet every once in a while some Jew goes off to India and ends up in ashram  
: or something!

The gemara depicts it as trapped in a lead cauldron, not dead.

And R Tzadoq here is talking about the possibility to be entirely freed
from the hy"r, not that everyone is.

So I don't see the problem.

: And mockery is indeed often an effective weapon against them, often more so 
: than any attempt to engage them intellectually or logically!

The problem is that the same knife cuts many ways. It destroys emunah.
It creates pirud by manipulating people into dismissing other derakhim
as wrong, rather than a bad fit for me.

And middos, once unleashed, are hard to aim only at appropriate targets.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole
mi...@aishdas.org        heart, your entire soul, and all you own."
http://www.aishdas.org   Love is not two who look at each other,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      It is two who look in the same direction.


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