Avodah Mailing List

Volume 37: Number 73

Tue, 10 Sep 2019

• 1. Tehillim 27 (Sholom Simon)
• 2. Re: Tehillim 27 (Zev Sero)
• 3. The Science Of Astrology (Jay F. Shachter)
• 4. What does "teruah" mean? (Sholom Simon)
• 5. Re: What does "teruah" mean? (Zev Sero)
• 6. Re: What does "teruah" mean? (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: What does "teruah" mean? (Simon Montagu)

I was listening to a shiur on Tehillim 27, and the rav said that he thinks
that Sefardim and Edot Mizrachi say Tehillim 27 every day (as opposed to
Ashkenazi minhag to say it in Elul, etc.).  Does anybody know more about
this?
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On 6/9/19 3:38 pm, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote:
> I was listening to a shiur on Tehillim 27, and the rav said that he 
> thinks that Sefardim and Edot Mizrachi say Tehillim 27 every day (as 
> opposed to Ashkenazi minhag to say it in Elul, etc.).? Does anybody know 
> more about this?

Check any Sefardi siddur, before Maariv.  I happen to have "Siddur Beit 
Tefillah" (J'm, 1993) handy, and it says "yesh nohagim lomar mizmorim 
eilu lifnei tefilat arvit", followed by #27 and the assortment of 
pesukim that are common in all nuscha'ot (including many Ashkenaz 
sidurim, but not Artscroll) before maariv.


-- 
Zev Sero            A prosperous and healthy 5780 to all
z...@sero.name       Seek Jerusalem's peace; may all who love you prosper

> 
> Astrology was taken as science for centuries beyond their day.  The
> IE, a rationalist, was an astrologer because in his world there was
> no contradiction between the two.
> 

The idea that nearly all of our Sages believed in something for which
there is zero empirical support, bothers me greatly.  Consequently I
am highly motivated to think up a possible rational justification for
their belief in astrology.  This is what I have come up with: in the
time and place where our Sages lived, diet varied with the seasons.
Therefore, so did nutritional deficiencies (thus, in Northern European
countries, until a couple centuries ago, most people got scurvy every
Winter).  Nutritional deficiencies at different gestational stages
could have different effects on the unborn child -- e.g., an iron
deficiency at a gestational age of one month could have a different
effect than a salt deficiency at a gestational age of five months.
The effect would be very slight because the mother absorbs most of the
nutritional deficiencies herself (e.g., if you have no calcium in your
diet when you are pregnant, you will give your baby the calcium in
your body, and your teeth will fall out), but there really might have
been a slight but nonzero correlation between a person's character and
the season of his birth.


                        Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
                        6424 North Whipple Street
                        Chicago IL  60645-4111
                                (1-773)7613784   landline
                                (1-410)9964737   GoogleVoice
                                j...@m5.chicago.il.us
                                http://m5.chicago.il.us

                        "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur"

What does "teruah" mean?  Most definitions I've seen are along the lines of
something like "shout with joy" -- Jastrow points me towards ?????.
(hariyah -- hey-reish-yud-heh) which in modern day Hebrew (al pi HaRav
Google) is "cheers".

That fits many places (e.g., Tehillim 150 "b'tziltzilei truah").

It seems somewhat related in Tehillim 27 (zivchei teruah), although
somebody (was it Rashi?) connects it to the two-letter shoresh "reish ayin"
meaning friend (pointing to a pasuk related to Bilaam).

Both of those seem to have positive connotations.

But it's not apparent to me how this definition squares with "Yom Teruah"
(ok, maybe), but harder is the shofar sound of teruah, which is supposed to
be a sigh (or cry?).

Thoughts?

KvCh!

-- Sholom
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AIUI the Kara'im understand it to mean "to make a loud noise", so on Yom 
Teruah (which they refuse to call Rosh Hashana because that's in Nissan) 
they shout.  Of course they're wrong about the mitzvah, but they can 
probably be trusted about the word's literal meaning.


-- 
Zev Sero            A prosperous and healthy 5780 to all
z...@sero.name       Seek Jerusalem's peace; may all who love you prosper

On Mon, Sep 09, 2019 at 08:57:01AM -0400, Sholom Simon wrote:
> What does "teruah" mean?  Most definitions I've seen are along the lines of
> something like "shout with joy"...
...
> It seems somewhat related in Tehillim 27 (zivchei teruah)...
..
> Both of those seem to have positive connotations.
> 
> But it's not apparent to me how this definition squares with "Yom Teruah"
> (ok, maybe), but harder is the shofar sound of teruah, which is supposed to
> be a sigh (or cry?).

The gemara disputes which aspect of Sisera's mother's crying for her
son a teru'ah reenacts. Whether it should be genuchei gana (a shevarim
in modern parlance), or yelulei yalal (what we call a teru'ah) -- or
both. A machloqes between whether teru'ah refers to a moan or a whimper.
And the targum for "Yom Teru'ah" is "Yom Yevavah". Not happy stuff.


According to RSRH, ra means evil because of its derivation from the
shoresh /reish-ayin-ayin/ to shatter. /reish-vav-ayin/ is a different
shoresh, but RSRH would consider them related. R' Matisyahu Clark,
in his dictionary systematizing RSRH's methodology, talks about the
general relationship between vav-hapo'al roots and pei-ayin-ayin ones.

So I think the fact that the sound is broken is the primary etymology
of the word. A short, stocatto, sound.

And "haleluhu betziltzelei seru'ah" -- most say this is describing the
crash of symbols. Metzudas Tzion says chatzotzros, which doesn't disprove
our point, but does defuse this example as an indicator.

And from there, broken sound that expresses emotion.

After all, Middle Eastern women ulelate at the joy of a family simchah,
or in morning (as in the gemara's "yelulei yalal" of Eim Sisera).

But that part, about the extreme emotion being the cause of the sound
rather than what kind of emotion, was said by others.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Between stimulus & response, there is a space.
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   In that space is our power to choose our
Author: Widen Your Tent      response. In our response lies our growth
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    and our freedom. - Victor Frankl, (MSfM)

On Mon, Sep 9, 2019 at 4:44 PM Zev Sero via Avodah <avo...@lists.aishdas.org>
wrote:
> AIUI the Kara'im understand it to mean "to make a loud noise", so on Yom
> Teruah (which they refuse to call Rosh Hashana because that's in Nissan)
> they shout.  Of course they're wrong about the mitzvah, but they can
> probably be trusted about the word's literal meaning.

A related question: in Joshua 6 when all the people "hari`u teru`a gedola",
did they shout a great shout, or sound a great teru`a on shofarot?


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