^^^ Did you know that we have an SE dev amongst our ranks?

@IsaacMoses No! Cool.

Just linking to judaism.stackexchange.com/a/36273 to show off the translation I recently came up with of "יצא ידי חובתו": "escaped the hold of his obligation". I'm (probably very inordinately) proud of it. (I certainly welcome improvement suggestions, though.)

@IsaacMoses cool! And with substantial participation, not just a "created the account once and haven't used it much" user.

@MonicaCellio Exactly.

@msh210 Nice! "The hold of" for "ידי" seems particularly innovative. Is that the sense in which "ידי" is actually meant in that phrase, or is it just a nice coincidence that you can match "hold" with "hand"?

@IsaacMoses I can think of two possibilities for the meaning of "ידי" here: 1, "the power of". I assume it means this, actually, and that'd match "יד" as in Hashem's "יד חזקה" and maybe in "ידו על העליונה". ‎2, nothing at all, or not much; "יצא ידי חובתו" would thus mean just (or roughly) "יצא חובתו". That might fit into phrases like "מידי פעם", where it also seems to mean nothing. I don't know which is right, and it'd be nice to, but [cont'd]

[cont'd] I'm assuming #1, and "hold" also has the figurative meaning of "power" (besides the close literal connection, as you mention, between the words).

. . . Actually... I'm not sure "hold" does have that meaning. I guess what it really means is "tight grip". Hm. :-/

I guess my pride was inordinate.

(On the third hand (pun intended), maybe "ידי חובתו" does mean "tight grip". But I don't know of another phrase where it's used that way.