V'dibarta Bam

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2:59 AM

@ShmuelBrin #2 seems far-fetched. You still make one crossing at a time (if you're tying with rope), so it shouldn't be any more difficult to tie a non-alternating knot than an alternating one. Instead, perhaps knots with high knot energy are difficult to tie one-handed...

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3:49 AM

Q: Non-Jewish family in an Orthodox Jewish Wedding

In a case of a Ger/Convert, what role can non-Jewish parents play at the wedding ceremony? Halachically can the parents accompany their child down the aisle? Could they stand under the Chuppa? Any sources on the topic would be much appreciated

4 hours later…

msh210

7:25 AM

@ShmuelBrin Now I have. Thanks.

curiousdannii

7:56 AM

Anyone heard of an approach like this within Judaism? Wondering if it would also be worth asking here.

Q: What's the origin of this approach of trying to obtain meaning from the individual letters of Hebrew words?

In a recent question about the names of God, two answers from different people wrote that the letters of the Tetragrammaton by themselves give the meaning of: The Hebrew letters mean “Behold the hand, Behold the nail”. YHWH is our salvation. Yud. (A hand) Heh. (Behold) Waw. (A nail) ...

exegesis origin language hebrew

8 hours later…

Monica Cellio

3:40 PM

@curiousdannii likes like pseudo-linguistic nonsense to me too. More specifically, it sounds like eisogesis, as opposed to exegesis -- somebody looks at a word, says "oh, that word is used in context X, and look, I can find words related to context X starting with each of its letters".

I've seen people do that sort of linguistic manipulation in Judaism as a way of adding meaning as part of a sermon or lesson; we do that sometimes, but don't claim that's what the text means or what God said. Going the other way is much more problematic.

Also, there's a logical flaw: if you say that each letter means one word, you're saying that every word in Hebrew has a meaning that is composed of selections from those 22 words. Saying that every yud means the same thing is going to make it hard to have an expressive language.

@curiousdannii so we have gematria, we have interpretations where people rearrange letters and point out a similar theme, we sometimes have "similar words from these letters" comparisons. I don't know if there's a name for the parts of that that aren't gematria, or if there are any formalities. That could be a good question for main, though it'd be helped by some rabbinic examples which I don't have off the top of my head.

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Q: Why is making salt water prohibited on Shabbat?

I have read in a few hagadot, and I think in the OU Pesach guide that the salt water to be used for the seder must be prepared before Shabbat begins. That implied that there is some prohibition for doing this during Shabbat. What melacha is being performed? Is there a prohibition of dissolving s...

passover-seder-hagada melacha-creative-work

Monica Cellio

4:17 PM

@curiousdannii oh, it looks like somebody else saw those questions and came here:

Q: Within Judaism is there a tradition of interpreting individual letters such as with YHVH

Two recent questions on Christianity Stack have got me thinking about the way some people interpret the divine name. One answer gave this interpretation: Yod - י Hand Hey - ה Open Window, to reveal Vav - ו Nail / Tent peg Hey - ה Open Window, to reveal Another answer came up with this interpre...

words aleph-bet-letters

b a

4:59 PM

@MonicaCellio It seems more like a specific case of notrikon than of gematriya

Monica Cellio

5:36 PM

@ba thanks; I didn't know notrikon. I was reaching for gematria only by broad association, the nearest thing I could think of to deriving additional meaning from the letters in words. (As with statistics, I suspect you can make gematria say anything you want, so it can't be a source of truth, just additional ideas.)

Alex

A: Is Gematria accepted by all?

R. Yehuda Aryeh Modena in his work Ari Nohem (p. 31) criticizes the method of using gematria as any kind of proof, primarily because anything can be "proved" this way. דבשלמא אם אחר הנחה אמתית ומקובלת וברורה מן התורה נמצא איזה ראשי תיבות או סופי תיבות או גימטריאות להיות לנו כמן זכרון מקומי ...

Monica Cellio

@Alex thanks!

Alex

You're welcome.

2 hours later…

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7:27 PM

Q: Is a car considered movable or immovable property?

The Mishnah (Kiddushin 1:5) differentiates between how one acquires movable and immovable property (translation follows Yachin): נְכָסִים שֶׁיֵּשׁ לָהֶם אַחֲרָיוּת נִקְנִין בְּכֶסֶף וּבִשְׁטָר וּבַחֲזָקָה. וְשֶׁאֵין לָהֶם אַחֲרָיוּת, אֵין נִקְנִין אֶלָּא בִמְשִׁיכָה. נְכָסִים שֶׁאֵין לָהֶם אַ...