Chavarah- Jewish Community Learning

A blog of Jewish study and traditions. Notes from classes: Torah Study with Rabbi Marder, Toledot and Shabbaton as well as other details found of interest.

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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Gibberish and Gates / On to Avram

Torah Study Notes Sept 12

R. Marder Genesis 11:8-9

The name Babel
derivative from Babylonia

They thought: Bab El (Babylon) - Gate to/of God
God named: Babel - Gibberish

interesting etymology here.
Language accentuates the differences between people.
It is a double edged sword.

Samson Raphael Hirsch on the nature of Hebrew.

In his translation and commentary on Genesis, the great nineteenth century German Neo-Orthodox rabbi and scholar, Samson Raphael Hirsch, provides what is perhaps a more accurate translation of this very difficult passage. Working from an elaborate system of Hebrew philology that attempts to establish the true meaning of the Biblical text from within itself based on the etymological and phonetic relationships among the words of the Biblical lexicon, Hirsch makes a compelling case that the Hebrew text in Genesis 10:5 is saying that the proliferation of dialects (literally "tongues") was a consequence of the dispersion of peoples, not its cause. He further points out that the Hebrew word for "language" used in Genesis 11 is not the same as the word for "tongue" used in Genesis 10:5, but describes something much more general. He argues that what is being described in Genesis 11:7 is not a confusing of language in the sense of dialectification so much as a "withering away...the thought that is conveyed by this passage is that when God comes down, language is detached from its formative source." (The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Bereshis, Feldheim, New York and Jerusalem, 2002; English translation of the 1867 German edition by Daniel Haberman, pp. 252-280).http://www.jinfo.org/Linguists.html


the English word for "have" is not in Hebrew
What belongs to a person in English is 'alloted' to a person in Hebrew. Private property or the notion of ownership is not a concept in Hebrew - it was introduced in other languages.

The concept of multi-lingual people having a deeper understanding of things was discussed.

Yiddish Folktale - the feminist version:

(need details)

End of the story has a repetition or redundant line: Scattered is noted twice and that must have hidden meanings.

Rashi says they were scattered once in this world and again in the world to come.

There is confusion in figuring out the punishment for human behavior when comparing the flood punishment to the Babel punishment:

Flood - people were bad to each other and the punishment was death.
Babel - people actually worked together well but the rebelled against God - punishment was to be scattered and diversified.

Thus peace among people is given greater importance and less drastic of a punishment.

Verses 10-32 give another lineage from Shem to Avram
10 generations -
similarly there are 10 generations from Adam to Noah

Comparing the structure of this line to Chapter 5 - after Adam -
The life spans get shorter.
Younger when they have children
And in Chapter 11 it doesn't say "and they died"

Eli Munk points out the the importance of this lineage shows that the patriarchs are human and not divine. Which is important when considering the ancestry of the messiah.

Midrash on the younger life of Avram from this: how Terrah saw his youngest son die based on Nimrod throwing Avram into the furnace.

And another story on how Avram smashed his father’s idols and tried to blame it on the ‘bigger’ idol to show him that idols have no power.

(more updates soon)

Shana Tova!

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