Eichah

Originally posted on Divrei Acher
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Link


Listening to Eichah last night, I realized a simple thing, namely that of the first 4 chapters in which the Psukim are composed in alphabetical order, there is a discrepancy in the order used. Only the first chapter goes according to the order we're familiar with, chapters 2-4 have Peh before Ayin in all three chapters. Is this a mistake in transmission, or more likely, there were different orders used in different times? Has anyone noticed this, also any suggestions about literature on this topic.
What disappointed me about this finding last night, was the following: I've read Eichah dozens of times already, and it took me to become an Apikores to realize something as simple as this? Were we really that blind? I know we were, but that blind!
Another simple thing that came to my attention is that the meaning of the Posuk,
רְאֵה יְהוָה וְהַבִּיטָה, לְמִי עוֹלַלְתָּ כֹּה: אִם-תֹּאכַלְנָה נָשִׁים פִּרְיָם עֹלְלֵי טִפֻּחִים, אִם-יֵהָרֵג בְּמִקְדַּשׁ אֲדֹנָי כֹּהֵן וְנָבִיא
'See, O LORD, and consider, to whom Thou hast done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? (Lamentations 2:20)
has nothing to do with the Gemara's Pshat that says the latter half of the Psouk is a retort by God, referring to the slaying of Zecharyah by the Jews hundreds of years prior. This I kind of knew, but still the Drush which RSH"I brings down was always so vivid, I would automatically read it that way.

Nu, so what's the Mussar Haskel. Don't read TN"KH without Meforshim: you will become an Apikores. And conversely, the surest way to become an Apikores is to read the text of TN"KH by itself! But please boys and girls don't try this at home, it is dangerous.
POSTED BY ACHER AT 6:57 PM
LABELS: EICHAH
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4 COMMENTS:

zdub said...
They messed up with the links, but this should still work:

The Peh/Ayin Order in the Acrostics of the Book of Eichah.
JULY 30, 2009 8:39 PM

Baal Habos said...
Acher, great catch!

Some will say, what's the big deal? Chazal already caught all this, as pointed out by zdub. Well, Chazal had a much smaller corpus of literature to work with. I.e. they never had to mess with Tosifos (or even Gemarah)! So while we are attuned to scouring the details of the Mishna Berurah and Toisfois, Chazal had the luxury of analyzing the core texts. (Obviously I didn't do such a fine job with my Sanhedrin, because I don't ever recall hearing about this Ayin/Peh issue.)

And zdub, thanks for that link.


Interestingly enough, with the reversed order, this vort does not hold true.
JULY 31, 2009 10:40 AM

Acher said...
Zdub,

First, I'm happy to know that I have more than a dozen readers, maybe with 13 it means we can make a Pesach Seder, (Lfum Chad Girsa) :)

Anyway, thanks for the link, and that means I should check my emails from the Sforimblog more often for good stuff like this.

BHB,

I was actually very disappointed that I didn't remember the Gemarah in Sanhedrin myself, I did go through Sanhedrin some years back. But again, my greater disappointment lies in the fact that it took me till now to realize it.

And that Vort is true, I mean the good part of it: Elvis = Lives, Mamesh what can be more Poshut than that :)
And please if you have anything more like that please email me, you know I love this type of stuff.
JULY 31, 2009 8:00 PM

Modernorthodoxhistorian said...
I wrote an article on this:
see seforim.traditiononline.org

it is the last article on the site

Mitchell First
OCTOBER 6, 2009 8:23 PM

Oy Oy Shabbos

Originally posted on Divrei Acher
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Link


Over Shabbos, two things got me thinking.
First, when we say during Hagbah:
וְזֹאת, הַתּוֹרָה, אֲשֶׁר-שָׂם מֹשֶׁה, לִפְנֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל עַל-פִּי יְהוָה בְּיַד-מֹשֶׁה
the first part of the sentence being from Deuteronomy 4:44, and the second from Numbers 9:23, I thought: is this the best we came up with for expressing that the whole Torah was given to Moshe by God? The answer is yes, because for those who know, it doesn't state anywhere in the Chumash that God relayed all of it to Moshe, so yes, this Mishmash Posuk is the best we came up with for stating what the Torah itself is conspicuously missing. Which lead me to think: did I have to get this far to realize this. Why didn't I notice that we say this Mishmash sentence because we've got nothing better, five, ten years ago. I also knew that this is a composite Posuk, but I never thought, why, why nothing better. Unfortunately, the truth is that we usually don't think straight, especially when we're brought up to simply follow what we're taught. This is why I usually don't explain what brought me to my Apikorsus to those not familiar with the issues, and what I tell the same people when they say: do you think you're smarter than RSH"I, RMB"M or whomever. And, Ein Hachi Nami, I'm not. But in order to realize the Chulent your in, you have to look at it from outside. It only takes one peak, but that one peak makes an immeasurable difference.

The second thing was when the Rav spoke for the Aufruf there, and he asked what's the origin of the Brochoh given to the newlyweds "בית נאמן בישראל"? He answered that the source comes from Abigail who beseeched David saying: "Forgive, I pray thee, the trespass of thy handmaid;
כִּי עָשֹׂה-יַעֲשֶׂה יְהוָה לַאדֹנִי בַּיִת נֶאֱמָן for the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house."
Now the meaning of this wish as far as I know is either that the couple should build a faithful house in Israel, meaning faithful to the Jewish faith. Or that one should have a בית נאמן a faithful household, בית taking on the meaning as in ביתו זו אשתו. The real story behind David and Abigail is actually not very veiled in the text of Shmuel, and it tells a story that is the farthest thing from faithfulness. Although he probably is correct, that the phrase originates from there, but this is a good example of projecting contemporary imagery onto very different people from the past.
POSTED BY ACHER AT 10:00 PM
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5 COMMENTS:

Baal Habos said...
Nice, nice.

But

>It only takes one peak, but that one peak makes an immeasurable difference.

I'm not sure about that. It takes lots of peaks, but there is the peak that breaks the camel's back.
JUNE 7, 2009 8:16 AM

Acher said...
True, I was referring to that one all important peek, the one that breaks the camels back. In my life, it was the foray into biblical criticism, and it was that one peak, more than any other one thing.
JUNE 7, 2009 12:04 PM

Avi said...
Please dont make me think about it. It's too depressing....Avi
JUNE 11, 2009 2:40 PM

He Who Fights Monsters said...
Let me put it to you this way:

What's more troubling - that evidence of Noah's flood doesn't seem to exist, or that the flood story was imported from Sumerian mythology?
JUNE 14, 2009 2:40 AM

Acher said...
I don't understand why either would be troubling, it's not a personal matter, it's a question of historical accuracy.
JUNE 16, 2009 2:01 PM