Ma'aser

As he began what would be a 20-year sojourn in exile, Jacob prays to God and promises, "Of all that You give me, I will set aside a tenth for You" (Genesis 28:22).  This is the first biblical mention of the mitzvah to donate one tenth or a ma'aser of your possessions.  In Temple times, farmers gave a tenth of their produce to the priests and Levites. In fact, all fruits and vegetables grown in

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Sefirat ha'omer

From the second night of Pesach, we count the Omer - counting off the days for seven weeks until Shavuot. Counting is an expression of anticipation. Grown-ups count the weeks until the next holiday; kids count the minutes until the end of class. It is also implies a sense of progress and direction.

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Mayim achronim

Many people have the custom, known as mayim achronim, to pour a little water over their finger tips up to the joints before saying grace after meals. You have probably seen the pretty silver cup and

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Darchei Shalom

Darchei Shalom means the ways or paths of peace, from the words derech, road, and shalom, peace. It is primarily a legal category rooted in Mishnah Gittin 5:8, which lists various halachot whose rationale is given as mipnei darchei shalom,  to avoid quarrels and contention.

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Ga'agua

Ga'agua means longing or homesickness. This talmudic word derives from the biblical ga'a, the low sound produced by cattle. The cows pulling the holy ark in the beginning of I Samuel are described as ga'u (moaning) as they went.

Midrash Tanhuma (Exodus 1) moralises on the importance of disciplining one's children. If you withhold the rod (or according to the non-violent interpretation, the rod of morality - shevet mussar), your child will take up bad ways: "That is what we find regarding Ishmael, who had ga'aguim for Abraham, who did not chastise him."

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Geshmack

Last week, I saw a sign in a religious neighbourhood of Jerusalem proffering advice for those who wanted a year of "geshmack Torah learning." In context, this probably means something like satisfying, enjoyable or delightful. But literally, the word means delicious or yummy in Yiddish. Geschmack in German means "tasty", from the verb schmacken to "taste."

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Chizuk

The other day I saw a poster in English on a wall in a religious area of Jerusalem, offering counselling and advice on how to achieve a year full of "geshmack [tasty] Torah learning". It was signed "The Chizuk Committee".

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Nafka Mina

Mai nafka minah is a colloquial, yeshivish question meaning "What's the practical difference?" It has no neat English equivalent. You might say "What's the nafka minah if she's Christian or Wyccan? The children still won't be Jewish" or "I still can't taste the nafka minah between Coke and Pepsi."

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Neilah

Weekdays have three services. Shabbat and Yomtovim have four. Yom Kippur is the only day of the year with five. The extra service is Neilah, prayed at the end of Yom Kippur as the sun is setting. Neilah means closing.

There are two views in the Talmud as to what is or was closing at this time. The first is that it refers to the Temple gates that were closed at the end of the day.

The second is that it is the gates of heaven that are closing as daylight fades (Yerushalmi Berachot 4:1). "Open the gates," our liturgy says, "For day is nearly past."

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Harat Olam

After blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah we say hayom harat olam. The word harat is connected to pregnancy and birth. Herayon means pregnancy in modern Hebrew, and horeh is the name for a parent. The medieval commentator Rashbam, on Genesis 49:26, further connects the word to har meaning mountains - parents and ancestors being the ancient mountains from which we are hewn.

Following these associations, English machzorim tend to render our phrase as "Today is the birthday of the world", which may conjure up images of a big cake with 5771 candles.

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Machzor

Machzor is a cycle, deriving from the root chazar, to return. New olim to Israel who studied at the same ulpan might ask each other which machzor (year group) they were in to see if they were there at the same time.

The most well-known machzor is the prayer book for the High Holy Days. In fact, all prayer books for specific festivals are called machzorim, for they contain the prayers that we say cyclically around the year.

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Taharah

Taharah is purification, from tahor, meaning pure. In addition to the ritual context of taharah, there is also a spiritual form that is the culmination of repentance and the goal of Yom Kippur.

"For on that day He will forgive you, to purify (letaher) you from all of your sins - you will be purified (titharu) before the Lord." What kind of taharah is Leviticus 16:30 talking about?

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Chayal

The modern Hebrew word for soldier is chayal, coined by Eliezer Ben Yehuda. However, the biblical term for solider is ish tzavah, a man of the army (eg Numbers 31:21).

Just as the biblical ish adamah, man of the earth (Genesis 9:20), gave way to one word, Aramaic terms ikkar and haklai, to designate a farmer, Ben Yehuda sought a one word term for soldier. He looked to the root ch-y-l.

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Bagel

The roll with a hole is of course one of the iconic Jewish foods. Brought from Eastern Europe around the turn of the century, its presence in English was first noted in 1919. The word comes from Yiddish beygl, sometimes written beigel, from Middle High German boug, meaning "ring, bracelet" and related to the Old High German biogan "to bend" and the Old English beag, meaning "ring." According to New York Times columnist William Safire, the Yiddish beigel was shortened and anglicised to bagel around 1932.

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Tachanun

Tachanun is the name for the personal, penitential prayers said after the morning and afternoon Amidah on week days. Tachanun is also called nefilat apayim, falling on the face, because that is how it is done — we rest our face on our left arms when we say these prayers. The word itself comes from the verb to plead or beg: the root is chen, grace; in Tachanun we are asking for grace in God’s eyes

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Tinok Shenishbah

Tinok shenishbah means a small child who was kidnapped by non-Jews. It is an important concept in discussions of the responsibility of non-observant Jews for their lack of observance.

One of the classic sources is in Talmud Shabbat 67b-68a. The Mishnah there speaks about a case in which someone "forgets the fundamental principle of Shabbat", meaning, at first glance that there is such a thing as Shabbat at all.

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De'ah

Deriving from ye'da (knowledge), de'ah in today's Hebrew means opinion. Thus you might find yourself agreeing with a ma'amar de'ah - an opinion piece - you read in the newspaper.

In the Bible, de'ah means knowledge. Isaiah prophesies, "For the land will be filled with de'ah of God" ((11:9). Elsewhere, Isaiah laments the absence of anyone interested in learning de'ah: "Whom shall I teach de'ah?" (28:9). Here, it seems that de'ah implies a consciousness of God. Because society has become hedonistic and idolatrous, Isaiah has no one to whom to teach God's message.

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Etnachta

"This is a perfect place to have an etnachta from our hike and have lunch." So might a tour guide in Israel suggest a short break in the itinerary. Etnachta is an Aramaic word deriving from the word nach, meaning rest.

Etnachta is one of the biblical cantillation symbols first developed in talmudic times and codified by the 10th century. Like all of the cantillation symbols, an etnachta is a form of punctuation. The specific role of this wishbone-shaped symbol is to divide a verse into two parts. When coming across an etnachta, one pauses, rests.

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Shulchan Aruch

Anyone who travels in Orthodox communites will have heard the phrase, "but it says in the Shulchan Aruch" spoken as an appeal to ultimate authority.

The Shulchan Aruch is accepted today as the authoritative code of Jewish law. It was compiled by Rabbi Yosef Caro (1488-1575), the great kabbalist and scholar who lived in Safed. Shulchan Aruch means "set table", as in all ready to eat. The name reflects Rabbi Caro's intention that the book would lay out the whole corpus of currently relevant halachah in an easily digestible form.

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Chibah

Chibah means affection or love. It is related to the word chaviv, beloved, which is most famously used in the phrase acharan, acharon chaviv, usually translated as something like "save the best until last". Hebrew purists will point out that it really means, "the last, best thing, coming behind two other things": when Jacob places Rachel behind Leah and the maidservants, preparing for his encounter with Esau, the commentators say that Jacob is practising acharon acharon chaviv.

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