Saturday, February 5, 2011

Parshat Terumah Answers

Teruma 5724.
Alef.
      1. a. The wood was originally planted by Yaakov in Egypt and brought out of Egypt when the people were freed from slavery.
       b.The wood grew near Mt. Sinai and was harvested when needed.
       c. The wood was purchased from peoples with whom the Jews traded.
    2.  The reason why RaShI explains a second time how Yaakov originally planted these trees in Egypt in anticipation of the eventual construction of the Mishkan is because of the “Heh HaYedia” in 26:15, “הקרשים”. Rather than simply making boards for the Mishkan, the people made the boards, which had already been anticipated. It would appear that while other parts of the Mishkan were also constructed from this material, i.e., the Aron (25:10) and the Shulchan (25:23), the main reason for the growing of the wood and probably the purpose for which most of the wood was devoted, was the construction of the boards.
    3.  In the first commentary, the Peirush HaAroch,1 Ibn Ezra prefers the interpretation that the trees were growing in the vicinity of Mt. Sinai. The phrase (35:24) “וכל אשר נמצא אתו עצי שטים לכל מלאכת העבודה הביאו” refers to those who had harvested some of these locally grown trees in order to construct shelters for themselves, were now being called upon to contribute that wood for the purpose of constructing the Mishkan.
       In the Peirush HaKatzar, Ibn Ezra, probably based upon the same phrase that he used to construct his first interpretation, now redefines his understanding to be similar to that of  the Midrash and RaShI (he does not necessarily accept that this was all part of a plan that Yaakov had shared with his family; only that the Jews brought the wood from Egypt in anticipation of their own lodging needs), i.e., that these were brought from Egypt rather than harvested locally.
    4.  Ibn Ezra’s original critique of the Rabbinic approach originally stated in the Midrash Tanchumah:
      a. The phrase cited above in 3, (35:24), implies that the Jews had the wood with them for their personal needs. What sort of needs could these have been that would have made them take such large pieces of wood out of Egypt with them?
      b.  Even if for some reason they had needed wood, why would they have taken specifically this type of wood?
      c.  They had told the Egyptians that they were only journeying for three days in order to then offer sacrifices upon the completion of which they would return. Would it then not appear strange that they were taking with them such a large amount and such large pieces of wood for an extremely temporary purpose?
      It is possible that they explained that the purpose of the wood was to construct altars and to have kindling for the sacrifices, since they might not find sufficient material once they were out in the desert. After all, there were an extremely large number of people—603, 550 men above 20, plus women and children, plus the Mixed multitude—that would be involved in the sacrifices.2
      It would appear that Ibn Ezra’s stated position at the end of his Peirush HaKatzer, i.e., that Erez and Shittim are one and the same species of wood, is contradicted by his comment in Yishayahu 41:19, where he goes out of his way to separate the two words from each other, implying that they are two separate species of tree.
      Beit.
    1. The two opposite implications of Yeshayahu 41:19 are:
       a.  The Shittim tree is native to the desert, for HaShem Placed it there.
      b.  Since HaShem had to Place it in the desert, that means that prior to Yeshayahu’s time it was not extent in the desert. Consequently for the purposes of constructing the Tabernacle, it had to be imported from Egypt.
    2. Shemot 35:24, that suggests that the wood was provided by whomever had such wood “with him” would seem to support the second position, i.e., that it was not indigenous to the area in which they people now found themselves, and therefore it could only be furnished by those who had brought it with them from Egypt.
    Gimel.

The syntactical function

In general, each word in the Tanach has one cantillation sign.[1] This may be either a disjunctive, showing a division between that and the following word, or a conjunctive, joining the two words (like a slur in music). Thus, disjunctives divide a verse into phrases, and within each phrase all the words except the last carry conjunctives.
The disjunctives are traditionally divided into four levels, with lower level disjunctives marking less important breaks.
  1. The first level, known as "Emperors", includes sof pasuq / siluq, marking the end of the verse, and atnach / etnachta, marking the middle.
  2. The second level is known as "Kings". The usual second level disjunctive is zaqef qaton (when on its own, this becomes zaqef gadol). This is replaced by tifcha when in the immediate neighbourhood of sof pasuq or atnach. A stronger second level disjunctive, used in very long verses, is segol: when it occurs on its own, this may be replaced by shalshelet.
  3. The third level is known as "Dukes". The usual third level disjunctive is revia. For musical reasons, this is replaced by zarqa when in the vicinity of segol, by pashta or yetiv when in the vicinity of zakef, and by tevir when in the vicinity of tifcha.
  4. The fourth level is known as "Counts". These are found mainly in longer verses, and tend to cluster near the beginning of a half-verse: for this reason their musical realisation is usually more elaborate than that of higher level disjunctives. They are pazer, geresh, gershayim, telishah gedolah, munach legarmeh and qarne farah.
The general conjunctive is munach. Depending on which disjunctive follows, this may be replaced by mercha, mahpach, darga, qadma, telisha qetannah or yerach ben yomo.
One other symbol is mercha kefulah, double mercha. There is some argument about whether this is another conjunctive or an occasional replacement for tevir.
Disjunctives have a function somewhat similar to punctuation in Western languages. Sof pasuq could be thought of as a full stop, atnach as a semi-colon, second level disjunctives as commas and third level disjunctives as commas or unmarked. Where two words are syntactically bound together (for example, pene ha-mayim, "the face of the waters"), the first invariably carries a conjunctive.
Your browser may not support display of this image.

    1.  
    Line 1: Pazer,          Telisha Ketana,      Kadma  Azla Geresh,  Revia
    Line 2: Pashta,          Munach,       Mahpach   Pashta,   Zakef Katan
    Line 3: Zakef Gadol, Mercha (two words),   Tipcha,    Etnachta. 
    2. Since the word “Tachat” in the two previous phrases have separate notes that differentiates them from the following  word “Shenai”, it would be logical that were it not for the hyphen, a separate note for “Tachat” should appear in the third phrase as well.  
    3. According to the above paragraph, a Zakef Katan is a higher order separator than a Revia. Consequently one can conclude that the stop before the Etnachta, which is the highest order separator in the middle of a verse, is after the second phrase.
כה: י וְעָשׂ֥וּ אֲר֖וֹן עֲצֵ֣י שִׁטִּ֑ים
אמָּתַ֨יִם וָחֵ֜צִי אָרְכּ֗וֹ
ואַמָּ֤ה וָחֵ֨צִי֙ רָחְבּ֔וֹ
וְאַמָּ֥ה וָחֵ֖צִי קֹֽמָתֽוֹ׃
    Line 1: Kedma     Azla Geresh Revia
    Line 2: Mapach  Pashta  Zakef Katan
    Line 3: Mercha  Tipcha  Sof Pasuk
כז:יח
אֹ֣רֶךְ הֶֽחָצֵר֩ מֵאָ֨ה בָֽאַמָּ֜ה
וְרֹ֣חַב ׀ חֲמִשִּׁ֣ים בַּֽחֲמִשִּׁ֗ים
וְקֹמָ֛ה חָמֵ֥שׁ אַמּ֖וֹת שֵׁ֣שׁ מָשְׁזָ֑ר
וְאַדְנֵיהֶ֖ם נְחֹֽשֶׁת׃
    Line 1: Munach      Telisha Katana Kadma VeAzla
    Line 2: Munach      Munach  Revia
    Line 3: Tavir     Mercha Tipcha             Munach Etnachta
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)