[Avodah] Yelulei Yalil

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Micha Berger _micha at aishdas.org_ (mailto:micha at aishdas.org) 

>>However,  the sound of the gemara's word "yelulei", echoed in the Rambam
(Shofar 3:2)  "hayelala shemeyalelan hanashim be'eis shemeyavevin", made
me wonder if  "yevavah" really means sobbing, or inarticulate voicing
in  general.

When a Middle Eastern ululates, crying a high pitched  "lalalalalala",
it's a sound of joy. (If the woman in question is the Eim  Sisera of the
100 qolos, maybe she is happy her son died a hero, a shahid.)  Ululate is
an onomatopoeia (a word that sounds like its meaning), so could  "yelilah".

And so, the machloqes isn't only technical, how do we fulfil  "yom
teru'ah yihyeh lahem" but also be about the basic nature of shofar  --
is it a sad sound, or a happy one?<<





>>>>>
The women ululate at funerals, too.  The sobbing sound can be a  sound of joy 
or of grief.  If you've ever heard the inarticulate sounds  made by some 
woman who just won a big prize on *The Price is Right* you would  know that, 
unless you could see her face, you would not know if she was sobbing  from joy or 
from sorrow.
 
There's no opinion I ever heard that Sisra's mother was crying for  joy.  She 
was definitely crying with grief, believing that her son had been  defeated 
in battle and was dead, but her handmaidens "comforted" her by  suggesting that 
maybe Sisra was late because he was busy looting and raping  Jewish women 
with his men.  It tells you what kind of a person she was  that the thought of 
her son engaged in killing and rapine would  comfort her and dry her tears.  
 
As for the sound of a shofar, it obviously has a lot of different  meanings 
and purposes.  It can be sorrowful, joyful, a sound of alarm, a  sound of war, 
a sound of triumph.  In a way it's like a musical instrument  -- like a 
trumpet -- that likewise can express many emotions.



--Toby  Katz
GCT
=============



**************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination.  
Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out 
(http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20081011/a9e05cbc/attachment-0002.htm>