[Avodah] Plurals

[Zev Sero]

Jay F Shachter wrote:

> Unless your mouth is not connected to your brain when you pray in
> synagog, you cannot possibly recite the first Y'qum Purqan on Saturday
> morning without being puzzled by this term.  If the plural in Hebrew
> of "beith sefer" is "battei sefer", and not "battei sfarim", then why,
> in Aramaic (which inflects like Hebrew in this regard), do we say
> "reishei galvatha" and not "reishei galutha"?  What are the plural
> Exiles over which the Exilarchs presided?

Is the singular "Resh Galutha" attested anywhere with that pronunciation?
Or is it just a Yeshivish guess, like "kiven" or "bedieved"?
What was this "Galutha" of which the RG is the head?  Was he the tyrant
who drove us out of our Land, or who kept us from returning there?
Did he have some sort of ownership over this 2000-year-long abstract
state of Exile in which we exist?  Or was he Resh Galvata, the Head of
the Exiles, i.e. of the Jews who happened to find themselves in Bavel?


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher