[Avodah] Plurals

[T613K at aol.com]

From: "Jay F Shachter"  <jay at m5.chicago.il.us>
>

>> fact, we do not say a  prayer for the Reish Galutha; we say a prayer
for the Reishei  Galvatha.

....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?  We do not say  that one
Reish Galutha presided over, e.g., Galuth Mitzrayyim, while  another
Reish Galutha presided over, e.g., Galuth Bavel -- so why do we  say
"Reishei Galvatha"? <<


 
 
>>>>>
You could have asked, why are we praying for the Resh Galusa when there  
hasn't been a Resh Galusa (capital Resh capital Gimel) in a thousand  years?  
Why are we talking about the masters and sages of Bavel when Bavel  ceased 
to be a major Torah center a thousand years ago?
 
The answer is to be found in the Art/Scroll siddur but it is really  
intuitively obvious.  "The original text of the prayer has been maintained  
throughout the centuries of exile--even when the great masses of Jewry no longer  
lived in Babylonia.  By extension, however, this timeless prayer refers to  
all Jewish communities; the word Babylonia is a general term for all Jewish  
communities outside of Eretz Israel."
 
"Reshei galvasa" is translated in the A/S as "leaders of the exile  
communities" -- lower case resh, lower case gimel.
 



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




_______________
**************Access 350+ FREE radio stations anytime from anywhere on the 
web. Get the Radio Toolbar! 
(http://toolbar.aol.com/aolradio/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000003)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20090503/a8a4ef7d/attachment-0002.htm>