[Avodah] Male and Female Gemstones !?

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 01:03:19AM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote:
[RSBA:]
:> An interesting Rabenu Bachaye that I came upon  last week - on Kapos
:> "Temarim"....
:> ....Ki bechol haminim  kulom - gam betzemochim gam bedomem - motzinu bederech
:> hateva zochor  unekeva". (V2, p 72)
:> The Shaarei Aharon explains 'bedomem' - 'kavonoso  be'avonim yekoros' =
:> gemstones.

: "For several hundred years it was believed that a Diamond had gender
: and was labeled male or female based on its color, dark being male
: and light being female. There was even a belief in the mid-fifteen
: hundreds held by Francois Ruet that a male and female Diamond together
: could produce offspring."
: I found that on a website devoted to birthstones...

This would only be relevent if you believe that this notion orginated by
us (and Ruet took a Qabbalistic idea overly physically) or if the Ha'arei
Aharon was relying on "mada" as understood in his or R' Bachya's day to
explain RB.

But why couldn't RB simply be speaking of grammatical gender WRT domeim?

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 26th day, which is
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