[Avodah] yaroq

[Zev Sero]

On 2/03/2011 11:14 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 02, 2011 at 10:47:14AM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
> : In modern Hebrew yaroq is Green. Does anyone have any sources that
> : discuss what yaroq could have been in the gemara?


> "Esrog... vehayaroq kekarti"... (mishnah on Sukkah 34b) So, a karti,
> generally translated a leek, is something R' Yehudah considers too yaroq
> to be a good color for an esrog, but R' Meir makhshir.
[...]
> "Kekarti" is also a description of very yeroqah on Chullin 47b.

You seem to be assuming that "yarok kekarti" means "very yarok".  That
is not so.   "Yarok kekarti" simply means "green"; its alternative is
"yarok kekarkom", which means "yellow".   There is no implication about
the precise shades of green and yellow.  Even a pale green is "yarok
kekarti", and even a pale yellow is "yarok kekarkom".   An esrog is
supposed to be "yarok kekarkom", not "kekarti"; but the tana'im differ
on whether being completely "kekarti" and not a bit "kekarkom" makes
it pasul or merely not mehudar.

"Yarok" itself, in leshon chazal, means both colours, and all shades
within them; they saw them all as shades of the same colour, just as we
English-speakers see dark blue and sky blue as shades of the same
colour, though Russian- and Ivrit-speakers see them as separate colours.

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