[Avodah] Magreifah and Yir'ah

[Micha Berger]

The gemara Eirkhin 10b-11a describes the magreifah, one of the kelei
shir in the BHMQ, which in Leshon Tanakh is either the minnim or the
ugav. Shemuel describes it as a box about 1 ammah square with a board
extending from one side (for keys? to work the bellows?), and 10 tubes
coming out the top. Each pipe had 10 holes allowing for 100 qolos.
A beraisa (meaning: before Shmuel, a first generation amora) says
1,000 qolos. OTOH, in the Y-mi's version (Sukkah 25a), Rav argues with
Shemuel and one of them says (judging from the Bavli, I would conclude
Rav) there were 100 pipes and that both say it could make 1,000 qolos.
While this is often taken as guzma, I would note that 10 pipes, each
of which having only one hole that can be covered to turn it off,
would allow for 1,024 combinations. So 1,000 qolos (Y-mi: minei zemer)
meaning 1,000 chords would be a gross *under*statement for 10 pipes with
10 holes each, not an exageration. Maybe around 1,000 aren't just noise.

There is another keli called a magrefah; it is a shovel (Rashi ad loc)
used to tend the coals. So I picture the pipes together, like a pipe
organ's, thus giving the instrument its name. Similarly, those who
translate the coal-tending magrefah is a rake would probably assume the
pipes fanned out, bagpipe-like.

Guesswork about the magrefah led to the pipe-organ. But it sounds
more like some kind of combination of according (a box) and a bagpipe
(multiple pipes). Although both have reeds, and there is no reason to
believe the instrument had reeds rather than the purer tones (in the
sense of fewer harmonics -- think flute rather than oboe) of blowing
air across the pipe itself.

The Oxfor History of Music says there is a sculpture of bagpipes on a
Hittite slab, dating to around 1,000 BCE. Nero y"sh played one, according
to Suetonius.

In much of the music written for pipe-organ is written with a "pedal point".
Wiki defines it as
    a sustained tone, typically in the bass, during which at least one
    foreign, i.e., dissonant harmony is sounded in the other parts. A
    pedal point sometimes functions as a "non-chord tone"...

Why is it typicall in the bass, the deep end of the instrument? For
the same reason a bagpipe has drones, again quoting wiki:
    a pipe which is generally not fingered but rather produces a constant
    harmonizing note throughout play.

Here's an example of a pedal point to listen to
<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/90/Pedalpoint.mid>

The prolonged deep note, because it doesn't change, ends up fading out
of conscious attention, unless you're reading a post like this one and
made to think about it. But it as weight to what you're hearing.

The magrefa was likely played with a pedal point or drones, as otherwise
the player had to work 10 different pipes and the air pumping system
simultaneously. Aside from the archeological evidence that they were
part of bagpipe-like instruments of the era as well.

All of which is a prelude to the following mashal...

Yir'ah is the pedal-point of the shirah of life. Not to get in the way
of the joy of the music, but to add the necessary gravitas to the song
that pushes us to feel its imporance.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

PS in case you're wondering: Why didn't I post this on Aspaqlaria (my blog
at <http://www.aishdas.org/asp>)? Because I may be using the mashal in
a talk in November, and some of that conference's audience reads my blog.
I have to figure how to do so without spending a distracting length of
time on the lead-in.

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea
micha at aishdas.org        of instincts.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507