[Avodah] Teyqu - Peirush or Hevel?

[Danny Schoemann]

Subject was: Was: BDE Rav Elazar Meir Teitz

R' Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote:

> Teyqu is not an acronym.  It is an abbreviation, in a local dialect,
> of the Aramaic word teyqum, a word cognate to the Hebrew taqum, and it
> means "let it stand".

This fascinated me enough to do some research.

> Teyqu is not an acronym

This is the view brought down in the Tishbi (dictionary) from Eliyohu
Bochur (a.k.a. Elia Levita d. 1549) who goes so far as to call this
acronym "Hu Peirush Shel Hevel".
(https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb10988900?page=27 to see
the original.)

Hmmm... who is the fellow? so you turn pages to the postscript
(https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb10988900?page=5) where
he thanks The "Kel Elyon for finishing the work in the year 5311 since
creation".  Nice.

Then he continues "Which is the year 1541 l'Bi'as Meshicheinu
VeGo'aleinu YShU Yisborach Shmo l'Olmei Olomim. Amen". <Barf/>

That would explain why the Tishbi  (dictionary)  posits that Teyqu
can't be an acronym alluding to The Tishbi answering Teyqu statements.
After all, it's been 2025 years since the hangman was declared
Moshiach, and nobody has answers for the Teyqu conundrums. Since
Moshiach is proceeded by The Tishbi, either he hasn't come or this
acronym is Hevel.

So I went back to an older Dictionary, apparently the first Talmudic
Dictionary: the Oruch, whose author died in 1106. the Oruch in TK - תק
(https://www.sefaria.org.il/Sefer_HeArukh%2C_Letter_Tav.167) states
that Teyqu means something in a bag and it's not known what's inside.
(He then refers you to GM
(https://www.sefaria.org.il/Sefer_HeArukh%2C_Letter_Gimel.212)  where
the laws of Teyqu resolutions are discussed.) Then there's a
postscript.

In parentheses prefixed by A"B (Amar Binyomin Mussafia, the Mousaf
haOruch d. 1675) he ends with "what people say that Teyqu is an
acronym, is a Siman but not a Peirush".

Also see the Sefer Hapliah - from before 1390 - who quotes this
acronym see https://tinyurl.com/Teiyqu. (Source:
https://judaism.stackexchange.com/a/53711/501)

Point being that Teyqu as an acronym, is nothing new. That it refers
to The Tishbi was also known over 600 years ago - and only dismissed
as Hevel by somebody whose biography on Wikipedia is full of
references to Christianity - and his prologue explicitly references
Yoshke.

> When the Sages of the Talmud declined to
> resolve a dispute, and elected to let a question stand unresolved,
> they sometimes ended the discussion with the word teyqu -- let [the
> question] stand.

True.

> This is mildly interesting, but much more interesting (I think) is why
> a reader of this mailing list has bothered to send in an article, that
> you are now reading, correcting the mistake.

I beg to  differ - it's not a mistake.

<snip>
> But I think that this is a mistake worth lingering over.  When a Jew
> accepts a bogus etymology for a word that appears more than 300 times
> in the Talmud, it is not a morally neutral event, like when one of my

You're treading on thin ice; you posit it's an etymology whereas it's
a well-known Siman.

> students told me that "swag" stands for "stuff we all get" (a true
> story).

Well, the internet agrees. Google it. Not that we pasken by Google,
but, as in the case of Teyqu it has taken on a life of its own and now
swag (originally a word "stolen" from Scandinavia) is an acronym of a
well-established (and well-liked) industry.

Similarly, we are no longer gay on Purim and Carmel's fantastic "Aids
to Talmud Study" (1974) had to be renamed "Aiding Talmud Study"
(1986).

> A Jew has a moral obligation to understand the words of the
> Talmud, whereas a non-Jew has no moral obligation to investigate the
> etymology of English words, and that means that a Jew has a moral
> obligation not to repeat mindlessly the bogus etymologies he has heard
> from others, without giving them any thought.

Which is why certain Gedolim rebuffed self-declared Moshiachs by
enthusiastically asking them to solve a Teyqu. (They usually responded
by fleeing.)

> Moreover, and more to the point, this is a pernicious mistake.  It is
> not just a false belief, it is a false belief of a piece with, and
> reinforcing, a whole constellation of other false beliefs, all leading
> us in the wrong direction.  The halakha is that Eliyahu may not
> declare to us, through prophecy, the resolution of an unresolved
> question in halakha.

Who decided it's through prophecy? Maybe it's through his Mesora or
his superior knowledge of the source material - including pieces we
have lost over the years. After all he was a Talmid of Moshe Rabeinu.

> If Eliyahu declares to us, through prophecy, the
> resolution of an unresolved question in halakha, then we must put him
> to death as a false prophet, because questions in halakha are not
> decided by prophecy.

What would be the source of that? In the Talmud they excommunicated
for this type of behavior.

> It is our duty to reconstitute the Sanhedrin and
> resolve these questions ourselves, and not to wait for a Divine
> messenger to resolve them for us.

We cannot. If the final editors of the Talmud wrote Teyqu then it
cannot be resolved using all the knowledge available to us. As opposed
to ending with Kashya, where solutions are possible. (As to why they
are not solved? I have no idea.)

> As has been stated before on this
> mailing list, Eliyahu can have one vote on the Sanhedrin, if he wants
> a seat on the Sanhedrin and if we let him have one, but it is we who
> have both the power, and the duty, to reconstitute the Sanhedrin, and
> resolve these questions ourselves.

If it has been stated before on this mailing list then it must be true. ;-)

<The rest is snipped - it's beyond the Teyqu issue.>

- Danny, waiting longingly for the great Teyqu era.

P.S. I edited the Hebrew entry Teyqu on Wikipedia