[Mesorah] us'ara / us'arahh

[Poppers, Michael]

RDB the Elder:
> Last Shabbat morning my neighbor on the left asked how to understand the word us'arah in its two appearances in parashat Sh'mini. in 13:4 "us'ara lo hafakh lavan"  and in
13:20 "us'arahh hafakh lavan" and why the chumash notes that the first one does not have a mappik in the hei.
...
[I should have written]
if I were correct, the Torah would have written "us'ara  lo haf'kha lavan" and "us'arahh hafakh lavan". But it  doesn't <
Similar to when "hu" refers to a "nega'" while re "nega' hi" (13:22), the "hi" refers to a feminine noun (see RaShY ad loc.), I would say that "sei'ar" is masculine, even in its qamatz-heih form (13:4), and 13:20's "us'arahh" really is "sei'ar shel <feminine noun>."

All the best from
Michael Poppers * Elizabeth, NJ