[Mesorah] Paam...

[Mandel, Seth]

Very plausible.  I would guess the former, not only "to call people," but to indicate "it is the time," simply because most words used for the 'Avodah seem to be words derived from other things and not specifically referring to the Qodesh usage.  At least that is the case in Hebrew.  In Aramaic, they only have words for some of the things, and for others they just transliterate the Hebrew.


Rabbi Seth Mandel
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From: rmsberger at gmail.com [mailto:rmsberger at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Micha Berger
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2012 10:09 AM
To: Mandel, Seth
Subject: Re: [Mesorah] Paam...


On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Mandel, Seth <mandels at ou.org<mailto:mandels at ou.org>> wrote:
pa'am, (Hapa'am odeh es Hashem),
pa'amosav (four taba'os on the four "pa'amosav" of the shulchan
vatipo'em (Vyhi vaboker vatipo'em rucho.

There are usually no good proofs in developments of meanings; BDB and everyone else.  However, a connection does not seem to be so hard to me.  The base meaning might be something like "step" (which is also an attested meaning in Hebrew).  From "taking a step," it is not very hard to the meaning "once, twice, X times).  It is also not far to the meaning of "foot" (not the anatomical one necessarily, but in the sense of "a foot of a chair/table etc."
After one gets used to the attested changes of meanings in languages like English, where we know a lot about the history,, which sometimes are m'rafeinigra (or, more correctly, m'rafsin igg'ra), this is easy.

Which might say something about the original use of a pa'amon. Perhaps to call people? Or maybe the word was coined bedavqa for the me'il, where the pa'amonim rang with each step...
Shetir'u Batov!
-Micha

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