[Mesorah] Translation of the verb "yiv'al"

[Akiva Miller]

Sorry, you've all lost me.

To me, beis-ayin-lamed has always had the basic meaning of ownership,
mastery, perhaps leadership. I  can't imagine anyone arguing that the basic
root means anything else. This is certainly what it means in context of
ownership of slaves or objects, and I believe it is true in marriage too.

"Tashmish hamita" is a cute, coy euphemism, and by mentioning the privacy
of the bed, it has a romantic note to it. Forms of "zivug", directly
speaking about the couple as a pair, is even more so.

But bo'el and be'ilah are about acquisition and mastery. To modern society,
this reeks of political incorrectness, but that's society's problem, not
the Torah's. The husband is a ba'al; when this word is used, it is because
he has a specific role in this relationship - He and his wife are *not*
equal partners. Nothing romantic about it. (Personally, I like romance, so
I'm relieved that there are additional ways that Chazal describe the
relationship.)

I concede that RMB's pasuk from Yeshaya - children being masters of the
parents - is difficult. That's why we need to check the meforshim. But
where y'all saw the meforshim translating it as "living together", I see
them explaining the pasuk in context of *settling* *the* *land*. And in
that context, the mashal fits well: entering the land, taking control of
it, settling it, making it your own,  - don't these parallel the be'ila of
marriage?

Akiva Miller



On Feb 13, 2018 6:22 AM, "Micha Berger via Mesorah" <
mesorah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 08:44:00PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> : >Metzidas David: misyashvim yachad mibeli pirud. Live in the same home
> : >and never part, or intimacy without clothing separating them?
> :
> : You keep stretching for something that will disturb the
> : correspondence between the mashal and nimshal, when merely taking
> : the meforshim at their word explains it perfectly...
>
> Exactly. The meforshim are explaining a mashal, and therefore aren't
> looking at translating. For that matter, that would be typical of
> Targum Yonasan as well.
>
> I don't take any of it as a proof that Yeshaiah meant the word differently
> than the later known meaning.
>
> Which is what, after all, I asked for. We know how the word was used by
> Chazal (eg ein adam oseh be'ilaso be'ilas zenus). The stretch would be
> to say without real evidence that they didn't use the word the same way
> as in Tanakh.
>
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
>
> --
> Micha Berger             Brains to the lazy
> micha at aishdas.org        are like a torch to the blind --
> http://www.aishdas.org   a useless burden.
> Fax: (270) 514-1507                 - Bechinas haOlam
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