[Mesorah] Fwd: [Avodah] Chad Gadya

Wed Apr 10 10:48:34 PDT 2019

Therefore is not correct. ‘olmo in Aramaic have a qomatz in both places, from the time of the book of Daniel at least.  At that time the R'DaQ had not been born.

Aramaic had qomatz and patach.  How you pronounce them is your business, but they were different Aramaic vowels. Neither one was more godol than the other; two different Aramaic vowels.

The R'DaQ invented theories about the qamatz gadol, qatan, for Hebrew.  The evidence from the Masorah is that he was incorrect in his theories.  But assuming he was correct, he spoke about Hebrew grammar, not about Aramaic.

So: was the sh'wa in Aramaic ‘ol'mo pronounced or not there at all?

The answer to the question phrased that way is the same answer to the question posed by the famous poem Antigonish, :

Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
If you claim it is a vowel, then it is there.  But is really there? Is it really a vowel? In the Babylonian punctuation, including of Sefer Doniel, there is nothing there. In Tiberinan punctuation, the lack of anything indicates that the consonant is not pronounced, so they wrote a sh'wa.  Was it every pronounced? Very doubtful.

R. Mazuz, if you are looking for a current day rov who understood the issues, claims that the rules of the R'DaQ for Hebrew sh'wa and qomatz do not apply at all in Aramaic, and so it is not pronounced.

This is actually relevant to Pesach, although one level removed!  Chometz on Pesach is like the man who wasn't there in Antigonish. In the houses of most Ashk'naz Jews, it is there in the house, but it is not "there in the house."

So chometz is the sh'wa of the Jewish yomim tovim, or, more exactly, it is the man in Antigonish. And, so you see, orginally from Nova Scotia, where Antigonish is a town where the man who wasn't there wasn't from.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel

{Dedicated to R. David Bannett}

________________________________
From: Danny Levy <danestlev at gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2019 1:27 PM
To: Mandel, Seth
Cc: mesorah at aishdas.org; avodah at aishdas.org
Subject: Re: [Mesorah] Fwd: [Avodah] Chad Gadya

May I take this opportunity to ask another question about Aramaic dikduk?  In Kaddish, ul'olmei olmaya and da'amiran b'olma, do they have kamatz gadol and therefore shva na, or kamatz katan and therefore shva nach, or is Aramaic dikduk different from Hebrew and therefore "therefore" is incorrect?

Danny Levy

‫בתאריך יום ד׳, 10 באפר׳ 2019 ב-16:02 מאת ‪Mandel, Seth via Mesorah‬‏ <‪mesorah at lists.aishdas.org<mailto:mesorah at lists.aishdas.org>‬‏>:‬

The rules in Aramaic are the same, although the form of the numerals are different.  To be consistent, one should be saying t'loth ‘asre middayya and tarte ‘esre kokhvayya.

But the question is incorrect in two points:

1) middayya and kokhvayya and dibbrayya are all MASCULINE in Aramaic. The singular is, like with all Aramaic masculine nouns, has the definite form midda, kokhva, dibb'ra; the final -a is the definite article.

Even in Hebrew, the old singular of dibb'rot is NOT dibb'rah, but dibber.  That word is masculine, but with the -ot plural, which is quite common in Hebrew for masculine nouns.  Maqom-m'qomot.

Even when the word has an -ot ending in Hebrew, the Aramiac often has the -ayya (maculine) plural. In Hebrew we have a hag called Shavu‘ot.  In Aramaic, it is Shavu‘ayya, not *shavu‘ata.

2) The questioner should have first asked why are we counting some things in Aramaic and some in Hebrew? Why not 'arba immahata and t'lata avahata?

The answer is that all the songs after the Haggodo were medieval compositions, most originally in German.  Old haggodos still have "nun boy,"  even if they have the Hebrew "Qel b'neh." To make it sound more authentic, the songs were rewritten in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic, but the knowledge of Aramaic in medieval Ashk'naz was near nill. They had long ago abandoned reading the Targum on Shabbos in shul, and all of the medieval compositions from Ashk'naz in Aramaic have basic, sometimes toxic errors. No one even really knew the Aramaic parts of Daniyyel and Ezra.  The song "Qoh Ribbon" is mostly based on Daniyyel, but punctuated in the siddur with incorrect signs: hayvat boro means "the animals of the wild," and that is the way it is in Daniyyel.  But people sing "hevat b'ra," which means "the animals of the Son."

Chad gaya is sung "di-zabbenn abba," which would meant "that father sold," rather than di-z'van," which means "bought."

Why did they bother using Aramaic at all, if they didn't know Aramaic? Probably because it sounded more "authentic." Just like nowadays, Jews studied G'moro.  Whether or not they understood Aramaic. Most or all of the children did not, but they learned G'moro like they had learned Chumash: most or all did not know Hebrew, but the rebbe would have them read a couple of words, translate them, and had the kids learn the translation with the Hebrew.  When they started reading G'moro, they already knew a lot of Hebrew, and so understood the G'moro based on Rashi.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
Rabbinic Coordinator
The Orthodox Union

Voice (212) 613-8330     Fax (212) 613-0718     e-mail mandels at ou.org<mailto:mandels at ou.org>

________________________________
From: Mesorah <mesorah-bounces at lists.aishdas.org<mailto:mesorah-bounces at lists.aishdas.org>> on behalf of Micha Berger via Mesorah <mesorah at lists.aishdas.org<mailto:mesorah at lists.aishdas.org>>
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2019 2:32 AM
To: mesorah at aishdas.org<mailto:mesorah at aishdas.org>
Cc: Micha Berger
Subject: [Mesorah] Fwd: [Avodah] Chad Gadya

Someone here is more likely to know the answer.

-micha

----- Forwarded message from Aryeh Frimer via Avodah <avodah at lists.aishdas.org<mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org>> -----
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2019 10:38:43 +0000
From: Aryeh Frimer via Avodah <avodah at lists.aishdas.org<mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org>>
Subject: [Avodah] Chad Gadya
To: <avodah at lists.aishdas.org<mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org>>
CC: Aryeh Frimer <Aryeh.Frimer at biu.ac.il<mailto:Aryeh.Frimer at biu.ac.il>>
Reply-To: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group <avodah at lists.aishdas.org<mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org>>

In Chad Gadya, we say Shelosha Avot and Arba (not Arba'a) Imahot because
Avot is male and Imahot is female. Yet the text reads Asara Dibraya and
shlosha Asar Midaya even though Dibra/Dibrot and Mida/Midot are female.
Has any one seen a discussion related to this Dikduk Problem? Are the
rules in Aramaic different?
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