<div dir="auto">Sorry, you've all lost me.<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">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.<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">"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.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">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.)</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">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?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Akiva Miller </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Feb 13, 2018 6:22 AM, "Micha Berger via Mesorah" <<a href="mailto:mesorah@lists.aishdas.org" target="_blank">mesorah@lists.aishdas.org</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 08:44:00PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:<br>
: >Metzidas David: misyashvim yachad mibeli pirud. Live in the same home<br>
: >and never part, or intimacy without clothing separating them?<br>
:<br>
: You keep stretching for something that will disturb the<br>
: correspondence between the mashal and nimshal, when merely taking<br>
: the meforshim at their word explains it perfectly...<br>
<br>
Exactly. The meforshim are explaining a mashal, and therefore aren't<br>
looking at translating. For that matter, that would be typical of<br>
Targum Yonasan as well.<br>
<br>
I don't take any of it as a proof that Yeshaiah meant the word differently<br>
than the later known meaning.<br>
<br>
Which is what, after all, I asked for. We know how the word was used by<br>
Chazal (eg ein adam oseh be'ilaso be'ilas zenus). The stretch would be<br>
to say without real evidence that they didn't use the word the same way<br>
as in Tanakh.<br>
<br>
Tir'u baTov!<br>
-Micha<br>
<br>
--<br>
Micha Berger Brains to the lazy<br>
<a href="mailto:micha@aishdas.org">micha@aishdas.org</a> are like a torch to the blind --<br>
<a href="http://www.aishdas.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.aishdas.org</a> a useless burden.<br>
Fax: <a href="tel:%28270%29%20514-1507" value="+12705141507">(270) 514-1507</a> - Bechinas haOlam<br>
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