You can find anything on the web.

[cellio]

You know those "rods" that you use to wind a scroll -- the ones that the parchment is attached to, and that you roll and unroll? Today someone asked me -- in the context of a Torah scroll specifically -- what those are called. I didn't know, but I had a browser.

Elapsed time until I had the answer: 51 seconds. :-)


That rod is called an "eitz chayim", literally "tree of life". (And notice how I cleverly avoid forming the plural. :-) ) Apparently, this is because the entire Torah is sometimes called the tree of life, and these are the parts that provide some measure of structure. (That sounds kind of strange to me, but whatever.)

I still don't know what it's called in the more general case, though. Fortunately, the more specific the question, the easier it is to find an answer. :-)

Comments

Re:

[arib.livejournal.com]

"eitzim" is the plural of trees, but when you're say "trees of" you'd say "eitzei" Kind of like the plural of "Sefer Torah" is "Sifrei Torah" while the plural of "sefer" is "sefarim."

[cellio]

Thanks. What about for feminine nouns? Is that always an "-at" ending, like in "birkat hamazon"?