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minor liturgical oddities
During Pesach I've finally noticed two things I'm a little curious about.
First, there are many brachot that we say before performing mitzvot. They all follow a formula: "blessed...who commanded [*] us...". What's odd is that the final few words are sometimes verbs ("to kindle lights") and sometimes nouns ("about counting the omer"). Why the difference? Why l'hadlik but al s'firat? If most of the bracha is standardized, why didn't the rabbis standardize on one more piece, either "to" (infinitive verb) or "about" (al noun-phrase)?
[*] Or "commands us"? Is that a reversing vav? I've seen both translations.
Second, a few paragraphs after we say the sh'ma we say mi chamocha. That phrase appears twice but is slightly altered the second time: mi chamocha ba'elim..., mi kamocha nedar.... Back when I didn't really know anything about Hebrew grammar I just surrounded this question with a "weird grammar stuff" field. But now I know that they are both the same phrase: "who is like". So why does the first have a dageish (changing kaf to chaf) and the other not? What I noticed recently is that in one of the two, the words are joined by a "hyphen" (I'm not sure if that's what Hebrew calls that mark). Presumably they're like that in the siddur because they're like that in the torah. If one were chanting this from torah trope, the joined words would be treated as one -- one trope symbol rather than two, and you'd run 'em togther a little. Chaf is one of the "beged kefet" letters, letters that get or drop a dageish depending on where they are in the word (or, more precisely, the kinds of syllables that preceed and follow them in the word). I'm a little fuzzy on the rule, but I suspect that "michamocha" and "mi kamocha" trigger this rule differently. It all makes me wonder why the torah (well, the Masorites who added vowels and punctuation to the torah) did it this way in this case -- is there some deeper meaning that argues against consistency?
First, there are many brachot that we say before performing mitzvot. They all follow a formula: "blessed...who commanded [*] us...". What's odd is that the final few words are sometimes verbs ("to kindle lights") and sometimes nouns ("about counting the omer"). Why the difference? Why l'hadlik but al s'firat? If most of the bracha is standardized, why didn't the rabbis standardize on one more piece, either "to" (infinitive verb) or "about" (al noun-phrase)?
[*] Or "commands us"? Is that a reversing vav? I've seen both translations.
Second, a few paragraphs after we say the sh'ma we say mi chamocha. That phrase appears twice but is slightly altered the second time: mi chamocha ba'elim..., mi kamocha nedar.... Back when I didn't really know anything about Hebrew grammar I just surrounded this question with a "weird grammar stuff" field. But now I know that they are both the same phrase: "who is like". So why does the first have a dageish (changing kaf to chaf) and the other not? What I noticed recently is that in one of the two, the words are joined by a "hyphen" (I'm not sure if that's what Hebrew calls that mark). Presumably they're like that in the siddur because they're like that in the torah. If one were chanting this from torah trope, the joined words would be treated as one -- one trope symbol rather than two, and you'd run 'em togther a little. Chaf is one of the "beged kefet" letters, letters that get or drop a dageish depending on where they are in the word (or, more precisely, the kinds of syllables that preceed and follow them in the word). I'm a little fuzzy on the rule, but I suspect that "michamocha" and "mi kamocha" trigger this rule differently. It all makes me wonder why the torah (well, the Masorites who added vowels and punctuation to the torah) did it this way in this case -- is there some deeper meaning that argues against consistency?
Re: I'm in trouble...
First, there's this problem in Christianity of the less-stable males among us occasionally whacking off a body part. It's almost never the hand or eye -- it's more like a really bad circumcision. Like the verse about "hating your mother and father" (which has also caused problems, more with cults and the people susceptible to them) my interpretation (and most others) is that this is exaggeration for emphasis. In other words, don't cut off your hand (or whatever): place a higher priority on controlling your thoughts. Don't hate your parents, but love God so much your love for your parents is like hatred in comparison.
I thought that was Paul's spin, but Jesus was a practicing Jew who knew that people had been living by the law for a good 1300 years.
Saul was a practicing Jew, too -- and quite a bit better educated than the Jewish fishermen, terrorist, tax collector, skeptic, and mama's boys he had for disciples. Getting hit by a lightning bolt will make you re-evaluate your life. Trust me, when I was 6 and I stuck the two bare wires in the wall socket, trying to set off the bomb I'd just made, I re-evaluated my life, too! The bomb didn't go off (explosive ingredients would have helped), but I disticntly remember wondering if I would be able to let go of the electrified wires. I was able to. I didn't see and hear Jesus, and scabs didn't form over my corneas, either. The name change from Bob to Rob was a couple years later, also.
There's a lot of stuff that Jesus said and did that didn't make sense unless viewed from Paul's perspective. Like the concept of One God with three persons, it's something forced on one by a need for a consistent worldview. Of course, so's quantum mechanics.
As we've discussed in the past, I have some serious questions about God and the first 5 books of the Bible. Nadav and Avihu and Moshe are just the start of it. I understand -- God's smarter than we are, so I'll just shut up and trust He knows what He's doing. But if some day God condescends to explain stuff, I'll listen intently.
Speaking of frameworks that make sense, it's occurred to me that if God were attempting to breed for more spiritual beings, killing off folks to concentrate the genes for spirituality, then the so-called "Old Testament" makes a lot of sense until you get to what I call "the New Testament." I'm pretty sure that one will be considered heresy and get me run out of church.
God won't forgive you until you've made things right with those people.
I'm not sure a lot of Christians follow up on that one. Sometimes, I fear it's like "What a friend I have in Jesus, I can screw anyone over I want and be forgiven." I tend to believe in Universal Salvation, but there are times I cherish the thought of seeing folks get the royal smite. Then I remember that I'm top of the list for one of those lightning bolts and apologize and shut up.
I may be depressed, but at least it keeps me from being more of a jerk than I already am.