short takes

[cellio]

"The NSA would like to remind everyone to call their mothers this Sunday. They need to calibrate their system." (Seen here and passed on by sui66iy.)

That poll I posted on Friday got 15 responses in the first 20 minutes, three of them from people who don't openly subscribe to my journal. *boggle*

SCA: Woo hoo! A local clue-enabled couple won Crown Tourney yesterday. Nice folks; I'm really happy for them. The next 11 months should be lots of fun. (As ariannawyn pointed out, this might be the first queen who's won one of Yama Kaminari's fundoshi oil-wrestling contests, which, yes, is as strange as it sounds.)

Quoth some recent spam: "your woman wants a replica". Really? I have a woman? Please give her two messages, then: (1) she's late with her share of the mortgage, and (2) she can buy her own damn replica.

Around 6:00 tonight I got a phone solicitation from someone claiming to be calling from Jerusalem. So that would have been, what, 1:00 AM? That seems like a lot of effort to catch people at dinner time -- and that's just eastern time. (Though I'm told that Californians eat late compared to midwesterners, so maybe they just call them first thing in the caller's morning.)

Trope geekery: the torah portion I'm currently learning (fourth aliya of Bamidbar) has four munachs in a row (followed by pazeir, which itself is pretty unusual). I occasionally see two munachs in a row; I think I've seen three. Four? Weird. I had to look up what to do with that. (Munach is one of those symbols that has different melodies depending on local context.)

For the bar mitzvah I'm conducting in July, I've decided to read rather than chant the portion up to where the student takes over. I figure that this way I won't be upstaging the kid; while in many congregations it wouldn't be perceived that way, I'm not sure about ours and that family is already having to deal with deviation from the norm because they won't get a rabbi. I asked my rabbi if this seemed appropriate to him (and explained my reasoning) and he concurred. Reading without chanting is going to take some getting used to, though!

Hebrew class tomorrow night. I'm considering asking the teacher to move me to the next section for the ulpan (that is, one ahead of where the group I'm now with will be going). It's possible that this will also get me a different teacher, which is not a change I'd frown on. But mainly, I figure that if it's too advanced we can fix it on the first night, but if the class is too basic I'll never be able to jump up.

Comments

[akitrom.livejournal.com]

Question: all of the constellations we know were given names and stories by the Greeks. (Casseiopeia, Orion, etc.)

When the Israelites looked up into the night sky during their exile, what figures did they see in the stars?

I've also asked this question to norse afficianados, Japanese, and Sioux. So far, nobody's been able to give me any answer at all.

[cellio]

That turned out to be an interesting little research topic. :-)

Certain constellations are mentioned in the Tanach, in Job (9:9) and Amos (5:8). JPS translates the Hebrew as Orion and Pleiades (with an uncertain reference to the Bear in Job). I don't know how they arrive at those translations; the Hebrew words are Chinah (Pleiades) and k'sil. And there's this from the talmud (B'rachot 58b; I'm not good enough to match it up with the Aramaic):

Samuel contrasted two texts. It is written, Who maketh the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades. And it is written elsewhere, That maketh Pleiades and Orion. How do we reconcile these? Were it not for the heat of Orion the world could not endure the cold of Pleiades; and were it not for the cold of Pleiades the world could not endure the heat of Orion. There is a tradition that were it not that the tail of the Scorpion has been placed in the Stream of Fire, no one who has ever been stung by a scorpion could live. This is what is referred to in the words of the All-Merciful to Job: Canst thou bind the chains of Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion?

What is meant by Kimah [Pleiades]? Samuel said: About a hundred [ke'me-ah] stars. Some say they are close together; others say that they are scattered. What is meant by ‘’Ash [the Bear]’? — Rab Judah said: Jutha. What is Jutha? — Some say it is the tail of the Ram; others say it is the hand of the Calf. The one who says it is the tail of the Ram is more probably right, since it says: ‘Ayish will be comforted for her children. This shows that it lacks something, and in fact it looks like a piece torn off; and the reason why she follows her is because she is saying to her: Give me my children.