Ivrit

[cellio]

This morning at the end of services the rabbi said he had a message for the congregation, and proceeded to translate from a certain postcard. Err, when I said "say hi to the morning minyan", I sort of assumed the postcard would beat me there. :-) (Two weeks.) He praised my Hebrew, I suspect more than it deserved. (I hadn't taken a dictionary with me.) But I figured it was fair to make him and Dani work a little for their postcards. :-)

Before sending it I took a picture:

Comments

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

That's impressive, and probably better than I would have done
even 45 years ago when I was in Hebrew school studying 5 days a week.

[cellio]

You can do a lot with simple forms (mostly qal) and restricted vocabulary. Postcards aren't that big. :-)

I know there's a better way to say "went" than HLCh (which might imply "walk"), but I couldn't remember it. There are almost certainly some spelling errors, too; I'm not very good with homophones yet.

I asked someone fluent for the words for snow and ice (and heard rather than saw them). The rest of this I pulled out of my head, for better or worse.

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

The only foreign country where the mail can beat you home is probably Canada. We got your postcard this past Sat. :D Thank you.
-- Dagonell

[cellio]

Wow, you got yours four days before the folks in Pittsburgh did!

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Um, my Canadian friends tell me they never send time-sensitive stuff through the mail. It routinely takes a week or more just to get mail across Toronto.

[cellio]

When I was East Kingdom chronicler, I found that the newsletters headed for Canada always took at least an extra week to get there. It was sad when the US subscribers using third-class mail got theirs before the Canadians using first-class mail.

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

OH, shoot, that reminds me. I heard a great interview with the first woman to be ordained as a reform rabbi on NPR the other day. She's retiring after, what, 25 years? I've been trying to figure out what show it was on, so I could point you at it. Among other things she talked about her experiences at HUC, the attitudes of her professors, and the fact that she deliberately never married or had children because of the vibes from her congregants that a "real" rabbi couldn't split attention between home and congregation, and that a woman would always have an emotional conflict between home and duty. She didn't believe it, but didn't want to have to fight that, too.

Anyway, I'll work harder to find it unless you heard it.

And your Hebrew is very pretty. ;-)

[cellio]

Sounds like an interesting interview. (No, I didn't hear it.) I'm particularly struck by the family stuff, as I get the impression that now congregations are apt to look askance at a rabbi who doesn't have kids. (My impression could be wrong; it's not like I've seen hard data.)

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

I'll work a little harder on searching for it. Of course, I heard it in the car, so I couldn't get the URL right then!!! ;-)

She apparently has a book out or coming out... I'll see if I can get the name.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

That reminded me enough to search for it: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6638554

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

Thank you!!

[cellio]

Thanks! I'll check it out.