parsha bit: Bo

During the time of Alexander the Great, some Egyptians brought a suit against the Jews. Citing the torah, they sought compensation for the gold, silver, and precious gems that the Israelites "borrowed" as they left Egypt. Gaviha ben Pasisa responded to the charge, saying that as they had cited the torah for their argument, he would use the torah to refute them. He then demanded payment for the toil of 600,000 men for 430 years. The Egyptians had no answer and fled. (Sanhedrin 91a)

I had heard this story but thought it modern until I saw it in the talmud.

scholarly tools

This morning I asked my rabbi to recommend a concordance (I've had too many cases of wanting to know "where else is this word used?" and not having an answer), and he gave me one. Wow! He showed me the one he uses, and then showed me the one he deprecated when he got that one, and then ended up giving me the latter -- which is a better fit with my skill level anyway.

(To a lot of people, the concordance is Strong's. But it's indexed in English and intended for Christian study. I want the Hebrew and I don't care about the Christian books and Greek variations. Well ok, that can be interesting too in other contexts, but I don't want it in my way when I'm trying to study our sources.)

When studying torah I often want to have at least three books to hand -- the torah text (Hebrew and English; I use the JPS bilingual edition), the BDB (lexicon) to supply explanations and definitions of individual words, and a concordance. And maybe also commentaries. (Yeah, torah study wants to occupy a table, though I often attempt it while sitting in a recliner.) Now I have all three essential tools. I wonder how long it will be before someone acquires all the necessary rights and publishes an electronic version where all of this is hyperlinked. That would be easier than shuffling paper, though it wouldn't be usable on Shabbat.