how to say “thieves ladder” in Hebrew
Last night I went to the birthday party of my friend Zevik, in Encino. Zevik, also a Hebrew teacher, offered to create a thieves ladder so that his neighbor from the house behind his own could simply hop the fence to get home instead of circling the block; thus Zevik introduced me to a Hebrew term I hadn’t heard before.
The Hebrew word for ladder is סֻלָּם (soo-LAHM). The word for thief is גַּנָּב (gah-NAHV), like the Yiddish ganev. So a thieves ladder is a סולם גנבִים (soo-LAHM gah-nah-VEEM).
So what is this סולם גנבים? Apparently, it’s when one person cups his/her hands and places them together, so that his friend can stand on them and hop a fence.
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| from http://www.lrs-foerderschule.de |
And, apparently, the term comes from the German word Räuberleiter (witness at the Germanic root of the English robber – Räuber).
This week’s Torah portion does not discuss robbery, but it does discuss the Yom Kippur offerings in the Temple as well as all kinds of relational sins that people might feel guilty about.
I therefore thought it appropriate to shed some light on a song with some guilt feelings (and a lot of fun) you may have heard before, especially if you listen to my show: Kaveret’s Yo-Ya.
שבת שלום וסוף שבוע נעים לכולם!
Shabbat Shalom and a pleasant weekend to all!
