Just when you thought כי (kee) meant “because”
כי
In Ulpan La-Inyan, we teach that the word כִּי (kee) means because.
This is true. However, it’s got more than one meaning… especially in Biblical Hebrew (check out Dr. Russel Jay Hendel’s piece showing the seven meanings of כי).
Think about the English word that (one of the meanings of כי). In English, it means different things depending on the context in which it is found. The word that in “I think that you’re hungry” has a different meaning from the word in “That car drives fast!”
The same is true with כי. For example, the title of this week’s Torah portion is כִּי תִשָּׂא (kee tee-SAH), which means, when you take a census…. But אֲנִי אוֹכֵל כִּי אֲנִי רָעֵב (ah-NEE oh-KHEL ki ah-NEE rah-EV), on the other hand, means, I’m eating because I’m hungry.
Listen to this piece of Hebrew by
clicking the link above
