Author: Ami Steinberger

  כִּוּוּן   Can’t read Hebrew yet?     The word direction in English might refer to the physical direction of east and west, but it also speaks of direction in the figurative sense.    So too in Hebrew, with the word כִּוּוּן  . For example:   הוּא שִׁנָּה כִּוּוּן בַּחַיִּים. He changed (his) direction in life.     and  …

מִשְׂרָד Can’t read Hebrew yet?   Those who have made aliyah (immigration to Israel) and have had adventures in the bureaucratic jungle, certainly know the word for government ministry – מִשְׂרָד – as in:   מִשְׂרַד הָרִשּׁוּי The Ministry of Licensing   מִשְׂרַד הָעֲלִיָּה וְהַקְּלִיטָה The Ministry of Immigration and Absorption   משרד also refers to the conventional office….

  מִדְבָּר   Can’t read Hebrew yet?     I love spending time in the desert, especially in Israel. There’s something about the quiet, the dryness and the wind that soothes my soul.   The Hebrew word for desert is מִדְבָּר  . Its root is ד.ב.ר (d.b.r), which has two meanings in Biblical Hebrew: word (as in…

  מְאֻכְלָס   Can’t read Hebrew yet?     Population in Hebrew is אֻכְלוּסִיָּה  , derived from the Greek word for masses.   Populated or inhabited is מְאֻכְלָס  , as in:   הָאִי הַהוּא אֵינוֹ מְאֻכְלָס. That island is not inhabited.     A synonym for inhabited is מְיֻשָּׁב  .   מאוכלס is an adjective derived from the passive-intensive…

  אֵיכוּת   Can’t read Hebrew yet?     The Hebrew word for quantity takes כַּמָּה   – how much? – and adds the וּת-   ending, rendering כַּמּוּת   – the “how-much-ness” of something.   Likewise, the word for quality takes ְאֵיך   – how – adds the same ending, and yields אֵיכוּת   – or the “how-ness” of something.   For example:  …

  כַּמּוּת   Can’t read Hebrew yet?     The Ancient Hebrew dialects did not have have a word for quantity.   So what did Modern Hebrew do to supply one? It took the word for how much – כַּמָּה   – and appended the abstract-noun-making וּת-   ending to it, and yielded the word כַּמּוּת  .    For example:…

חֵץ וָקֶשֶׁת Can’t read Hebrew yet?   Though the more prominent tradition of לַ”ג בָּעֹמֶרis the bonfire, Jewish children today and throughout the Diaspora used to go out into the fields and play with bows and arrows, as a reminder of the last stand in the Jewish independence of antiquity, the Bar Kochba revolt.  …

לְהַעֲלוֹת עַל הַכְּתָב   Can’t read Hebrew yet?   Some things, such as various pieces of this week’s Torah portion, are difficult to put in writing.  The Hebrew expression for to put in writing is לְהַעֲלוֹת עַל הַכְּתָבliterally, to raise on the writing.   For example:   הוּא לֹא מוּכָן לְהַעֲלוֹת אֶת הַתְּנָאִים עַל הַכְּתָב. He’s…

  לְהַסְמִיק   Can’t read Hebrew yet?     Many Human beings are masters at masking their emotions. Still, there are some involuntary responses that very few are able to control.   One of these is blushing, whose Hebrew word – to blush – is לְהַסְמִיק  .    This is an active-causative verb of the root…