חֹמֶר לְשִׁנּוּן Review Material Can’t read Hebrew yet? Review, practice and test yourself on this week’s doses of Hebrew! Flashcards Game Test שַׁבָּת שָׁלוֹם, וְסוֹף שָׁבוּעַ נָעִים! Shabbat Shalom, and have a nice weekend!
מִתְחַשֵּׁק לִי… Can’t read Hebrew yet? The Hebrew word for that basic feeling of desire or the urge to live and enjoy is חֵשֶׁק . אֵין לִי חֵשֶׁק לָצֵאת הַיּוֹם. I don’t have the oomph to go out today. To say I feel like… or I don’t feel like…, you’d use a reflexive-intensive…
לְהַשְׁכִּיב Can’t read Hebrew yet? לִשְׁכַּב means to lie down. For example: בְּשַׁבָּת אַחַר הַצָּהֳרַיִם, אַבָּא שׁוֹכֵב עַל הַסַּפָּה. On Shabbat afternoon, Dad lies down on the sofa. לשכב is an intransitive form (more or lesss) of an active-simple verb, whose root is שׁ.כ.ב (sh.k.b). In order to express the…
*** Yesterday’s dose’s sound files were mislinked, so you may have had trouble hearing them. My apologies. You can hear the sound files now by visiting this page. מַעֲקֶה Can’t read Hebrew yet? The Torah prescribes that homeowners put some kind of fencing or railing on their roofs, so that people don’t…
אָהוּב, אֲהוּבָה Can’t read Hebrew yet? The Hebrew word for love is אַהֲבָה (yep, just like the Dead Sea brand), whose root is א.ה.ב (a.h.b). To love is לֶאֱהוֹב, an active-simple verb. It also means to like. For example: אֲנִי אוֹהֵב פַּסְטָה. I like pasta. In that sentence, אוהב is the action, while…
דּוֹר Can’t read Hebrew yet? Most Hebrew nouns appear masculine in both singular and plural forms, or feminine in singular and plural forms. For example, שָׁעוֹן is a clock, while שְׁעוֹנִים are clocks; and חַיָּה is an animal, while חַיּוֹת are animals. Some words, however, can be deceiving. One of those words…
חֹמֶר לְשִׁנּוּן Review Material Can’t read Hebrew yet? Review, practice and test yourself on this week’s doses of Hebrew! Flashcards Game Test שַׁבָּת שָׁלוֹם, וְסוֹף שָׁבוּעַ נָעִים! Shabbat Shalom, and have a nice weekend!
שׁוֹפֵט Can’t read Hebrew yet? We’ve seen that מִשְׁפָּטrefers to that unit of speech or writing called sentence, and that its root is שׁ.פ.ט (sh.p.t) meaning judgment. Likewise, a judge in most courts is a שׁוֹפֵט or שׁוֹפֶטֶת(male and female, respectively). An example from this week’s Torah portion: שֹׁפְטִים וְשֹׁטְרִים תִּתֵּן לְךָ…
בֵּית הַמִּשְׁפָּט הָעֶלְיוֹן Can’t read Hebrew yet? Hebrew uses a lot of acronyms. One example is that for בֵּית הַמִּשְׁפָּט הַגָּבוֹהַּ לְצֶדֶק – the High Court of Justice: בָּגָ”ץ . Focusing on social justice including claims against government agencies, בג”ץ is a division of the supreme court, בֵּית הַמִּשְׁפָּט הָעֶלְיוֹן – literally, the…
מִשְׁטָרָה Can’t read Hebrew yet? The Hebrew word for police in the general sense, as in “the police,” is מִשְׁטָרָה . It derives from the root שׁ.ט.ר (sh.t.r), also the root of שׁוֹטֵר , and שׁוֹטֶרֶת , a police officer (male and female, respectively). The word falls into the same noun-forming template as…
מִשְׁפָּט Can’t read Hebrew yet? The Hebrew word for sentence – as in “These words form a sentence.” – is מִשְׁפָּט . It comes from the root שׁ.פ.ט (sh.p.t) meaning judgment. For example: הַיֶּלֶד שֶׁהִפְרִיעַ בַּשִּׁיעוּר נִדְרַשׁ לִכְתּוֹב מִשְׁפָּטִים עַל הַלּוּחַ. The boy who interrupted class was required to write…