Breishit [1] thoughts
Oct. 26th, 2003 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidOff-the-cuff thoughts about this week's parsha [2] during the reading.
I like the reading on Simchat Torah more, how it's slower, with everyone appreciating it day by day. But reading the whole parsha is good, too, especially when there's a good lainer [3].
From the story about the apple: the snake shows the woman that it's ok to touch the tree, which had been a geder [4] around the original prohibition, and from there gets her to eat the fruit. Which could be an argument for not erecting g'darim...
I had forgotten that the expulsion from Gan Eden uses the verb root g-r-sh, which is the same root for divorce.
The man names Chava after their expulsion, but he never really is named himself; he remains the general category Adam (lit. "man"). Is this because G-d doesn't see any need to name him further, or he is not able to name himself beyond his category (as he did with the animals), though he named Chava, or is this something Chava might have done?
Also, due to the timing, that means Chava doesn't have children until after her name is given, which one could see as a name change from her generic name previously, rather like the changes some of the Mothers go through as well, before they are able to have their children (though there doesn't seem to be the same infertility issues).
I still find Lamech odd and intriguing. He is pointed out more because for some reason we use the Sephardi breakdown into seven aliyot [5], and he's at the end of one aliyah, rather than in the middle. I don't understand his song at all.
[1] Breishit = Genesis
[2] parsha = Torah reading of the week
[3] lainer = one who chants the Torah. Read from a scroll that's written in particular calligraphy, which has no vowels or cantillation marks, the skill of the reader can render the parsha easy to follow, or boring.
[4] geder = fence, usually used in the sense of adding a layer of prohibition to keep one from the really bad thing one isn't supposed to do.
[5] aliyah, pl. aliyot = when someone is called up to the Torah. Also, when someone moves up to the land of Israel.
I like the reading on Simchat Torah more, how it's slower, with everyone appreciating it day by day. But reading the whole parsha is good, too, especially when there's a good lainer [3].
From the story about the apple: the snake shows the woman that it's ok to touch the tree, which had been a geder [4] around the original prohibition, and from there gets her to eat the fruit. Which could be an argument for not erecting g'darim...
I had forgotten that the expulsion from Gan Eden uses the verb root g-r-sh, which is the same root for divorce.
The man names Chava after their expulsion, but he never really is named himself; he remains the general category Adam (lit. "man"). Is this because G-d doesn't see any need to name him further, or he is not able to name himself beyond his category (as he did with the animals), though he named Chava, or is this something Chava might have done?
Also, due to the timing, that means Chava doesn't have children until after her name is given, which one could see as a name change from her generic name previously, rather like the changes some of the Mothers go through as well, before they are able to have their children (though there doesn't seem to be the same infertility issues).
I still find Lamech odd and intriguing. He is pointed out more because for some reason we use the Sephardi breakdown into seven aliyot [5], and he's at the end of one aliyah, rather than in the middle. I don't understand his song at all.
[1] Breishit = Genesis
[2] parsha = Torah reading of the week
[3] lainer = one who chants the Torah. Read from a scroll that's written in particular calligraphy, which has no vowels or cantillation marks, the skill of the reader can render the parsha easy to follow, or boring.
[4] geder = fence, usually used in the sense of adding a layer of prohibition to keep one from the really bad thing one isn't supposed to do.
[5] aliyah, pl. aliyot = when someone is called up to the Torah. Also, when someone moves up to the land of Israel.