Fact-Checking the Torah -- pawns

Your assignment for this week was to read Exodus 22:24-26, Leviticus 25:35, Deuteronomy 24:6 and Deuteronomy 24:11-13, which are all about pawns.

When you loan silver to my people, to the poor with you, you shall not be urgent with him and you shall not place neshekh on him.

If you must take a pledge of the garment of your neighbor, by sundown you shall return it to him.

It is his only covering, the clothing to his skin, in what will he sleep and when he cries out to me I shall pay attention for I am gracious.

 

If your brother becomes poor and he stretches his hand out to you you shall strengthen him, he shall be a so-journer and in-dweller and live with you.

 

Nobody shall take both upper and lower millstone in pledge for that pledges a soul.

 

When you take collateral from your neighbor of anything, you shall not go into his house to pawn his pawned object.

If he is a poor man you shall not sleep with his pawned object.

You must return the pawned object to him when the sun goes down that he may sleep in his clothes and bless you and it will be righteousness for you before the Lord your Gd.

 

First, the pledge cannot be kept by the creditor when the debtor needs it.  Most people only had one set of day clothing and maybe a cloak that doubled as a blanket, the way the verses imply.

Second, the creditor cannot take all a person’s tools as pledges; that’s a ruling that grew out of the verse about the millstone.  If he has two complete toolkits, the creditor can take one.  If he has two sizes of tools in his kit, the creditor can take one size.

Third, the home is a refuge.  The creditor can’t go inside, he has to knock and wait for the pledge to be brought out to him. 

All of this is very different from rules in, for example, Britain of the 1700s and 1800s CE.  Novels may exaggerate for effect, but more than one novel from those periods describes “an execution in the house,” when the creditors would enter and seize its contents.  They could also “place an arrest on the body” of a deceased debtor and prevent burial until the family could come up with some way to promise payment.  If there was no other way, there would be a “sheriff’s sale”.  Novels tell of ladies going to these sales to see what happens to ornaments they may have envied on their friends.

There’s one final kind of loan I haven’t talked about, the “mortgage.”  For next week, read Exodus 23:10-11 and Leviticus 25:8-13.

 © Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 1:20

Genesis 1:20

 

כ וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים יִשְׁרְצ֣וּ הַמַּ֔יִם שֶׁ֖רֶץ נֶ֣פֶשׁ חַיָּ֑ה וְעוֹף֙ יְעוֹפֵ֣ף עַל־הָאָ֔רֶץ עַל־פְּנֵ֖י רְקִ֥יעַ הַשָּׁמָֽיִם:

 

Transliteration: Va-yomer elohim yishr’tsu ha-maim sherets nefesh chayah v’of yofef al ha-arets al-p’ney r’qia ha-shamaim.

Translation:    Gd said let the waters swarm with swarms of living soul and let fliers fly on the earth against the raqia of the heaven.

Letters in this lesson:

Vocabulary in this lesson:

יִשְׁרְצוּ	they shall swarm
שֶׁרֶץ	swarm
נֶפֶשׁ	soul
חַיָּה	wild animal, living thing
עוֹף	flier, bird
יְעוֹפֵף	fly (v)

 

We have two more examples here of noun/verb formations from the same root. 

 

The word for “wild animal” is related to the word for “life”.  I don’t know why.  We’ll see the other generic animal word soon.  The point here is that we’re talking about living things.  These are the first life forms mentioned.  Unless you count Gd himself.

 

I said “flier” not bird in the translation because everything that flies is meant here, including bats and bugs.

 

The word for “fly” as a verb has a feature you haven’t seen before.  It repeats one letter.  So is the root ayin peh peh as the verb suggests, or ayin vav peh as the noun for “bird” suggests? 

 

It’s choice b, ayin vav peh, and there’s no way you could have known that at this point.  This double peh happens to be a sign of the piel binyan which has a frequentative or habitual connotation.  For example, in Hebrew you would say ani m’daber ivrit to say “I speak Hebrew,” meaning any time it’s appropriate, using the piel binyan.  If you wanted to say “I am speaking Hebrew” meaning right now, you would say ani dover/et ivrit (dover if you’re a man, doveret if you’re a woman) using the qal binyan.

 

So y’ofef means things that habitually fly around.
 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

OB -- The Spokesman: NOT

"I’ve been asked to be spokesman by a group of friends, to tell A that we all object to something specific that A does when the group is together.”

This has so many layers I’m sure I’ll miss some.

First, this is the bad puppy trap.   If you are housetraining a puppy, you absolutely cannot let them do the bad thing and lecture them later.  Nothing will bring the issue home to A like saying NO the next time the behavior happens.  Nothing will confuse A like letting it happen and trying to give a convincing lecture about it later.  You may object to the puppy comparison, but the reason A doesn’t realize already that the group doesn't like this behavior, is because none of you have said NO when it actually happened.

Second, absolutely do not be the spokesman for the whole group.  Next time A does this when the group is together, say NO for yourself.  Then let them speak up.  If you act as spokesman for the whole group, I guarantee that psychologically, A will decide it’s just you and nobody else in the group who feels that way, and A will not change.

Third, when the group is together, and you are the only one saying NO, then you will have learned something about your friends: they may gripe behind A’s back, but they are not serious about this being a problem because they won’t do anything when A is around.  Don’t be surprised.  You already partly know this from the fact that they wanted you to be the spokesperson.

Fourth, how long have you known A?  If this group has been together for a long time, and A doesn’t hang out with anybody else, then you are the only ones who can give A this lesson.  But if A has been doing similar things in relation to others, and they haven’t done anything about it, then A will not understand a lecture.  You must say NO when A does this again, not give a speech at some other time.

Fifth, you don’t have to give a reason for saying NO.  That’s the “boyfriend trap.”  When a guy asks you for sex and you say no, you don’t have to give a reason.  No means no.  Anybody who asks for a reason doesn’t really want a reason, they want an argument because in an argument, they can try to wear you down.  When A says “but why?” the next thing A says will be “you never said so before.” That’s true, but it’s not the point now.  Now you’re saying NO and that’s the end of it.

Sixth, everybody in a group plays a role.  One is the mother, one is the solid right-hand, one is the funster, and so on.  Each person in the group gets a quid pro quo for the role they play.  Since none of you have told A that this behavior is unacceptable, A feels by now that that is the quid for A’s role in the group.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tell A that nobody likes the behavior.  That just means you have to think about what the group will lose when A goes.  Then you either have to not tell A off, or you have to prepare to lose whatever A brings to the table.

DO NOT issue any ultimatums except that the behavior has to stop.  Let A issue the ultimatum “then I guess I don’t belong here any more.”  A’s ultimatum is immature and a sign that there will be no change.  Say “I’m not going to argue with your decision.”  Because it is A’s decision, not yours.  Let it end there, and prepare to put up with the group losing whatever it was A brought to the table.

OR, be prepared for A to not leave the group, but to decide later that none of you were serious, and repeat the behavior.  It takes more than one swat with a newspaper and more than one scolding to housebreak a puppy.  Ask anybody who has housebroken one.  Decide now what you're going to do if A promises to behave and doesn't.  Or behaves once and then goes back to the bad behavior. 

There may come a point where the group has to start making plans without telling A, or find a new hangout without telling A.  That's if they're serious.  But they might not be.  Then you have to make the decision for yourself.  And that probably means not hanging with the group any more.   If you decide you can't rely on them to back you up, even when you're right, you might have to find a new group to hang with.  Not fun.  But some people mature faster than others.  A seems to still be a child.  You seem to be the mature one, while the rest of the group is somewhere in the middle.

Do you want to hang with people you can live up to, or people you have to live down?  It may never come to that.  You will have to decide.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Garden -- sweet harvest

I went out to fill the bird bath and decided I'd better look at the snow pea vines again.
I was right.
I picked a quarter cup of snow peas.
I'm up to a pound of snow peas in less than a week.
The initial investment was about $2.75 and a little muscle work.
There are little pods that haven't grown long enough yet.
There are lots of blossoms that haven't turned into pods yet.
I foresee at least 2 more pounds of snow peas.
And the green pea pods are just starting to fill out.  Those were $1.99 for a packet.
Now you tell me where, even at a farmer's market, you can get this much food this cheap, and also get that exercise so many of us desperately need because we are obese (me too still).

Oh yeah, this is living well.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Outdoors -- the duel

A nice quiet Memorial Day Monday and suddenly, two Carolina wrens start a duel.
The one calls "Chicoree chicoree chicoree chicka".
The other calls "Pretty bird pretty bird pretty bird."
One on the north, one on the south across the street.
This went on from 11 a.m. for about 10 minutes.
Carolina chickadees do this too, at the end of winter when establishing their turf.  But they all have the same song.
I've heard Carolina wrens call "Cheeseburger cheeseburger cheeseburger" and "terwillig terwillig terwillig."
Supposedly they have one of the most varied songs among birds, and even individual birds will use more than one song.
Anyway finally the northern bird moved off among the trees on that side.
And then I could go back to listening for the plaintive peep of the mockingbird chick.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

DIY -- plantain chips

So I had $0.80 worth of plantains left from trying a new recipe.
With those I made 8 ounces of oven-baked chips -- maybe 9 ounces.
It took half an hour in the oven while I did other things.
A bag of plantain chips weight 12 ounces costs $4.00.
Are you kidding me?  $3.00 for another 2 ounces of chips?


© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Protesting Amazon

Anybody interested in reading my book The Anvil, based on my English translation of the transcript from the Mendel Beilis trial, must contact me directly.
Because of Amazon's treatment of Hachette books and potential for suppressing free expression, I refuse to sell the book on Amazon.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved