Outdoors -- survival

So the storm last week turned out better than expected.
For one thing, November hasn't been as rainy as usual and the DC area got lots of rain.
I know -- I drove through it in the pitch dark night starting just after 5.
About 7, as it was getting light, I stopped for a shot of caffeine.
The first snow I saw was at the 100 mile point.
Up in the mountains, wet snow fell the whole hundred miles of the last lap.
A snow plow passed me on the left at one point.
There was lots of salt on the roads.
The big rigs and other traffic did a good job of grinding it into the pavement.
They also plowed the slush aside.
I just plugged along for hours and got to the hotel before noon.
And the trip back was dry and sunny.
Don't be afraid of weather, just realize that conditions are going to be different.
Keep your speed down.
Don't zoom in and out of lanes -- it's not going to get you anywhere but in the ditch.
Leave plenty of stopping room -- tailgating will also get you in the ditch.
I realize this advice is falling on deaf ears in my area.
Which is why the emergency sirens have been sounding three and four times a day
for a week
as police and fire dealt with the idiots in the DC area who have wrecks
when the weather announcers on the radio even say the word "snow."
No lie.  It's been like that for the nearly 40 years I've lived here.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Knitting -- argyle

I am about to finish one of Anne Feitelson's Fair Isle designs.
The next British classic is argyle (I'll get around to Aran after that).
The key to argyle is a lock stitch which is something like the weave in on Fair Isle.
But you don't weave floats in with argyle.
You put your yarn on bobbins.
You knit from one bobbin up to where you change colors.
You knit from the bobbin with the new color, locking the first stitch.
Then you knit from the bobbin with the original color.
You add the thin lines, if there are any, with a different technique.
Vogue has a ladies' argyle twin sweater set pattern for $6.
Argyle is also the classic sweater pattern for men.
Just remember, if you're going to knit an argyle sweater for your man,
there's an urban legend that this will end the relationship.

Use your search engine:
argyle knitting free pattern
You'll find images, some of which are actual charts for knitting argyle.
There are plenty of Youtube videos, too.

Also search on
knitting kills relationship
You'll probably find advice on how to avoid killing the relationship with a handknit.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

DIY -- cookware

This is about non-stick cookware, not making your own.
I want to recommend good quality steel pans, like my Revereware.
My mother's set has lasted almost 60 years and mine almost 30.
Here is a link to several pages of an article about non-stick.
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/nervous-about-nonstick?


This is the Good-Housekeeping article referred to.
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/product-reviews/cooking-tools/cookware-reviews/nonstick-cookware-safety-facts


Why this goes with DIY is, remember I told you recently that to fry right,
you have to fry very hot?
Well, if you heat non-stick to very high temperature, it starts to break down.
This has nothing to do with the setting on the burner.
The pan heats up much faster and higher than a metal pan at the same setting.
It doesn't matter whether it's dry or has oil in it, you shouldn't pre-heat it.
But getting the oil to the right temperature to fry foods absolutely requires pre-heating.
And it takes longer than the 2 1/2 minute maximum the article talks about.
So non-stick pans are not better for frying than metal ones.
Scratching grooves into the non-stick coating with the wrong utensils will
cause buildup of food in them that you can't get out with a steel wool pad like you can
when you use metal.
You also have to throw out your non-stick pans every 3-5 years.
That doesn't save you anything and makes them dangerous for all kinds of reasons.
So: go back to cast-iron frying pans or Revereware or something like that
and forget non-stick.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Who buys this stuff?

You know, those pouches of tuna that you see people eating from in the ads?
I was thinking of my emergency stash and the pricing info on the shelf shocked me.
I stood there for three minutes doing mental arithmetic.
Then I checked the price for canned tuna.
Then I just shook my head.
You pay $14 a pound for the pouches.
You pay $5 a pound for the cans.
Lookit, if you buy $14 of the pouches that's all you get.  That's 4 servings of just tuna.
You buy $5 of the cans, you spend $3.59 on a loaf of bread, you spend $3 on a box of eggs, you spend $3 on a jar of mayo, and that's four meals of tuna salad sandwiches, plus 11 eggs for sandwiches.
A radio station reported last week that you can feed 4 people a chicken dinner with veggies made from scratch.
For $15.
I can do that even shopping kosher, which people think is so expensive.
Who buys this stuff?  People spending their way into poverty.

I'm just saying...

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- Leviticus 6:19

People don’t bring sin offerings except for mistaken, absent-minded, forgetful, or ignorant transgression of the 365 negative commandments, and then only after they realize they may have committed the transgression, and they can only be forced to do so if somebody can witness to the transgression.  That is the meaning of Leviticus 5:1.

The person who says an individual has to bring a sin offering has the burden of proof.  Proof requires witness evidence and a person can’t testify against himself.  If the transgressor wants to impose a suspensive guilt offering on himself, that is different.  One rabbi was famous for doing this, until a colleague told him at least don’t do it the day after Yom Kippur; not even you can legitimately owe a guilt offering the day after you have honestly repented.

The potential witness has to testify unless he can swear that he doesn’t know anything about the case.

If he is found to have legitimate testimony to give, he may be subjected to atonement for swearing falsely that he didn’t. 

This means an offering.  But it starts a whole new cycle because whoever accuses him of swearing falsely also has the burden of proof.

The cynical will say that somebody might lie just to get the transgressor in trouble, but the liar doesn’t benefit from the sin offering and if the liar is caught, he will have trouble testifying later.  The court will be suspicious of anything he says, and so will people who need a court case to prove one thing or another but can’t rely on him as a witness.

The only person who can benefit from a sin offering is a priest.  Nobody else has a rational incentive for false testimony about a sin offering.

The cynical would say that the priests will impose sin offerings without testimony because of Leviticus 6:19 which says he gets to eat it.  But the priest can’t eat it if he is tameh, which I will discuss later, and he can become tameh if he wanders around among the population watching for people to sin so that he can impose a sin offering on them. 

Since the person who answers a summons to testify about a potential sin offering has to take an oath if he says he doesn’t know anything about the case, this is another example of how Jewish law cannot prohibit all oaths and vows without hamstringing its legal system.

Now.  Why does a nazir owe a sin offering?  Which of these negative commandments did he mistakenly, ignorantly, unconsciously, or forgetfully transgress? 

He didn’t.  The reason he brings a sin offering is that Torah says he has to.  The rabbis were not satisfied with that, and tried to find something reasonable to say about it.  They came up with the fact that the nazir causes himself pain by not using products that he is normally allowed to use. 

For next week we’ll finish up with Deuteronomy  23:23 so read it.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 2:7

Genesis 2:7

 

ז וַיִּיצֶר יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאָדָם עָפָר מִן־הָאֲדָמָה וַיִּפַּח בְּאַפָּיו נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים וַיְהִי הָאָדָם לְנֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה:

 

Transliteration: Va-yitser **** elohim et-ha-adam afar min-ha-adamah va-yipach b-apayv nishmat chaim va-y’hi ha-adam l-nefesh chayah.

Translation:    **** Gd produced the man, dust from the earth, and breathed into his nose the soul of life and the man became a living soul.

Vocabulary in this lesson:

יִּיצֶר	formed
עָפָר	dust
יִּפַּח	Blew (aorist)
אַפָּיו	His nostrils

 

The first verb in the vocabulary is a Biblical version of the piel binyan.  In modern Hebrew the vowels are different. 

 

I have said a couple of times that the piel is the frequentative binyan, which gives this verb the connotation of factory production in modern Hebrew.  So did Gd line up multiple clay forms and breathe life into all of them?  (And what does this do to the Sistine Chapel image of Gd as simply touching Adam to bring him to life?)

 

No, the rabbis comment that the double yod is an indicator of the dual impulse in people, an impulse to do things that can be wrong, and an impulse to do right.  I’m not weasel-wording.  It can be wrong to kill, except in the case of self-defense.  It cannot be wrong to kill to protect yourself.  Also Judaism requires execution of some people after due process in court and a verdict of guilty

 

It can be wrong to have sex, if it’s adultery or other kinds of sex prohibited in Torah; but people cannot obey the very first commandment, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and dominate it,” if they don’t have sex. 

 

The closest that Judaism gets to the idea of mass-production relative to this verse is in Mishnah.  It points out that when a human creates a single stamp and uses it to press out coins, the coins all look the same.  But Gd created only one person to start with, and look at all the differences in all the humans that exist in the world.  What’s more, destroying one person destroys also all the generations that would have come from him or her.  So in capital cases, the witnesses are strictly warned to avoid, if at all possible, destroying even one person.  IOW it’s better to let 99 guilty go free than destroy one innocent, which I discuss on the Fact-Checking page.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Outdoors -- the hawk

Actually, it's not just one, it's three.
I know we have red-tail hawks in my town, I've seen them perched on lampposts watching the grass for prey.
Last year I identified a broad-wing hawk chasing doves through the trees behind my house.
There were rumors that we had Cooper's hawks, which are getting rare.
But I saw one today.
It was flitting around my back where the bird feeder is.
It stopped for a moment on the bench on my back porch.
It was half again or more the size of our mourning doves, but not as big as the broad-wing which is three or four times the size of the doves.
When it flew off, I saw the stripes across its tail perfectly,
and also that it was long relative to the body instead of short.
No wonder my little birds have made themselves scarce right when they usually have their mid-morning feast.
I know this post is late, but I hope it's worth the wait.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Outdoors -- roller coaster

First it poured rain.
In the evening I could almost feel the arctic air moving in.
I have new weather sealed windows and solid doors that have blocked all the drafts.
But I could still feel it, right about the time
the sun moves behind the trees and the house starts to cool down.
(I'm looking forward to the days getting longer in about a month.)
At night we got a hard frost.
But the forecast is temperatures in the 50s by the end of the week.
So I only have to hang on a couple of days.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Garden -- dead leaves

I'll bet you're wondering why I told you to shred leaves.
I mean, why do all that work instead of just raking them over the beds?
Well, one thing that happens around here in November is,
Mother Nature lays down a lot of water for next year's water table.
Mike McGrath will tell you that the whole leaves shed that water.
That's one way trees prevent competition.
Other plants don't have the deep roots trees should have.
So they can't get to the water the trees can get to.
By dropping whole leaves, trees block water from the surface,
so those competitor plants can't thrive.
But the shredded leaves let some water through into the water table.
Which is what you need for your shrubs and perennials.
So shred the leaves before you use them for mulch.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

DIY -- brain health

Here's how to keep your brain healthy.  START NOW.

1.  Get your sleep.
2.  Exercise.
3.  Don't use tobacco.
4.  Keep alcohol use low.
5.  Eat right, including meat, eggs, dairy, and leafy greens.
6.  Exercise your brain: learn a language, learn to play an instrument.
7.  Change your daily routine. 
8.  Change your furniture arrangements once in a while.
9.  Turn off the TV.
10.  Keep working.

The American Association of Neurologists published the results of a study of 3000 people for a two-year period and the results are that elevated levels of homocysteine in your brain, causing inflammation, may drop if you take B12 and folate supplements, but that won't keep your brain from deteriorating with age.  The ten steps above will all improve your brain function.  The earlier you start the better.

Here's a summary by the AAN:
https://www.aan.com/PressRoom/Home/PressRelease/1317
Here's the study:
http://www.neurology.org/content/early/2014/11/12/WNL.0000000000001050

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- Leviticus 5:1

We are busting urban legends about offerings and sin offerings in particular.  To sum up; a sin of failing to obey a positive commandment is atoned by a whole offering; a non-willful sin of failing to obey negative commandments is atoned by a sin offering.  Your assignment was to read Leviticus 5:1.

The only way a sin offering atones for transgression of negative commandments is if the sinner made a mistake, wasn’t paying attention, forgot the contents of the commandments, or didn’t know what he was doing, AND WAS ALONE AT THE TIME.

If somebody was with him, that person should have performed hatraah and cannot testify in court against the sinner if hatraah is missing. 

The only way the person owes a sin offering is if he realized he had done something wrong later.  Or suspected he had.  Such as seeing blood on a plate of food.  He realizes he ate from that plate but he doesn’t know if he ate blood.

The only way he will bring a sin offering is if he decides he did eat the blood.

That is paskening for yourself.

I already said a couple of times that Jewish law prohibits paskening for yourself.

So this person should not bring a sin offering UNLESS he consults somebody about what happened.

That is what Leviticus 5:1 is about.  The only person the sinner can consult is somebody experienced in the law and that expert is going to say “was anybody with you at the time?”

When the sinner says no, the expert is going to say that nobody can exact anything of him, except Gd Who would know if the transgression was done willfully or not. 

The urban legend I just busted is that a priest would go around arbitrarily assigning people to bring sin offerings.  If the priest saw the sin committed and didn’t stop it and warn the sinner, he cannot testify in court about it and that means he can’t exact a sin offering.  Plus some of these commandments carry the death penalty and it takes two witnesses because it’s possible this is the third strike.  Or they are the subject of keritot.

Those are the specifics.  The general principle is that anybody who wants to deprive somebody else of property bears the burden of proof. 

This is the same as in American law.  The prosecution has the burden of proof in a criminal trial; the plaintiff has the burden of proof in a non-criminal (civil) trial.

Nobody can require another person to bring a sin offering without adequate proof that one of the negative commandments was violated, and the accuser has to prove that it was a mistake, an incident of forgetfulness or absent-mindedness, or ignorance.  But Leviticus 5:1 requires the witness to speak up in court.  And the commandment of hatraah requires him to speak up when he saw the transgression about to occur.

This feeds back into oaths and that’s the next lesson.  For next week, take a look at Leviticus 6:19.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 2:6

If you didn’t read the blog yesterday, you missed an extra posting for this topic.  It’s a list of most of the verses and the grammar covered in them.  Scroll down and you’ll see it.

 

Genesis 2:6

 

ו וְאֵד יַעֲלֶה מִן־הָאָרֶץ וְהִשְׁקָה אֶת־כָּל־פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה

 

Transliteration: V’-ed yaaleh min-ha-arets v’-hishqah et-kal-p’ney ha-adamah.

Translation:    A mist went up from the earth and watered all the surface of the earth.

Vocabulary in this lesson:

אֵד	mist
יַעֲלֶה	Went up
הִשְׁקָה	Water (v)
הִמְטִיר	Caused to rain
אַיִן	There was none
לַעֲבֹד	To work

 

“went up” is conjugated exactly like “to do, make”.  These are both important words so learn this conjugation very well.  Notice the chataf patach under the ayin in a bunch of the entries, and also the endings that are due to the heh at the end.

 

Present

Singular	Plural	Gender
עוֹשֶה	עוֹשִים	Masculine
עוֹשָה	עוֹשוֹת	Feminine

 

Past

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
עָשִיתִי	עָשִינוּ	First
עָשִיתָ	עֲשִיתֶם	Second/masculine
עָשִית	עֲשִיתֶן	Second/feminine
עָשָה	עָשוּ	Third/masculine
עָשְתָה	עָשוּ	Third/feminine

 

Future/aorist

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
אֶעֱשֶה	נַעֲשֶה	First
תַּעֲשֶה	תַּעֲשוּ	Second/masculine
תַּעֲשִי	תַּעֲשֶינָה	Second/feminine
יַעֲשה	יַעֲשוּ	Third/masculine
תַּעֲשֶה	תַּעֲשֶינָה	Third/feminine

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- a late review

This is late in two senses.  One is it's late in the day.
The other is that I was going to post this last week but I realized it didn't coordinate with the lessons as listed on the Bit at a Time page.
So I've changed that.

Grammar Review

 

Genesis 1:1  definite article, introduction to binyanim, vowels

Genesis 1:2  “be”, construct state

                        Gender

Genesis 1:3     aorist vs. past

Genesis 1:4     causative

Genesis 1:5     genitive/dative preposition

Genesis 1:6     raqia; dagesh

Genesis 1:7     ablative preposition; “toward”

Dagesh rules

Genesis 1:9     past tense of “to be” a lamed heh verb

Genesis 1:10   plural nouns and context

Genesis 1:11   shin, sin, and context

Genesis 1:12   present tens of “to do, make”, a lamed heh verb

Genesis 1:13   past tense of “to do, make”

Genesis 1:14   pop quiz on gender

Genesis 1:15   present tense of hifil causative verb

Genesis 1:17   aorist/future of “to give, put, set”, a peh nun verb

Genesis 1:18   full conjugation of a strong verb in qal (simple) binyan

Genesis 1:20   introduction to piel punctuated repetition binyan

Genesis 1:21   declension of adjectives

Genesis 1:22   two imperatives

Genesis 1:24   possessive with preposition and with suffixes

Genesis 1:25   construct state of feminine nouns

Genesis 1:27   quoting out of context and interpretation

Genesis 1:28   verbs with object suffixes

Genesis 1:29   full conjugation of noten, a peh nun verb, in qal (simple) binyan

Genesis 1:30   conjugation of hayah, a lamed heh verb, in qal (simple) binyan

Genesis 2:1     pop quiz, identifying the verb tense

Genesis 2:4     introduction to nifal binyan, passive of qal

Genesis 2:5     introduction to infinitives
Genesis 2:6     full conjugation of oseh, a peh ayin, lamed heh verb; qal binyan

The verses that are NOT listed above are available for access on the Bit at a Time page; they are mostly culture capsules.

I'll still post the normal lesson tomorrow, Thursday, as usual.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Garden -- seeding

The morning glory seeds should be ripe soon.
The flowers form pods which ripen from green to brown.
I've promised seeds to a neighbor.
If we can spread them -- and the birds help with this --
we'll soon have plenty of hummingbirds around.
They get choices -- both morning glory and Rose of Sharon.
My neighbor gave me two cardinal flower plants which they also like.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting to see what happens with my planter bed.
I put cilantro and basil in there.
Both went happily to flower and I picked some coriander (cilantro seed).
Basil is great to plant, not just for cooking.
When it flowers, the leaves go bitter and you can't cook with them,
but when the wind blows strongly the fragrance is lovely.
When you brush against it you also get the fragrance.
The flower spikes turn brown when the seeds are ripening.
I groomed them hoping the seeds would drop into the bed and germinate.
I'll know if it worked -- next May.
"Waiting waiting waiting...."

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

DIY -- still more clothes

You didn't like my last post on this subject, did you?
Well, go back to the Vogue patterns site.
Now, look at the menu on the left.
Use the links to Butterick or McCalls.
They have menus with a Plus Size entry.
There are some cute dress patterns there, that go beyond the sizes Vogue offers.
So while you are working on losing that weight the way I am
You can make yourself some nice stuff to wear.
Not black.
Not knits.  Well, not necessarily.
Try to find a pattern that has more than one size;
When you drop a clothing size, you can make the same thing in a smaller size.
And before you get mad at me for keying on women's wear,
let me remind you that there are Big and Tall Men shops
but not Big and Tall women shops.
Adding to the problem of not being able to find skirts in one size
and jackets in another size
with a guarantee that they were made from the same bolt of cloth.
Which men have no trouble finding.
No, it's not fair.
We have to make fair for ourselves.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Outdoors -- missing

It looks like all the old feeders are back, except one.
I haven't seen or heard my robin yet.
He grew up in my back yard and last winter he used to perch on my fence.
Then he would make this demanding call so I would know he was hungry.
And I would throw out some chokeberries. 
He would gobble them down and then go do winter robin things.
The mourning doves are back.
The cardinals are back.
The robin isn't.
Maybe it's too early for him to be hungry enough to remember where he came from.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- Leviticus 4

For this week I said to read Leviticus 4.  There are two urban legends about offerings to atone for sin and I have already busted one of them.  I said the whole offering, not the sin offering, is brought for the sin of not obeying a positive commandment.

I already said there are 613 commandments in Jewish law.  (I think I said it.  Anyway.)  248 of them are positive such as observing Passover.  365 of them are negative such as “don’t commit murder.”

But not all of the negative commandments result in a sin offering.

Mishnah tractate Keritot lists 36 negative commandments that if performed willfully, may involve a court case if committed in public and witnesses perform hatraah and so on.  Then the court can condemn the sinner to flogging.

The definition of keritot is seeing all your descendants die before you die.  If the Big 36 are committed willfully but a court cannot try the sinner, the punishment is keritot by Gd, the only One who would know if the sin was actually committed and it was willful.

For willful sins aside from the big 36, either due process can be observed or not.  If not, Gd will take care of it even if it doesn’t fall into the big 36.  “Vengeance is MINE,” said the Lord (not yours). 

If due process can be observed, and it is a capital crime, the death penalty can be imposed.  If it’s not a capital crime, usually damages can be imposed by the court.

And those are willful transgressions, the second kind.

The third kind is, maybe the transgressor had a moment of forgetfulness, absent-mindedness, or just plain ignorance, or made a mistake in his facts.  It is not possible for the court to punish in this situation, even with due process, and Gd refuses to punish in this situation.  THIS IS THE CASE TO WHICH LEVITICUS 4:2 SPECIFICALLY REFERS as kicking off a sin offering.

Yes, I know I was shouting.  That was just to get your attention. 

There are 365 negative commandments.  They only generate a sin offering if the person did not sin willfully.  Willful sins are punished either by a court, or by Gd with extirpation of one’s descendants in one’s lifetime. 

Have I said it in enough different ways to make an impression?  Good, then I’ll discuss a general principle of Jewish law which I have not discussed up to now but which particularly helps with another urban legend specifically about sin offerings.

For next week read Leviticus 5:1.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a time Biblical Hebrew -- Genesis 2:5

Genesis 2:5

ה וְכֹל שִׂיחַ הַשָּׂדֶה טֶרֶם יִהְיֶה בָאָרֶץ וְכָל־עֵשֶׂב הַשָּׂדֶה טֶרֶם יִצְמָח כִּי לֹא הִמְטִיר יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים עַל־הָאָרֶץ וְאָדָם אַיִן לַעֲבֹד אֶת־הָאֲדָמָה:

Transliteration: V’-khol siach ha-sadeh terem yihyeh ba-arets v’-khal-esev ha-sadeh terem yitsmach ki lo himtir **** elohim al-ha-arets v-adam ain la-avod et-ha-adamah.

Translation:    All the growth of the field did not yet exist on land and all grass of the field had not yet sprouted for **** Gd had not yet cause it to rain on the earth and there was no man to work the earth.

Vocabulary in this lesson:

שִׂיחַ	growth
טֶרֶם	Not yet
יִצְמָח	sprout
הִמְטִיר	Caused to rain
אַיִן	There was none
לַעֲבֹד	To work

Quick quiz.  How do I know that himtir means “caused?”

Notice that the infinitive “to work,” la-avod, has patach under the lamed instead of a chiriq as in limshol.  The ayin at the start of avod cannot take a shva the way the mem of mshol can; it is one of those letters called “weak”.  It has to take an “ah” sound and for that it uses a chataf patach – a patach combined with a shva.  Then the lamed needs a corresponding sound.

In the same sort of way the infinitive of “to be” is lihyot.  The infinitive of “to say” is lemor or in a different binyan, lomar.  You’ll see all of these and I’ll emphasize them when we get to them.

“Growth,” siach is the same sort of feminine gender noun as ruach.  So what do you think its plural is?

Answer to the first quiz: The heh at the start and the yod in the middle are signs that this is a causative hifil.  The verb hibaram that you had in lesson 48 does NOT have the yod in it.  That’s a sign that it is NOT hifil.

Answer to the second question: sichot.  Notice that once again, the “ah” sound disappears.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

In Progress

Are you wondering what I'm going to do with myself now that the garden is shut down?
I am working on several projects.
First, an interlinear Torah with Jewish Hebrew, Onkelos' Targum, Samaritan Hebrew, Samaritan Targum, Yehoash, and my translation into English.  The Samaritan will be in the square letters which are so familiar to readers of Hebrew.
It comments on the differences between Jewish and Samaritan Hebrew.  This commentary takes advantage of Dr. John A. Cook's doctoral dissertation on aspect and modality in Biblical Hebrew, which I used to write the second part of my Bit at a Time Biblical Hebrew page.
A future rewrite will include the Samaritan characters and the Athias/Usque Ladino.

This feeds into the third part of my trilogy of work:
Fact-Checking the Torah (see blog page);
Narrating the Torah (re-narrating the text based on Axel Olrik, John A. Cook, and modern archaeology as well as Jewish law; currently in rewrite based on Cook);
Greeking the Torah (interlinear comparison of Septuagint, Massoretic and Samaritan Hebrew, based on John A. Cook; barely begun).

Greeking will show why it's a myth that Septuagint is more like Torah than Samaritan Pentateuch is.  This myth arose in the middle of the 19th century in Lancelot Brenton's introduction to his translation of Septuagint into English.  That people believed the myth -- and still do -- is understandable since the aspectual nature of Biblical Hebrew verbs and their modalities was not understood until the end of the 20th century.  It's also true that Deissman and others had not yet studied the Nag Hammadi papyri; when they did, they found that Septuagint koine was not a Jewish dialect, or an Alexandrian one, but the same version of Greek used throughout Alexander's empire.

Email me if you're interested in Narrating or Greeking, or in a copy of the interlinear Jewish and Samaritan works.
There's an interlinear work on the web but after 30 years of Hebrew study, I find its English "equivalents" to be contextually inexact, and of course it doesn't reflect either aspect or modality.  It would be great if you went to Interlinear Pentateuch to see this, especially once you get through the Bit at a Time Biblical Hebrew page, which should show you the reason for my comment.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Garden -- waiting

The wind tore at the leaves on the weekend.
But across the street are two magnificent oak trees.
They still have lots of leaves, as do other trees near me.
There's no use raking until they are all bare.
Except for the exercise.
The only other thing I might do in the  meantime
is cut at the English ivy.
I know I said that trimming shrubs now is bad for them.
But I don't care if the English ivy gets sick and dies.
Same for periwinkle.
If you don't have them, then unless you really need the exercise,
leave the leaves alone until all the trees are bare.


© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

DIY -- sugar

I heard a spot on the radio last week that was an eye-opener.
You must, you absolutely must, read labels and look for sugar.
It will give the grams.
Divide by 4 and that's how many teaspoons of sugar are in one serving of that product.
I use 1 teaspoon of sugar in my coffee or tea in the morning.
Now remember that  the "one serving" listed by the manufacturer  is for a 2000 calorie diet.
My eating program for somebody 5 foot 2 and over 55 is 1800 calories.
If my eating program allows me 2 teaspoons of sugar a day,
I CANNOT eat any product with 8 or more grams of sugar in it.
Now the kicker: that means I CANNOT eat even one serving a day of a famous maker's tomato soup.
I can eat 2/3 of a serving, before adjusting calories.
When I adjust for my 1800 calorie eating program, I can eat 60% of a "serving."
That's right.  Just over half a serving gives me ALL my sugar for a day if my limit is 2 teaspoons. 
I can't have my coffee or tea.
How many of us can live with that?
NOBODY.
What's more, the "nutrition" claims on the can become nonsense when I can only eat 60% of one serving.  I won't get that much nutrition because I can't eat their one serving.

You must learn to DIY so you can cut sugar out of your diet.
That will help you lower your body fat.
It will help you avoid diabetes.
But the bottom line is, this famous line of soups is NOT part of a healthy diet.
It is part of a diet that promotes fat and diabetes.
The person narrating the spot pointed out that there's absolutely nothing wrong with candy or cake or cookies.
The problem is with things that you might think you could eat every day -- tomato soup one day, chicken another, beef another -- which are the same thing as eating candy or cake or cookies every day.
If you're having trouble losing weight or having trouble losing body fat or having trouble controlling your blood sugar,
YOU MUST READ THESE LABELS so you know what's causing the problem.
And then to fix it you might have to DIY.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Outdoors -- open for business

And not a day too soon. 
The juncos are back.  I saw them the very day after I put my feeder up.
I am not putting much bird food on the ground any more.
Juncos prefer to feed on the ground, but I've seen them use the feeder.
That leaves only the mourning doves who are about five times too big for the feeder.
I put out a platform feeder with mealworms and thistle.
The mockingbird found it yesterday.  He deserves it.

But I have to warn you, like I think I noted last year.
Just because bird food only has millet and safflower, or has hot peppers in it,
doesn't mean the squirrels won't eat it. 
I've seen them download cubic inches of food from my feeder.
And they will eat mealworms as well, I saw one do it.
There are only two things you can do.
Keep a thick layer of cayenne on the ground at all times where you put your mealworms.
Coat all approaches to your feeder with oil infused with cayenne.
And even then, you probably should have a kid's water rifle handy
so you can soak the little piggies when they climb onto your feeder.
My problem is I have a couple of kids who don't know the rules yet.
They're learning.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved