Outdoors -- successful summer

The catbird's chick is a couple of weeks from adulthood.
Why is that a successful summer?
Because this is the second catbird chick raised near my yard this year.
The adult pair have been living around my yard for up to 5 years now.
I've seen them raise chicks before.
It's nice to know that even though some neighbors have destroyed bird-friendly habitat, some of my bird friends are still here.
Now the bad news.
I killed my first cricket-in-the-house a week ago.
My cricket count weather lore says that in my area, the more crickets try to get into the house, and the sooner they do it, the worse the winter will be.
I've also seen two small flights of geese at different places on different days.
Right now, it looks like things will get cold early.
The jury -- or rather the crickets -- are still out as to the rest of the winter.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Garden -- August

You know what you have to do.
Pick, pick, pick those zucchinis and eat them small and sweet.
You can blanche and freeze them or pickle them if you get tired of eating them fresh.
You can also batter-dip and fry the blossoms and eat those to prevent new zucchinis.
If you're tired of eating fresh green and wax beans, you can freeze and pickle those too.
I don't recommend canning them unless you have a pressure canner and know how to use it.
Beans are famous for developing botulism if you use a heat canner.
OR let them grow.  When the pods get papery, harvest them and strip out the seeds.
If you bought open-pollinated seeds for planting, the seeds you harvest should be fertile.
If not, dry them and use them in chili.
'Maters, you should have 'maters. 
If there too many to eat fresh, you can dry those yourself instead of canning them.
It means saving 75% compared to the store-bought dried tomatoes.
Green tomatoes?  Batter them and fry 'em, make 'em into piccalilli or chow chow.
CORN!  I don't grow it myself.  Try making corn relish with the leftovers.
Cucumbers -- those are obvious.  Even the slicing variety can be pickled in tsukemono or Liang Ban Huang Gua.
Eggplant -- preserve sott'oglio, or eat with greens or potatoes or Chinese Fragrant Eggplant...

What you DON'T do.
My region usually goes dry in July and August.  Let your lawn go dry.  Don't water.  DON'T MOW. 
Don't prune unless Mike McGrath says you should prune your specific shrub or tree. 
Also pay attention to his information on mulch and protect yourself against putting a toxic waste dump in your yard.
Don't prune azaleas.  It's too late.  If you  do, you'll prune away buds for next year's flowers.

What you CAN do.
Prep ground for and plant dark green leafy veg and hardy veg like beets, turnips, carrots and cabbage.  This will mean fresh garden vegetables up to Thanksgiving in parts of the country.
Some of them can survive the winter in the ground, especially if they get sun or you put straw baskets over them.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- Numbers 35:9-30

Your assignment for this week was to read Numbers 35:9-30.

The question is that since Qain killed, he should be killed.  Right?

Now we get into the language issue again.  The Hebrew never calls Qain a ratschan, a murderer.  It always uses horeg, harag, which means killer but not murderer.

And that’s the third urban legend.  Centuries of commentators have claimed that we are descended from a murderer.  But since Qain was not a murderer, this claim is false.  (It’s also false for another reason but I’ll discuss that later.)

Remember, the rules for murder include motive and that goes back to the concept of “hunt him down,” and “yesterday and the day before” and the requirement that there be more than one attack to prove intent.  Nothing in Torah says that Qain hunted Hevel down or attacked him more than once.  It says “they were in the field,” but it doesn’t say this was the third strike for Qain.

Qain wasn’t mad at Hevel, he was mad at Gd.  He had no motive for Hevel’s murder.

We don’t even need to look at means.  Gd can’t convict Qain of murder and condemn him to death.

The next couple of verses go with a subject I didn’t discuss much.  Numbers 35:9-30 discusses the different outcomes for a murderer and a killer.  The killer (after being acquitted of murder by the court) has to live in a city of refuge.

But there are no cities of refuge yet, they were set up only after the entry into the Holy Land.

In fact, a few verses after Hevel’s death, Torah implies that Qain founded the very first city.

So there’s nowhere for Qain to go to escape the goel ha-dam who has the right to take revenge on a killer who leaves the city of refuge.  What’s worse, if there were no goel, a near relative, then “anybody who finds” a killer outside a city of refuge can kill him.

That’s what Qain is afraid of.  He says so.

So Gd sets “the mark of Qain” and this is urban legend number four.  The “mark of Qain” isn’t intended to make people hate Qain.  It’s intended to protect Qain against somebody who would take revenge for Hevel’s death.

In that verse there is an odd phrase sometimes translated as “sevenfold,” but again, there’s a language problem.  “Sevenfold” is used to translate shivataim.  The –aim ending in Hebrew is a dual number indicator.  Classical Greek and Sanskrit, Akkadian and Ugaritic, all had full-up dual number forms for nouns (and adjectives) and verbs.  The feature also appears in Chilean Mapuche, but as far as I can tell there doesn’t seem to be a dual number in ancient Egyptian or in Swahili.  There’s no dual number in either Chinese (which doesn’t decline nouns) or Japanese. 

In Hebrew, the dual number remains mostly for things that naturally come in twos: feet, eyes, ears, but also time periods, shnataim, shvuaim, yomaim.  Also shamaim and maim, heaven and water, look like dual numbers.

Next week we’re going to look at this story one last time and destroy one last urban legend about Qain.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 4:5-8 Grammar

Genesis 4:5-8

 

ה וְאֶל־קַיִן וְאֶל־מִנְחָתוֹ לֹא שָׁעָה וַיִּחַר לְקַיִן מְאֹד וַיִּפְּלוּ פָּנָיו:

ו וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָֹה אֶל־קָיִן לָמָּה חָרָה לָךְ וְלָמָּה נָפְלוּ פָנֶיךָ:

ז הֲלוֹא אִם־תֵּיטִיב שְׂאֵת וְאִם לֹא תֵיטִיב לַפֶּתַח חַטָּאת רֹבֵץ וְאֵלֶיךָ תְּשׁוּקָתוֹ וְאַתָּה תִּמְשָׁל־בּוֹ:

ח וַיֹּאמֶר קַיִן אֶל־הֶבֶל אָחִיו וַיְהִי בִּהְיוֹתָם בַּשָּׂדֶה וַיָּקָם קַיִן אֶל־הֶבֶל אָחִיו וַיַּהַרְגֵהוּ:

 

 

“To fall,” nun pe lamed, is a fairly common verb and gives another example of how nun disappears in some forms.  BUT notice that in the future, the pe takes dagesh, although it doesn’t in the other tenses.  If you look back at lesson 29 for mshl, which had NO “weak” letters, you also don’t see the dagesh.  If you look back at lesson 17 about dagesh, you will see that the segol under the alef in the future tense is considered short and should be followed by dagesh.

 

Present

Singular	Plural	Gender
נוֹפֵל	נוֹפְלִים	Masculine
נוֹפֶלֶת	נוֹפְלוֹת	Feminine

 

Past

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
נָפַלְתִּי	נָפַלְנוּ	First
נָפַלְתָּ	נְפַלְתֶּם	Second/masculine
נָפַלְתְּ	נְפַלְתֶּן	Second/feminine
נָפַל	נָפְלוּ	Third/masculine
נָפְלָה	נָפְלוּ	Third/feminine

 

Future/aorist

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
אֶפּוֹל	נִיפּוֹל	First
תִּיפּוֹל	תִּיפְּלוּ	Second/masculine
תִּיפְּלִי	תִּיפּוֹלְנָה	Second/feminine
יִיפּוֹל	יִיפְּלוּ	Third/masculine
תִּיפּוֹל	תִּיפּוֹלְנָה	Third/feminine

 

 

But remember, Hebrew was spoken this way for centuries before Hebrew writing developed, let alone dagesh or the Hebrew system for writing  vowels.  It’s more accurate to say that epol is spelled with a segol because the peh is pronounced "p' instead of "f", than the other way around.
 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Now we are 2

And the pageviews are approaching 14,000.
And they've come from every continent.
I finally got a hit from Africa and one from Oman, as well as a couple from South Korea.
Japan, you folks must be too busy to give me a read.

Most popular so far?
Witnesses [Mendel  Beilis trial]  -- 60
Beets fermented and beet kvass -- 60
The Muzhik Revolt [Mendel Beilis trial] -- 57
The Baba Bathra  Question? [Mendel Beilis trial] -- 56
Violating the Law [Mendel Beilis trial] -- 47
Vera [Mendel Beilis trial] -- 44
The Letter [Mendel Beilis trial] -- 41
Stage 2 investigation [Mendel Beilis trial] -- 39
Endgame [Mendel Beilis trial] -- 38
Pranaitis Speaks! [Mendel Beilis trial] -- 37

Of course the Beilis posts have been up the longest.

I know I'm late starting the book selling.
No inquiries from any of you yet.
Plus now that Google has to put up that cookies notice to satisfy the EU, some of you might shy away.
I'm not collecting cookies.
You want to read me, read me.
You want to buy books, email me.
Much more left to post.
About 30 Hebrew lessons, including new stuff I never heard of until 2014.
About 180 Fact-Checking posts drafted and ready to go out.
Unless I find out something new and then I'll update whichever ones it applies to.
Anyway thanks for all the views.  I'm sure there are sexier sites that get more hits.  I just didn't know I'd get here.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Fact -Checking the Torah -- Genesis 4:1-15

Your assignment for this week was to read Genesis 4:1-15.

The second urban legend is whether Qain was a sinner from the beginning.

In fact he was a conformist.  He did what his daddy did.  He was satisfied with that.

Hevel was the rule-breaker, the innovator.  He started herding sheep.  Now, who ever heard of a thing like that?

So when Hevel got immediate respect from Gd for his offering and Qain didn’t, no wonder Qain was mad.  Gd was not just dissing Qain, He was dissing the job he explicitly assigned to Adam, Qain’s daddy.  Why would Gd do such a thing?

But who was Qain mad at?

Not Hevel.  Hevel didn’t do anything to Qain. 

Qain was mad at Gd, and Gd said to him that his fate was in his own hands: if he did right, he would be fine, but if he did wrong, “one sin drags another after it.”

Actually, the Jewish proverb is “one mitzvah brings another in its wake,” but Gd was dealing with somebody who was mad and a mad man doesn’t generally have mitsvot on his mind.

We know what happened next, so we’re faced with the question, why didn’t Gd just command Qain not to kill Hevel?

There’s an ancient story about a mother who had to walk to market and she had to leave her kids alone in the house.  Before she left, she gave them a list of things not to do and the last thing she said was “and don’t put any beans up your nose.”  She came home to find all the kids had wondered why she gave that order and tried it out.  The doctor had to come.

Gd was too smart to tell Qain “and don’t put any beans up your nose.”  He had tried issuing one prohibition and it hadn’t worked.  Now He tried to give Qain the big picture without any commandments at all.

And it still didn’t work. 

Now, there’s an urban legend that killers deserve execution.  All of them.  So Qain should have been executed, right?

The Torah text involved in the answer to that question is Numbers 35:9-30.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

 

Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 4:5-8

Genesis 4:5-8

 

ה וְאֶל־קַיִן וְאֶל־מִנְחָתוֹ לֹא שָׁעָה וַיִּחַר לְקַיִן מְאֹד וַיִּפְּלוּ פָּנָיו:

ו וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָֹה אֶל־קָיִן לָמָּה חָרָה לָךְ וְלָמָּה נָפְלוּ פָנֶיךָ:

ז הֲלוֹא אִם־תֵּיטִיב שְׂאֵת וְאִם לֹא תֵיטִיב לַפֶּתַח חַטָּאת רֹבֵץ וְאֵלֶיךָ תְּשׁוּקָתוֹ וְאַתָּה תִּמְשָׁל־בּוֹ:

ח וַיֹּאמֶר קַיִן אֶל־הֶבֶל אָחִיו וַיְהִי בִּהְיוֹתָם בַּשָּׂדֶה וַיָּקָם קַיִן אֶל־הֶבֶל אָחִיו וַיַּהַרְגֵהוּ:

 

Translation:  To Qain and his minchah He did not turn and Qain became very angry and downcast.

**** said to Qain, why are you angry and why are you downcast.

Is it not [true] that if you cause good set and if you don’t cause good, sin lies before door desiring you; but you can control it.

Qain said to Hevel his brother…it turned out that when they were in the field Qain arose at Hevel his brother and killed him.

 

Notice that Gd doesn’t issue a commandment against killing Hevel.  He tries to teach Qain a general principle, that one’s life isn’t what happens at any given point in time but the sum of one’s life and the actions one takes.  And if one gives in to impulses of not doing right one time, it becomes easier to do what isn’t right the next time.

 

The word set is related to the swelling that allows a suspicion of leprosy.  The idea may be that one elevates oneself by doing right.

 

The word “lies” is rovets, related to an over-burdened ass lying down under its load.

 

The words “you can control it” often are translated as a commandment, but they aren’t.  They are the origin of the concept of free will.  Qain can control his impulses, the point is whether he does so or not. 

 

And finally, Qain does not “murder” Hevel, it uses harag not ratsach.  Qain kills Hevel but has no motive for it because Qain is angry with Gd, not Hevel.  Qain also has not demonstrated intent; “it turned out” suggests that this is the only incident when Qain attacked Hevel.  In the Fact-Checking posts I showed that there have to be multiple attacks in a relatively short period of time before anybody can be convicted of murder.  Using harag satisfies an audience used to that law that Qain is not a murderer.  Something happened that resulted in Hevel’s death, but it wasn’t willful murder.

 

 

חָרָה	Get angry
שְׂאֵת	Rise, bear with
פֶּתַח	Door, opening
חַטָּאת	Sin [offering]
רֹבֵץ	lies
תִּמְשָׁל	control
יָּקָם	arose
יַּהַרְגֵהוּ	Killed him

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved