21st Century Bible Hebrew -- imperatives

I apologize for this being posted so late. My personal calendar is off by a day.

Imperatives in BH have a feature I don’t know of in any other language; if you know better, post here.

In BH an imperative is used a) from a person authorized to issue it;  b) to a person who can be relied on to execute it. This is an important reason why Torah has to use other grammar for the commandments and later we’ll see a specific piece of grammar which points out why. You already know what it is if you have read your Torah carefully.

Gd uses imperatives to Mosheh who can be trusted to carry them out. Except for one time. In Numbers 20:8, Gd uses the 2^nd person commandment, not the imperative. This is a spoiler: this one time, Mosheh will not do what Gd says.

ח קַ֣ח אֶת־הַמַּטֶּ֗ה וְהַקְהֵ֤ל אֶת־הָֽעֵדָה֙ אַתָּה֙ וְאַֽהֲרֹ֣ן אָחִ֔יךָ וְדִבַּרְתֶּ֧ם אֶל־הַסֶּ֛לַע לְעֵֽינֵיהֶ֖ם וְנָתַ֣ן מֵימָ֑יו וְהֽוֹצֵאתָ֙ לָהֶ֥ם מַ֨יִם֙ מִן־הַסֶּ֔לַע וְהִשְׁקִיתָ֥ אֶת־הָֽעֵדָ֖ה וְאֶת־בְּעִירָֽם:

This is the second time Gd brings water from the rock, only Mosheh strikes the rock instead of speaking to it. It is why he is prohibited from entering the Holy Land – but it was an object lesson in the rejection of miracles as running Jewish culture, which he laid out in words in Deuteronomy 30:12-14.

On the other hand, in Genesis 23 when Avraham is negotiating for a place to put Sarah’s bones, the people he is negotiating with keep using imperative. Avraham does not do what they say. They are not reliable.

ה וַיַּֽעֲנ֧וּ בְנֵי־חֵ֛ת אֶת־אַבְרָהָ֖ם לֵאמֹ֥ר לֽוֹ: ו שְׁמָעֵ֣נוּ ׀ אֲדֹנִ֗י נְשִׂ֨יא אֱלֹהִ֤ים אַתָּה֙ בְּתוֹכֵ֔נוּ בְּמִבְחַ֣ר קְבָרֵ֔ינוּ קְבֹ֖ר אֶת־מֵתֶ֑ךָ אִ֣ישׁ מִמֶּ֔נּוּ אֶת־קִבְר֛וֹ לֹֽא־יִכְלֶ֥ה מִמְּךָ֖ מִקְּבֹ֥ר מֵתֶֽךָ: …

י וְעֶפְר֥וֹן יֹשֵׁ֖ב בְּת֣וֹךְ בְּנֵי־חֵ֑ת וַיַּ֩עַן֩ עֶפְר֨וֹן הַֽחִתִּ֤י אֶת־אַבְרָהָם֙ בְּאָזְנֵ֣י בְנֵי־חֵ֔ת לְכֹ֛ל בָּאֵ֥י שַֽׁעַר־עִיר֖וֹ לֵאמֹֽר:

יא לֹֽא־אֲדֹנִ֣י שְׁמָעֵ֔נִי הַשָּׂדֶה֙ נָתַ֣תִּי לָ֔ךְ וְהַמְּעָרָ֥ה אֲשֶׁר־בּ֖וֹ לְךָ֣ נְתַתִּ֑יהָ לְעֵינֵ֧י בְנֵֽי־עַמִּ֛י נְתַתִּ֥יהָ לָּ֖ךְ קְבֹ֥ר מֵתֶֽךָ: …

יד וַיַּ֧עַן עֶפְר֛וֹן אֶת־אַבְרָהָ֖ם לֵאמֹ֥ר לֽוֹ:

טו אֲדֹנִ֣י שְׁמָעֵ֔נִי אֶ֩רֶץ֩ אַרְבַּ֨ע מֵאֹ֧ת שֶֽׁקֶל־כֶּ֛סֶף בֵּינִ֥י וּבֵֽינְךָ֖ מַה־הִ֑וא וְאֶת־מֵֽתְךָ֖ קְבֹֽר:

If you have more questions about grammar and telling people to do things, let me know.

Now I’m going to use imperatives as the starting point for a discussion of modal morphology.

Modality means reflecting the thoughts or beliefs or intentions of the “speaker”.

Some languages do it through periphrasis, using auxiliary verbs that express the mode or mood, with the verb that expresses what the mood is about. So “I want to eat” is periphrasis for a kind of modal. BH does it with morphology.

There are three kinds of modality: deontic; epistemic; and oblique. We’ve seen some but not all of them already.

Knitting -- German short rows again

Last time I visited this subject was quite a while ago and it's always worthwhile repeating a search yearly to see what new stuff has been posted out there.

So here is a clear video on doing German short rows and what you do with the double stitch when you turn your work and get back to it. I think the last video I saw wasn't clear about the double stitch.
https://stolenstitches.com/blogs/tutorials/german-short-rows-in-garter-stitch

That was in garter stitch. This video is in stockinette and shows how you can shape a knit with German short rows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3S9cl47PYw

This video, about minute 9, shows you how German short rows on a sock toe looks more solid than wrap and turn, but the sock pattern I showed you that you do top down is even more solid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52qy8OOb-s0

This video is the German short row heel of a sock which is "better than wrap and turn" -- which also doesn't happen on my sock pattern. But it shows that you stop knitting in the round and start doing stockinette. You leave the double stitch on when you turn instead of knitting it up. There are stitches in the middle of the heel that you work normally the whole time. When you have finished turning the sides into double-stitches, these middle stitches now stick out beyond your work forming the sole of the heel. Then at the  end you knit up your double-stitches. When you purl back, you pick up all the other stitches to start working in the round again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcHQ9-BEmOM

This video is German short row heels on a top down sock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2TOd5Io2aU

This video shows how to do German short rows with the Continental hold instead of the English hold.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyg2s09Grhs

So what German short rows do is isolate some stitches that you keep working the normal way, while you block off some stitches on either side to work up later. You keep those outer stitches live by keeping them on your needle, and they are practically invisible compared to the wrap and turn method. However, I've been using wrap and turn for mid-back elevations on jumpers and sweaters, and you can't see the wraps because each time you knit or purl longer stretches. Since the DROPS sweaters do wrap and turn on their Nordic pieces, I don't see anything wrong with wrap and turn.

And as I just said twice, you don't have to use wrap and turn on socks. When you are working toe up, you can do your increases as KF/B for a tight fabric, and m1 for a lacy fabric. The German short rows come in at the heel.

So what I would love to do with this is work socks in fingering weight yarn to match tops for spring/autumn wear.  Stay tuned!

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- what the commandments tell us

The duplicate conditional is a commandment, not an imperative. They are different. I’ll talk about imperatives last because they lead into another segment of grammar.

If aspectless verbs are “on demand”, there are commandments that are not “on demand”. The alternatives are a constant requirement, or a scheduled requirement. Shabbat in the Big Ten isn’t really a scheduled requirement, it’s on demand because the same rules apply to holy days, which are moveable feasts. That’s why zakhor and shamor are aspectless verbs.

I talked about vav plus imperfect verbs as the envelopes to legal material, being the definition of when a court case can exist. These are commandments in the sense that the court has to try the case if the definition is met.

I talked about vav plus perfect verbs as the specific issues to be tried, on which the court can convict or acquit. These are commandments in the sense that the court has to try these, and only these issues.

Instructions about rituals are also commandments. Some of them are scheduled, like the tamid described in Exodus 29:38-42. These commandments are all in the imperfect, meaning they are all definitions.

לח וְזֶ֕ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר תַּֽעֲשֶׂ֖ה עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּ֑חַ כְּבָשִׂ֧ים בְּנֵֽי־שָׁנָ֛ה שְׁנַ֥יִם לַיּ֖וֹם תָּמִֽיד:

לט אֶת־הַכֶּ֥בֶשׂ הָֽאֶחָ֖ד תַּֽעֲשֶׂ֣ה בַבֹּ֑קֶר וְאֵת֙ הַכֶּ֣בֶשׂ הַשֵּׁנִ֔י תַּֽעֲשֶׂ֖ה בֵּ֥ין הָֽעַרְבָּֽיִם:

מ וְעִשָּׂרֹ֨ן סֹ֜לֶת בָּל֨וּל בְּשֶׁ֤מֶן כָּתִית֙ רֶ֣בַע הַהִ֔ין וְנֵ֕סֶךְ רְבִיעִ֥ת הַהִ֖ין יָ֑יִן לַכֶּ֖בֶשׂ הָֽאֶחָֽד:

מא וְאֵת֙ הַכֶּ֣בֶשׂ הַשֵּׁנִ֔י תַּֽעֲשֶׂ֖ה בֵּ֣ין הָֽעַרְבָּ֑יִם כְּמִנְחַ֨ת הַבֹּ֤קֶר וּכְנִסְכָּהּ֙ תַּֽעֲשֶׂה־לָּ֔הּ לְרֵ֣יחַ נִיחֹ֔חַ אִשֶּׁ֖ה לַֽיהוָֹֽה:

מב עֹלַ֤ת תָּמִיד֙ לְדֹרֹ֣תֵיכֶ֔ם פֶּ֥תַח אֹֽהֶל־מוֹעֵ֖ד לִפְנֵ֣י יְהוָֹ֑ה אֲשֶׁ֨ר אִוָּעֵ֤ד לָכֶם֙ שָׁ֔מָּה לְדַבֵּ֥ר אֵלֶ֖יךָ שָֽׁם:

How do you try a court case if you have no perfect aspect specifics to rule on? Well, it means that a court has nothing to hang its questions on if it wants evidence. Also notice that unlike Exodus 21:2, there’s no ki plus imperfect aspect. The wording of that verse refers to things that are known to happen, and then Torah goes on to regulate events. (Also see my last post in Fact-Checking the Torah.)

This is different from, for example, Exodus 12:15, ki kal-okhel chamets, in the commandments for Passover, which does envision somebody eating leavened grain products during the prohibition. But it has nothing to do with the ritual of the actual sacrifice offered at Passover.

There are ki clauses for getting into a situation where you owe an olah, a chatat, or an asham, but there are no ki clauses for the rituals of those sacrifices, or the shlamim of any kind, until we get to Leviticus 7:22-27 with the prohibitions on eating chelev or blood. They have nothing to do with performing the ritual, they have to do with products of either ritual or shechitah for food.

If a sacrificial ritual is performed correctly, the process is defined as hurtsah, acceptable. (This is a hufal legal definition.) The punishment for a sacrifice that doesn’t fit the definition is keret, extirpating all of a man’s descendants before he dies.  Keret is only imposed by Gd. Some commandments for which violations are punished by keret can be tried by an earthly court, but they cannot convict without eligible witnesses and relevant probative evidence. The violations of sacrificial ritual have to do with split-second timing, physical transportation beyond a hairline limit, and human intentions, all of which are knowable only to Gd. So it’s plain that you can’t let a court try these cases. And there’s no sense having perfect-aspect clauses in commandments about performing the rituals.

Judaism counts commandments including aspectless forms and the 2^nd and 3^rd person verbs in both imperfect and perfect aspects. And that’s how Judaism comes up with – not 10 – but 613 commandments.

DIY -- sourdough whole wheat bread

I bought a copy of George Greenstein's Secrets of a Jewish Baker many years ago. He hints at how to make your own sourdough starter. It's a simple method; it takes four days to get a rye flour starter bubbling, and a week for white flour.

The thing is, George has lots of sourdough recipes in his book -- but not for 100% wheat bread. Half-whole wheat French bread yes, but not whole whole wheat bread like the one he has that doesn't use sourdough.

The reason may be obvious to some of you. Whole wheat flour has the bran in it, which sort of drowns out the gluten; it's harder to get whole wheat bread to rise than white wheat. When you make sourdough bread you're already handicapped in the department of the bread actually rising.

The solution is, take your time. George's sourdough recipes have 8 hour build times. If you keep starter going, and it's good and healthy, do this. Mix up your first build Wednesday night. Let it work for 12 hours.  Start your second build and put in half the  honey (2 tablespoons) and let that work 12 hours.

Before you go to bed, start the last build. Friday morning, put in the other two tablespoons of honey, the oil and salt, an optional packet of yeast, one cup of warm water, a cup of whole wheat flour, and that's your sponge. Let it work half an hour.

Now put in the rest of your whole wheat flour, rise an hour, punch down, and shape your loaf.  Also pull off about 1/3 of it, and shape into six balls. Sprinkle corn meal on a flat pan and put the balls in. Flatten them a little.

Put a towel over each pan and set in a warm place. After 30 minutes, put the rolls in your oven and set the temperature to 325. They'll be done in 20 minutes. Turn the oven off so you don't waste energy, and leave the door open to keep the loaf warm so it will rise.

The loaf rises one hour and then you bake at 325 25-30 minutes. If it doesn't seem done, turn off the oven, close the door, and let it absorb the heat until it's done.

Another method is this, and it worked beautifully when I added multi-grain cereal for an extra kick of fiber. Mix your starter and 3 cups whole wheat flour with 1/2 to 1 cup warm water. Cover with plastic and let it mature for 24 hours. Now add your honey, salt, 2 TBSP oil, 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour. Pour 1/3 to 1/2 cup of boiling water over 1/3 cup of the cereal and stir it a couple of times. When it stops steaming, add it to your dough. Mix and knead about 100 strokes, and don't add too much more flour; you want this dough a little moist. Rise 4 hours. Lightly oil your loaf pan, put in your loaf, and proof at least 2 hours. Bake as usual.

Don't forget that the end of a loaf of bread is terrific for toast, especially French toast, which was originally invented so as not to waste the end of a loaf of bread.

Fact-Checking the Torah -- a legal urban legend

This urban legend came up on Twitter recently but it's been around a long time. It's an example of how people don't understand how their own legal system works. I never discussed this on the Fact-Checking page or at least I can't find the discussion now.

These people believe an urban legend which says that if a legal system addresses a subject, it approves of the activities addressed by the legal system.

By this logic, the American legal system approves of driving while drunk, drugged, drowsy, or distracted, as well as murder, rape, incest and treason.

In fact it's quite the opposite. The principle nullum crimen nulla poena was discussed in the archaeology section and on the Mendel Beilis pages. Legal systems, including Torah, do two things.

1) Define what has to happen before a trial can take place. In Torah, the formula is often ki plus an imperfect verb for something that happens that sparks a court case.
2) Define what consequences are punishable and often how. In Torah, this is at least one perfect aspect verb following the ki plus imperfect. It may be followed by an imperfect verb that prescribes the penalty.

The specific context on Twitter was about committing battery against an eved. The tweet committed the fallacy of sampling bias by ignoring that the law specified negative consequences for the person who committed the battery.

The tweeter also committed the strawman argument fallacy by quoting English instead of Hebrew. I had specified that a response address the subject in Hebrew. The tweeter ignored that because he didn't know Hebrew. He also committed the fallacy of using an unreliable authority -- as well as being an unreliable authority.

Because he didn't know anything about how legal systems work. He just wanted to say something bad about Judaism.

Which is where lots of urban legends about Judaism start.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- duplicate unconditional

And there is the grammatical counterpart to mot tamut, a “duplicate unconditional.”

When you have the aspectless verb followed by the same verb root and binyan in a perfect aspect, you are not looking at a conditional situation. You are looking at an absolute situation.

An example would be Genesis 27:30.

וַיְהִי כַּאֲשֶׁר כִּלָּה יִצְחָק לְבָרֵךְ אֶת־יַעֲקֹב וַיְהִי אַךְ יָצֹא יָצָא יַעֲקֹב מֵאֵת פְּנֵי יִצְחָק אָבִיו וְעֵשָׂו אָחִיו בָּא מִצֵּידוֹ:

It must have been as soon as Yitschaq finished blessing Yaaqov, it must have been just as Yaaqov absolutely left the presence of Yitschaq his father, Esav his brother just coming from his hunting.

I translated ba as progressive, “just then” instead of perfective, “finished coming”. The whole verse is about two things happening at the same instant, with some real narrative tension going on.

This is unusual. An evidentiary epistemic like va-y’hi is normally followed by a narrative past, although  sometimes there is intervening material. An example of a delayed narrative past is Genesis 14:1-10 where there’s a mini-sidebar from verses 2 to 6 inclusive and verse 7 opens with the narrative past. The progressive ba may be a substitute, the way eyn substitutes for imperfect in the verse about Sarai not having children that I already discussed.

The second evidentiary epistemic is followed by the duplicate conditional.

My claim is that the duplicate conditional invokes the law, but duplicate unconditional cuts off legal consequences. How does that work here?

Notice that they escape the situation where Esav could have killed Yaaqov right then and there. Since Yitschaq was blind, there would be no witnesses to this killing, and since there was no enmity between the brothers before, it would have been only manslaughter. Yaaqov would still be dead, and Esav would have to flee to a city of refuge – and there were none at the time, a link between Esav and Qain.

Some relative would have been responsible for hunting down Esav. Who would do such a thing? What about Yishmael? But the next thing we learn is that Esav marries a daughter of Yishmael, so the old man is out of the loop for avenging his half-nephew on his son-in-law. Torah eliminates all these issues with a two-word phrase pointing out that they never mattered.

Another good example is from the Yosef story, Genesis 40:15. When Yosef is talking to the chief butler before interpreting his dream, Yosef says this:

כִּֽי־גֻנֹּ֣ב גֻּנַּ֔בְתִּי מֵאֶ֖רֶץ הָֽעִבְרִ֑ים וְגַם־פֹּה֙ לֹֽא־עָשִׂ֣יתִי מְא֔וּמָה כִּֽי־שָׂמ֥וּ אֹתִ֖י בַּבּֽוֹר:

My status is having been stolen from the land of the Hebrews; also here I didn’t do anything to result in being put into the pit.

That’s a duplicate unconditional using the pual. In narratives, pual is one step before the denouement, as with the finishing of heaven and earth, immediately followed by the real denouement, creation of Shabbat. In legal situations, pual is one step before hufal, a legal definition like yumat allowing an execution if reached by due process. With pual there are still issues to resolve before legal action can be taken.

In this case, there are multiple ways that Yosef could have become a slave. One is to commit a theft of property that he could not pay off. When the court determines that you are a thief, you have to make restitution in one lump sum. If you can’t, the court can take out an exclusive services contract on you in the value of the theft, and you have to work it off unless the other party to the contract forgives your debt to him.

Another possibility is Yosef taking out the contract on himself for some reason. As an adult (he was 17 at the time), he had that right.

Finally, there’s the possibility that somebody kidnapped Yosef so as to sell him into slavery. This is a capital crime in Judaism.

At the end of the verse, when Yosef says “and here too I didn’t do anything wrong,” he’s denying being a thief so his being in the pit is not the step before selling him to pay restitution.

But before that, he uses a duplicate unconditional in pual to say “don’t get wrapped around the axles trying to convict anybody of kidnapping me. I don’t have the witnesses necessary to try a capital crime. We have bigger fish to fry; let’s be about it.”

While writing Narrating the Torah, wherever I came across a duplicate unconditional, I stopped to analyze what laws it would cut off. And it worked every time, although I had to do some legal research to get there. Its use suggests two things.

One comes directly from Olrik’s principles: Genesis is a heroic saga about ancestors who provide examples of cultural behavior. The other is that Genesis is about patriarchal law as it existed before the Egyptian Oppression, which occurred between 1700 and 1628 BCE.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- two important aspectless verb structures

Now I can talk about an important structure in Biblical Hebrew which you saw in the Garden of Eden story, Genesis 2:13:

וּמֵעֵץ הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע לֹא תֹאכַל מִמֶּנּוּ כִּי בְּיוֹם אֲכָלְךָ מִמֶּנּוּ מוֹת תָּמוּת:

Mot yumat appears a lot in Leviticus 20 in a list of capital crimes. I already said that in the Genesis story, it introduces an expectation that Gd will follow due process and not kill Adam and Chavvah unless He has the right evidence. This is also true of mot yumat; a court cannot execute somebody without following due process.

The grammar is:

Aspectless verb plus imperfect aspect verb from the same root and binyan.

The aspectless verb is used here as a commandment. As with zakhor and shamor, this is an “upon demand” commandment. The laws of Shabbat also apply to holy days and so it’s not just a simple schedule; intercalating the year moves the holy days. So any time an aspectless verb is used as a commandment, it’s “on demand”.

BUT the complement identifies when it’s legal to carry out the demand. In the case of mot tamut in Genesis, Gd says when it’s legal. You don’t get anything more “on demand” than that.

In the case of yumat other grammar is involved. Remember a few lessons back when I was talking about the perfect aspect verbs for a sacrifice, and I said that they define when the sacrifice is hurtsah and I said I was going to say more about that later. Here it is.

Hurtsah and yumat are from the hufal binyan. In legal formulations, this binyan says that a legal definition has been met. (It says something else in narratives but I’ll talk about that later.)

So in the case of mot yumat, the legal definition of yumat has been met and, in Narrating the Torah, I define it as meaning “a dead man”. This is stronger than ish mavet in Kings I 2:26 for Evyatar the priest; he has displeased Shlomo for trying to crown Adoniyahu. Yumat means somebody actually condemned by a court – through due process.  Because there’s a condition on carrying out the commandment – meeting due process – I call this the duplicate conditional. 

The duplicate conditional also shows up in narratives, probably the best example being Genesis 37:8. Yosef has just told his brothers his first dream and they say:

ח וַיֹּ֤אמְרוּ לוֹ֙ אֶחָ֔יו הֲמָלֹ֤ךְ תִּמְלֹךְ֙ עָלֵ֔ינוּ אִם־מָשׁ֥וֹל תִּמְשֹׁ֖ל בָּ֑נוּ וַיּוֹסִ֤פוּ עוֹד֙ שְׂנֹ֣א אֹת֔וֹ עַל־חֲלֹֽמֹתָ֖יו וְעַל־דְּבָרָֽיו:

His brothers said to him, “Oh, we are so sure you’ll rule over us, or take charge of us”; they added hating him more over his dreams and his words.

They could have issued a direct denial, but instead, the grammar says “No way are you in a position to do this,” the conditions don’t exist.

I once thought I had found an example of the duplicate conditional with each word in a different binyan but once I studied it carefully, I found both verbs were in nifal binyan.

There’s another structure like this, and it uses perfect aspect verbs.