The Joys of Hebrew

305 Pages·1993·10.06 MB·English

by  Lewis Glinert

Joys of
THE
Hebrew
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Joys of
THE
Hebrew
LEWIS GLINERT
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York Oxford
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York Toronto
Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo
Nairobi Dares Salaam Cape Town
Melbourne Auckland Madrid
and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1992 by Lewis Glinert
First published in 1992 by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
198 Madison Avenue. New York, New York 10016-4314
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1993
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Glinert, Lewis.
The joys of Hebrew / Lewis Glinert.
p cm.
ISBN 0-19-507424-6
ISBN 0-19-508668-6 (Pbk.)
1. Proverbs, Hebrew—Dictionaries. 2. Proverbs, Jewish—Dictionaries.
3. Bible, O.T.—Quotations—Dictionaries. 4. Rabbinical literature-
Quotations, maxims, etc—Dictionaries.
5. Jews—Folklore—Dictionaries. 6. Judaism—Quotations, maxims, etc.—
Dictionaries. 7. Hebrew language—Terms and phrases. I. Title
PN6414.G58 1992
398.9'924—dc20 92-28624
4 6 8 10 9 7 5
Printed in the United States of America
To Shalva, Yeshurun, and Tsivya
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Contents
Acknowledgments, ix
Introduction, xi
Prologue, 3
The Entries, 9
The Words in Their Hebrew Lettering, 270
The Hebrew Form of Some Familiar
Biblical Names, 291
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Acknowledgments
Thanks are due to the following authors, or their representatives, and
publishers for permission to quote from the sources listed: Elie Wiesel
for Souls on fire, copyright © 1972 by Elie Wiesel; Herman Wouk for
This Is My God, copyright © 1949 by The Abe Wouk Foundation, Inc.,
copyright renewed 1987 by Herman Wouk; The Balkin Agency for
Israel and the World by Martin Buber, copyright © 1948, 1975 by
Schocken Books; the Rabbinical Council of America for Orthodox
Judaism in a World of Revolutionary Transformations by Eliezer Berkovits
and Sheliach Tzibbur: Historical and Phenomenological Observations by
Gerald Blidstein, both from Tradition, copyright © 1965, 1971 by the
Rabbinical Council of America; Rabbi Norman Lamm for permission
to quote from his writings, copyright © by Norman Lamm; Rabbi Jack
Riemer for So That Your Values Live On by Jack Riemer and Nathaniel
Stampfer, published by Jewish Lights, Woodstock, VT, 1991; quotations
from Adin Steinsaltz, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Aharon Lichtenstein,
Aviezer Ravitzky, and Robert M. Seltzer, reprinted with permission of
Charles Scribner's Sons, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing Company,
from Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, Arthur A. Cohen and Paul
Mendes-Flohr, editors, copyright © 1987 by Charles Scribner's Sons;
Random House, Inc., for quotations from Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Jacob
Neusner, and Deborah Lipstadt in Jewish Reflections on Death, edited by
Jack Riemer, copyright © 1974 by Schocken Books, for Jewish Mystical
Testimonies by Louis Jacobs, copyright © 1976 by Schocken Books, for
The Kerchief by S.Y. Agnon, copyright © 1970 by Schocken Books, and
for On Judaism by Martin Buber, copyright © 1948 by Schocken Books;
Curt Leviant for translations of Sholom Aleichem; Naomi Shemer for
Yerushalayim shel Zahav, translation copyright © by Naomi Shemer;
Moshe Yess for David Cohen's Bar Mitzvah and That's My Boy, copyright
© by Moshe Yess; Shraga Arad and the Jerusalem Post for Randomalia
by Miriam Arad, copyright © 1988 by Shraga Arad; a quotation from
Emanuel Rackman in This I Believe: Documents of American Jewish Life,
edited by Jacob Rader Marcus, reprinted by permission of the pub-
lisher, Jason Aronson, Inc., Northvale, NJ, copyright © 1990; Thames &