Hebrew Language Blog

Shahar Pe’er (שחר פאר) is an Israeli professional tennis player. Pe’er started her competitive tennis career at the age of six, and won her first title at the age of 12 when she captured the Eddie Herr International Doubles title with Nicole Vaidišová. She reached the Eddie Herr singles final as well. Her career-high singles ranking is world no. 11, which she achieved on January 31, 2011. She also reached the women’s doubles final at the 2008 Australian Open with Victoria Azarenka. Pe’er has won five WTA singles titles, and three WTA doubles titles. As of November 24, 2012, Pe’er was ranked world no. 74 in singles, and no. 79 in doubles.

Playing style

Pe’er originally played with a “counter-puncher” style, but by 2010 she had adopted a more attacking style of play. Her forehand uses a semi-western grip, which makes her good in facing big top-spin opponents. Her two-handed backhand swing is considered one of the best on the women’s tour. It is consistent and finds various angles throughout the court. She originally used a kick serve that lacked the drive needed to penetrate deep, but she changed it to more of a slice serve, which works great for her now and even generates aces. She has a good volley and has no problems going to the net. During matches, she often turns her back to her opponent between points, faces the back of the court, closes her eyes and tries to wipe the mental slate clean.

Timeline

2001 – In the Fall of 2001, Pe’er took first place in the Nike Junior Tour International Masters tennis tournament in the Bahamas, and soon became the youngest Israeli tennis player ever to win the Israeli women’s tennis championship. It was also in late 2001 that Pe’er won the 55th annual Ericsson Orange Bowl International Tennis Championships under-14 girls’ title without dropping a single set, competing with 127 other girls in what is considered the unofficial world championships for youth.

2002 – In March, Pe’er won the Bat Yam International singles title, and was a doubles finalist. In April, she was victorious at the Haifa International doubles event, and in March 2003 won the Aamata Cup in Thailand.

2004 – Pe’er turned professional in 2004, a year during which she played both the ITF Circuit and the WTA Tour. Pe’er’s first major victory came at the 2004 Australian Open, where she won the Juniors’ Championship. She beat her former partner Vaidišová in the final, and became the first Israeli women to win a junior Grand Slam title since Anna Smashnova won the French Open girl’s singles title in 1990.

2007 – She attained her best Grand Slam singles result when she reached the quarterfinals at the 2007 Australian Open and the 2007 US Open.

Online

Official website – http://www.shaharpeer.co.il
Shahar Pe’er at the Women’s Tennis Association – http://www.wtatennis.com/players/player/10493
Shahar Pe’er at the Fed Cup – http://www.fedcup.com/en/players/player/profile.aspx?playerid=100012630

Tennis Terms in Hebrew

בייגל – Bagel
דאבל בייגל – Double Bagel
דרופ שוט – - drop shot
הגשה ללא מענה – ace
ווינר – winner
חבטת גב יד – backhand
חוץ – OUT
טעות בלתי מחויבת – unforced error
נקודה מופסקת – Let
נקודת מערכה – set point
נקודת משחק – match point
נקודת משחקון – game point
נקודת שבירה – break point
שגיאה – fault
שגיאה כפולה – double fault
שגיאת רגל – foot fault

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts discovered between 1947 and 1956 at Khirbet Qumran in the West Bank. The texts are of great historical, religious and linguistic significance because they include the earliest known surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible canon, along with extra-biblical manuscripts which preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism.

The texts are written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Nabataean, mostly on parchment but with some written on papyrus and bronze.[2] The manuscripts have been dated to various ranges between 408 BCE and 318 CE. The scrolls have traditionally been identified with the Essenes, although some recent interpretations have challenged this association and argue that the scrolls were penned by priests in Jerusalem

The scrolls were written on parchment made of processed animal hide known as vellum, papyrus, and sheets of bronze. For those scrolls written on animal hides, scholars with the Israeli Antiquities Authority believe that there may be a hierarchy in the religious importance of the texts based on which type of animal was used to create the hide. Scrolls written on goat and calf hides are considered by scholars to be more significant in nature, while those written on gazelle or ibex are considered to be less religiously significant in nature.

Initial discovery

Bedouin shepherds Muhammed Edh-Dhib, Jum’a Muhammed, and Khalil Musa discovered the caves containing the scrolls between November 1946 and February 1947. The shepherds discovered 7 scrolls housed in jars in a cave at what is now known as the Qumran site.

The scrolls caught the attention of Dr. John C. Trever, of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), who compared the script in the scrolls to that of The Nash Papyrus, the oldest biblical manuscript then known, and found similarities between them. In March the 1948 Arab-Israeli War prompted the move of some of scrolls to Beirut, Lebanon for safekeeping. On 11 April 1948, Miller Burrows, head of the ASOR, announced the discovery of the scrolls in a general press release.

The Dead Sea Scrolls that were found were originally preserved by the dry, arid, and low humidity conditions present within the Qumran area adjoining the Dead Sea. In addition, the lack of the use of tanning materials on the parchment of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the very low airflow in the Qumran caves also contributed significantly to their preservation. Some of the scrolls were found stored in clay jars within the Qumran caves, further helping to preserve them from deterioration.

Handling and Deterioration

The original handling of the scrolls by archaeologists and scholars was done inappropriately, and, along with their storage in an uncontrolled environment, they began a process of rapid deterioration than what they had experienced at Qumran. The Government of Jordan had recognized the urgency of protecting the scrolls from deterioration and the presence of the deterioration among the scrolls. However, the government did not have adequate funds to purchase all the scrolls for their protection and agreed to have foreign institutions purchase the scrolls and have them held at their museum in Jerusalem until they could be “adequately studied”.

In early 1953, they were moved to the Palestine Archaeological Museum in East Jerusalem and consequently suffered more deterioration and damage. The museum had left most of the fragments and scrolls lying between window glass, trapping the moisture in with them, causing an acceleration in the deterioration process. During the 1956 Arab-Israeli War, the scrolls collection of the Palestinian Archaeological Museum was stored in the vault of the Ottoman Bank in Amman, Jordan. The conditions caused mildew to develop on the scrolls and fragments, and some of the fragments were partially destroyed or made illegible by the glue and paper of the manila envelopes in which they were stored while in the vault.

Until the 1970s, the scrolls continued to deteriorate because of poor storage arrangements, exposure to different adhesives, and being trapped in moist environments. In the late 1960s, the deterioration was becoming a major concern with scholars and museum officials alike. Early attempts made by both the British and Israel Museums to remove the adhesive tape ended up exposing the parchment to an array of chemicals, darkening some of them significantly.[59] In the 1970s and 1980s, other preservation attempts were made that included removing the glass plates and replacing them with cardboard; however, the fragments and scrolls continued to rapidly deteriorate during this time.

In 1991, the Israeli Antiquities Authority established a temperature controlled laboratory for the storage and preservation of the scrolls. The actions and preservation methods of Rockefeller Museum staff were concentrated on the removal of tape, oils, metals, salt, and other contaminants. The fragments and scrolls are preserved using acid-free cardboard and stored in solander boxes in the climate-controlled storage area.

Go Online

If you’d like to look at the scriolls yourself, you can view them online courtesy of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem: http://dss.collections.imj.org.il

Another website: The Shrine of the Book – http://www.english.imjnet.org.il/page_899?c0=14389&bsp=14162

In November last year, I wrote a post to learn how to ask where someone is from. Today I’m going to write how to say where you live through the use of the verb לָגוּר – ‘to live’.

The form of “לָגוּר” in linguistic terms is in the infinitive. That means it is like saying “to live”. If we are going to say we live in a certain country or city, then we add the preposition that indicates the ‘in’ part of “to live in…” and that would be בּ…. So the construction we’re looking for is לָגוּר בּ… – to live in.

Where do I live?

So, let’s say I live in Israel. I would take the לָגוּר and drop the לָ part so I’m left with גוּר. There is a change in the niqqud when indicating who is living where. Because I live in Israel, I could say אֲני גוּר בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל, but that would be like saying “I to live in Israel”. So in order to be grammatically correct, I change וּ (shuruk) to ָ (qamats) so that I have גָר. And now I can correctly say אֲני גָר בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל.

גָר can be used not only to say “I live”, but also to say you live and he lives – in the masculine gender. Here’s how they look in Hebrew:

אני גָר – I live / I am living
אתה גָר – you live / you are living
הוּא גָר – he lives / he is living

If a woman is speaking or being spoken to, then the addition of the feminine suffix ָה is added on, making it גָרָה.

אני גָרָה – I live / I am living
את גָרָה – you live / you are living
הִיא גָרָה – she lives / she is living

Check Yourself

Here is a list of countries. I’m giving you a few examples to look at and see how they are constructed. See if you can make up your own sentence saying you live in that country or city. Mix them up between the masculine and feminine genders.

I live in Russia – אני גר ברוסיה
He lives in Romania – הוא גר ברוסיה
She lives in the Netherlands – היא גרה בהולנד

Something Extra

Here’s a table showing the plural forms when speaking/asking about where more than one person lives. You will see there are just two endings you need to add to גָר.

Masculine
We live… – אנחנו גָּרִים
You live… – אתם גָּרִים
They live – הם גָּרִים

Feminine
We live – אנחנו גָּרוֹת
You live – אתן גָּרוֹת
They live – הן גּרוֹת

We are going back in time when this book was published in Warsaw, Poland. This is a Hebrew primer intended for use after learning the alef-bet. It contains over 200 detailed illustrations, stories with review questions and a color chart. The pictures here are based on the copy currently housed at Yeshiva University Museum in New York City, USA

Here is the text from the cover:
הַדִּבּוּר הָעִבְרִי
סֵפֶר לִמוּד שְׂפַת עֵבֶר עַל פִּי הַשִׁטָה הַטִבעִית
(הָרִאשוֹן אַחַר הָאָלֶף־בֵּית)

Then, breaking it down into the vocabulary:

אַחַר – after
אָלֶף־בֵּית – alef-bet
דִּבּוּר – speech
טִבעִית – natural
סֵפֶר לִמוּד – textbook
עֵבֶר
עִבְרִי – Hebrew
עַל פִּי – according to
רִאשוֹן – best
שִׁטָה – the method
שְׂפַת – language

Translation:
Hebrew Speech
A Language textbook based upon the natural method
(Best used after learning the Alef-Bet)

If you want to see more about this book and what it contains, it’s available for reading online at the Center for Jewish History

In the King James translation of the Old Testament, the name of God appears only four times – Psalm 83:18, Exodus 6:3, Isaiah 12:2 and Isaiah 26:4. It is also used three times as a part of a name of an altar or place (Genesis 22:14, Exodus 17:15 and Judges 6:24). Otherwise, the name of God does not appear in the King James translation at all. Yet, the Hebrew Bible has the name of God over 6,800 times! The only other translations that keep the Divine Name intact is the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures and the Divine Name King James Bible.

In modern English, the name of God is spelled Jehovah. I’ve come across many people telling me it’s not a correct/accurate pronunciation or translation – to which I agree, it is not. And there are dozens and dozens of theories online along with videos on YouTube of people trying to say they discovered the true pronunciation of Jehovah,
or they have an idea of how it was originally pronounced. But it’s what it is today because of superstition and centuries of change in language over the years.

The Superstition

So, why is Jehovah not used more often in the King James translation? This is due to the translators allowing themselves to be influenced by an ancient Jewish custom of not pronouncing the Divine Name יהוה because of a misunderstanding of the commandment at Exodus 20:6 “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.” So instead of saying God’s name aloud, a title had to be placed in the Biblical text when reading.

When Masorite scribes invented the Hebrew vowel system, they wanted to be sure when anyone saw the name יהוה they would pronounce it ‘adonai’ by placing the vowels for ‘adonai’ (ְ וֹ ָ) with the consonants in God’s personal name, therefore writing it יְהֹוָה. This altered pronunciation is the ye-ho-va that is now used in Modern Hebrew and Jehovah in English. This development contributed to the eventual loss of the original pronunciation of יהוה.

This substitution is shown in English translations every time the Divine Name is printed as LORD (note: it’s in all caps to distinguish it from the substition of the Divine Name with the addressing of human rulers as ‘lord’). This practice is evident throughout the King James translation, such as 1 Kings 1:36 and Exodus 4:13–14.

Spelling and Pronunciation

In the English spelling of Jehovah, the consonants J-h-v-h are derived directly from the Hebrew letters (originally, it was I-h-v-h in English, but the Hebrew letter “yod” י eventually came to be written “j” due to the French influence on English). The vowels in “Jehovah” come from the vowels in the title ‘adonai’. Thus, the name Jehovah, which is very familiar to us in English, is a transliteration of the hybrid form used in Hebrew. As I’ve mentioned before, we don’t know how it was originally pronounced before 537 B.C. Yet, the shortened form of יהוה appears in Hebrew personal names and in the Hebrew Bible (for example, JAH in Psalm 68:4, and the last syllable in “Hallelujah” – הַלְּלוּיָהּ), it is evident the first syllable of the Divine Name is pronounced “yah”, thus the popular thought of “Yahweh” being the correct pronunciation.

The Meaning of the Name

The meaning of the Divine Name? I’ve had many discussions about it, maybe a few arguments, all the way from students of Hebrew all the way up to Rabbi’s.

The name Jehovah is a verb and is related to the Hebrew verb "to be." It is usually associated with the form of the name Moses was told at the burning bush: אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה (Exodus 3:14). It is usually translated “I am what I am”. When understood this way, it’s a pretty vague description of who he really is, easily bringing up the question “What is he?” thus causing more confusion about his name.

Looking deeper into grammar, Jehovah is in the causative form, the imperfect state, of the Hebrew verb הוה (ha·wah′, “to become”). Therefore, does not mean “I am”, or “He is . . . (something, like love or mercy),” but rather “He Causes to Become.” the more accurate translation of the Divine Name is “I shall prove to be what I shall prove to be”. This reveals Jehovah as the One who, with progressive action, causes himself to become the Fulfiller of promises, the One who always brings his purposes to realization. In order to accomplish his purpose for mankind, he can become whatever he pleases, filling whatever role is needed.

As an example: Think of a parent caring for their child. If the child gets hurt in some way, the parent acts as a nurse. If the child is hungry, the parent becomes a cook, when it comes to learning, a teacher. The parent becomes what he or she needs to be according to the need that arises.

Where Else Is Jehovah Used?

The name Jehovah is not limited to the Bible. It occurs twice in the Book of Mormon, it can be seen in many churches as יהוה, and in many famous paintings and writings.