Questions tagged [aleph-bet-letters]
Questions about the Hebrew letters, or aleph-bet.
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Midpoint of each Sefer
I am looking for sources that tell what word, letter and verse is at the midpoint of each Sefer, meaning 5 midpoints if considering the Torah containing 5 books or if you want, 7 as the Talmud states ...
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Eltzafan or Elitzafan, son of Uziel?
I was wondering why the Torah uses two different spellings - with or without the letter Yod - to talk about the same character.
Twice the Torah says Eltzafan: shemot 6:22 and vayikra 10:4
and once ...
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Is there any symbolism associated with Hebrew being written right to left?
I am interested to know if there is any religious meaning associated with Lashon HaKodesh being written from right to left as opposed to left to right
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What is the first pasuk in the Torah that begins within the letter tes? [closed]
I am wondering if someone knows the first pasuk in the Torah that begins within the letter Tes? Thank you.
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Is the malachim aleph beis from a non-Jew for the occult or something legitimate from a Jewish source?
Searching online I'm seeing Wikipedia says this was published by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa in the 16th century and was created for the purpose of the occult using a combination of Greek and Hebrew.
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Where do we put the taggin on letters besides שעטנ״ז ג״ץ?
There are different traditions as to on which letters to put the taggin (the crowns), but many old traditions include various specific letters that are not in שעטנ״ז ג״ץ (the letters that we generally ...
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Should I only pronounce alef as glottal stop only when there is a vowel attached to it?
(In correct pronunciation of Hebrew Bible)
According to matres lectionis alef acts as a vowel at times and not as a consonant (that is, it doesn’t produce a glottal stop) - for example: לַאדֹנִי
Is ...
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What's the connection between the yod's on the letter tzadik, the faces of Adam and chava, and the kruvim
I have heard but I cannot find any sources linking these concepts. The Shulchan Aruch HaRav mentions that the yod's on the letter tzadik are written upside down in ktav arizal; basically not facing ...
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Translation of Hebrew letters [closed]
I hope that this is not off-topic for this forum. If so, please let me know and I will delete it.
I'm trying to understand the meaning of these letters which I believe are Hebrew. Can someone who is ...
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Dagesh in pe lefufah
If you were writing pointed text with a pe lefufah (or doubled/spiral pe, or pe kefulah) for pedagogical purposes, and the pe had a dagesh, would you write the dagesh inside the inner spiral, or ...
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Verse with name
Saw a post about this so it reminded me of my question- we say that you say a Torah verse at the end of shemoneh esrei that begins with the first letter of your name and ends in the last letter of ...
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Verse corresponding to name [duplicate]
I have checked other posts about this topic, but I can't find my answer:
I am writing a storyboard for a short film, and the main character is 'Binyamin ben Yosef.' Throughout the film, he memorizes ...
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What is the understanding of this piece from the Vilna Gaon
In Parshas Mishpatim, the Torah tells us of the laws regarding an Eved Nirtzah - A Jewish slave who has finished his term of slavery yet chooses to stay as a slave by his master, as a consequence we ...
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Why do some siddurim begin with alef beis?
Some siddurim have a few opening pages of addendums like how to put on tefillin.
I noticed that the Nusach Ari siddur has a page of alef-beis and nekudos, plus a page of letters combined with nekudos.
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What is this Ktav?
My son sent me this picture of an old voweled text, probably around 10-12 centuries CE. What stands out, is that the letter He is connected and Chet is flat on the left side.
Is this a fragment of a ...
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is there a list of where the letter samech occurs with a degesh in the Chumash
Is there a source that i can link to that shows all the words in the torah with a dagesh in the Samech ?
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Group symmetry in the letters of Genesis [closed]
Forgive me if this is not the sort of question you like. I'm new here.
Several years ago I came across the work of Stan Tenen, available at meru.org, who appears to have made some impressive ...
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Are there words in the Hebrew bible where we find the letter Hei/Yod subsituted for an Alef?
For example, עמק הבכא in Psalams 84:6 is often translated as "Valley of weeping", even though we should expect the word weeping to be בכי, and not at all with an Alef.
Do we have more ...
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Chazal on pronounciation (according to Koren)
In his introduction to the Koren siddur, Eliyahu Koren claims:
A window thou shalt make to the ark,” says God to Noah, and our
sages took this also to mean that the correct pronunciation of the
words ...
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What do the independent-minded Hebrew letters teach us?
God renames Sarai "Sarah" [Genesis 17:15], removing a yod at the end and replacing it with a heh. Later, the name of Hoshea. Moses' successor, is changed to Joshua, adding a yod. [Numbers ...
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How is a "ד" without a דגש קל pronounced? [duplicate]
According to many books I have read, a דגש קל can only be present in the letters ב, ג, ד, כ, פ and ת. The Ashkenazi מסורה for pronunciations of the letters ג and ד without a דגש קל has been lost. I ...
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Thirty two pairs of letters from Adam to Terach
I'm reading in the Zohar on Shir Hashirim 64 that there are thirty-two sets of the alphabet advanced until Israel stood at Mount Sinai. Basically, all the first and final letters of the names of main ...
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Rosh Hashanah vs Rosh Chodesh
The beginning of the Jewish year is referred to as Rosh Hashanah.
The beginning of the Jewish month is called Rosh Chodesh.
How come Rosh Hashanah has a "hey" (ה) in it, while Rosh Chodesh ...
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Why are some Lameds with a flat top?
In many places in the siddur there are Lameds with a flat top, and there are some with a straight top. For example in the last הללוקה the word בצלצלי, the first lamed is with a straight top, and the ...
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Form of letters for safrut
Does anyone know of a good online resource for how to make the letters for Sefer Torah, tefillin, mezuzot, based on the Mishnah Berurah's Mishnat Sofrim (siman 36) or Keset Hasofer (Ch. 5), and/or ...
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Are lamed and nun interchangeable letters?
Shulamite and Shunamite seem to be used interchangeably in Tanach when describing certain Na'arah women.
For example, in the story of Elisha, David in his old age( with Abishag) and in the Song of ...
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Is there any single verse in Chumash that contains all 22 letters of the aleph-beis?
Is there any single verse in Chumash that contains all 22 letters of the aleph-beis?
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The hand tefillin seems to form a lamed
The outline of the tefillin on the hand, to me, seems to form the letter lamed, reversed for a righty and a forwards lamed for a lefty, shown below.
Yes, there are traditions of forming shin on the ...
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Why does the Gemara use gamma to compare shapes and not reish or chaf sofit?
When talking about shapes, the Gemara often uses Greek gamma (e.g., Peshachim 8b). Why doesn't it use reish, dalet or chaf sofit instead?
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Letter צד"י or צדי"ק?
One of the letters of the hebrew alphabet is the letter 'צ'.
When I was taught the hebrew alphabet, this letter was introduced as 'צד"י'. I believe this to be the generally accepted name of the ...
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Kislev and the letter Samech
I have seen somewhere that Kislev and the letter Samech are connected to each other. The sefer I saw it in, quoted the Likkutei Shas of the Arizal. Does anyone know what it says? And is there any ...
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Ribono Shel Olam pronunciation
I haven't studied Hebrew in 50 years and cannot read it anymore. I wonder if anyone has any suggestions on how I can get the pronunciation of Rabbi Nachman's phrase "Ribono Shel Olam" both ...
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inscription on Chagall's "White Crucifixion"? [closed]
What does the inscription on Chagall's painting White Crucifixion say?
Isn't John 19:19 ("Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews") written ישוע הנצרי ומלך היהודים in Hebrew?
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Lamed with bent back stalk [closed]
In some Hebrew lettered signs, usually the decorative ones (as opposed to functional ones like street signs), I have seen the letter ל with the top ascender or stalk bent backwards, to the right. Is ...
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Is there a Siddur with Tagim (crowns)
As per the teaching of the Besht I’ve been really meditating on the letters as I daven but I realized that the true shapes of letters as they are written in a Torah or mezuzah which includes the tagim ...
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Reason for different punctuation of the prefix vav?
In the Siddur, the prefix vav is seen with various punctuations (e.g., shva, kamatz, patah, shuruk). When is each of these different punctuations used with a prefix vav and how does each affect the ...
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What makes Ksav Arizal unacceptable to some?
A certain rabbi said that Megillas Ester written in Ksav Arizal should not be used in nussach Sefard shul because people won't be yotze with its reading. What makes Ksav Arizal so different as to make ...
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Is there an online list of Perakim of Mishnayos arranged alphabetically?
There is a popular custom cited by Chabad to recite Mishnayos which initialize the deceased’s name. While they note that many Siddurim and Mishnayos have a list which alphabetizes the Mishnayos by ...
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what are the different versions of miluiyim for the Hebrew letters?
When calculating gematrias for the Hebrew letters there are letter expansions called "miluyim".
what are all the valid miluiyim letter expansions
according to chazal? (ex. midrashim, talmud, zohar, ...
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Berachot 4b - What's so special about an alphabetical acrostic?
The Talmud in Berachot 4b states:
אמר רבי אלעזר א"ר אבינא כל האומר תהלה לדוד בכל יום שלש פעמים מובטח לו שהוא בן העולם הבא מאי טעמא אילימא משום דאתיא באל"ף בי"ת נימא אשרי תמימי דרך ...
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Ktav Ivri in the Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance did religious Jews know about Ktav Ivri? Are there examples of traditional texts they would have been exposed to written in Ktav Ivri?
Would highly ...
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Is there a 3D Hebrew Alphabet?
Is there a 3D Alef-Bet? In which case Samekh could be something like a sphere, etc.
Or for that matter something 4D like kinetic sculptures, which would explain how the aseret ha-dibrot were legible ...
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Where is a free online copy of the Torah with the "correct" number of letters in it?
First off, my intention is to create a pretty decent replica of the Hebrew text close to the formatting of the Sefer Torah or a Tikkun, for personal documentation purposes. My question though is 2-...
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Analysis of an answer to "Why does the Torah begin with the letter bet?"
Why does the Torah begin with the second letter, bet, rather than the first letter, aleph? There are many answers, but let's focus on this one:
Bet is the beginning of the word barukh (blessed), ...
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How Many vav Hahipuchs in each of the 24 books of Tenach
How Many vav Hahipuchs (Conversive vav) are in each of the 24 books of Tenach compared with the number of letters / verses in that book. As far as I know they are only in Tenach rather than Mishna or ...
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Two beginnings related to heavens and earth
IIRC, there is a medrash conecting the first letter of torah (beit) + the word reshit by saying that with 2 beginnings (meaning the heavens and earth) the world came into existence. Does anyone happen ...
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Large Nun in Num 27:5
וַיַּקְרֵב מֹשֶׁה אֶת מִשְׁפָּטָן לִפְנֵי יְהוָה.
I've seen the ן letter in Number 27:5 (above) is written enlarged (Nun Rabati (Great)).
Why is that?
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Is there math in Torah?
I have watched a nice movie back in the day that deals with numbers.
In one of the scenes. A Jewish man comes to The Mathematician and tells about how the Hebrew uses the same "letters" as letters ...
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Hebrew Letters and corresponding body parts
When I was a little child, I remember being taught that each of the Hebrew letters had a corresponding body part. I am sure I learned what they were at the time, but I've long forgotten most of them.
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Is the dot of Shin and Sin explained as a part of Nikkud?
Following the question about שכר ושכר,
Shin and Sin letters have a little dot that does not have a name and is used exclusively to differentiate between them (diacritic).
I read books about the ...
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