Column #84. Contents of this weekly column are (mostly) based on the sefer: EIM LAMIKRA HASHALEIM, by R' Nissan Sharoni, Ashdod, a guide to correct pronunciation of Hebrew, specifically in davening and Torah reading.

Okay, in the part about Yeshivish last week, I got the TO-LA-DA business wrong. My fault, not YL’s. Thank you to the many (at least 8) readers who called the mess-up to my attention. Isn’t email a wonderful thing?

It goes like this. There are 39 categories of Melacha that are forbidden on Shabbat. They are known as AVOT MELACHA. (Singular: AV.) Each category has other MELACHOT that are offspring of the AV. Take, for example, the AV MELACHA of ZOREI’A, planting. Putting seeds in the ground and tamping down the soil over them on Shabbat is a violation of the AV MELACHA. Those things that help plants grow are called TO-LA-DOT. For ZOREI’A, some of the TOLADOT are watering, pruning, fertilizing, weeding. Oh, almost forgot. This isn’t a Hilchot Chabbat column. Sorry.
The singular of TOLADOT is TOLADA. Most of the feedbackers pointed to many occurrences of the word in the Gemara and other sources as proof that it actually was a word. Pruning is a TOLADA of ZOREI’A. Pruning and watering are TALADOT of ZOREI’A.

Now we come to two other forms of the word. Both are called the S’MICHUT form of the word. The TOLADOT (offspring) of NO’ACH can be referred to a TALADOT SHEL NO’ACH, or, as the Torah puts it, TO-L’DOT NO’ACH.

TO-L’DOT is the S’MICHUT form of TOLADOT. And in singular, TOLEDET is the S’MICHUT form of TOLADA. That’s the story.

(The other people whose names follow TO-L’DOT in the Torah are ADAM, B’NEI NO’ACH, SHEIM, TERACH, YITZCHAK, YISHMAEL, AHARON.)
Again, sorry for the confusion.

Speaking of Stand-alone words and their S’MICHUT forms... In Ki Teitzei, we had the mitzva (among many others) of SHILU’ACH HAKEN. KEN. Bird’s nest. The word in the Torah is KAN, because the word is connected to TZIPOR. KAN TZIPOR. But KEN. Many people say SHILU’ACH HAKAN, but the correct word is KEN when it stands alone.

On another subject...
EIN LAMIKRA HASHALEIM contains a section called EIM LAMASORET, which is a list of ‘flagged’ words and phrases throughout the Torah and Megilat Esther that are easily or commonly misread.

For several sedras of D’varim, there is a list of words that are verbs, second person future, that are formed by a VAV HAHIPUCH acting on a past tense form and switching it to future tense. Ki Tavo’s list includes V’LAKACHTA, V’SAMTA, V’HALACHTA, V’AMARTA... (there are 11 words on the list), all of which are accented MILRA (on the last syllable). These words are flagged because accenting them MILEIL, as would be correct for the past tense form without the tense-flipping VAV, changes the meaning of the word and is an error that requires the BAAL KOREI to repeat the words correctly.
Not on the list is the word U’VATA, and you shall come. The word appears 24 times in Tanach, sometimes as u-VA-ta (MILEIL) and sometimes as u-va-TA (MILRA). If the first letter of the following word is an ALEF, then UVATA is MILRA. This is so for 10 of the 11 times it happens in Tanach. One time (D’varim 12:26) it is u-VA-ta, even though the next word begins with an ALEF. (This exception is ‘blamed’ on the TROP note on the word which strongly separates it from the next word.) The other 13 occurrences are all MILEIL, being followed by non-ALEFs. It seems to follow from this that a mistake in accenting UVATA would not be considered as changing the meaning (since both u-VA-ta and u-va-TA mean “and you shall come”).

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