PARSHA-PIX Parshat R'ei

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Parsha Pix
There's Har Grizim in the upper left blessed with full green foliage.
Next to it is Har Eival with a dead tree representing its curse-role.
At the upper right is an eraser with the negation circle. It is forbidden to erase the seven special names of G-d.
To its left is the negation circle on a plus or minus, for the two prohibitions of adding or diminishing from the Torah.
The Tzedaka box is for the mitzva of giving Tzedaka, which is counted from this sedra.
Lending to a fellow Jew is an important mitzva (that’s the hands and the wallet), especially as the Shmita year approaches and then draws to a close.
The stalk of wheat is a reminder of the mitzvot of Maaser Sheni and Maaser Ani as well as the prohibition of eating MaaserSheni (and several other sacred foods) outside Yerushalayim (or their specific venue).
The wheat standing straight up looks like the numeral 1.
The dot to its left is the decimal point that turns the wheat into 1/10 - Maaser.
The burning trees in the lower right stands for the destruction of AVODA ZARA from Eretz Yisrael.
The sword is the method of dealing with a bona fide IR HANIDACHAT.
The third negation circle is on the camel, a non-kosher animal.
The giraffe, on the other hand, gets two thumbs up - one for cud-chewing and one for split hooves.
The steak on the plate ready to be eaten points out that even though sacred meat was a topic of several mitzvot in the sedra, so is BASAR TA'AVA, meat that we may eat.
In the lower left is a representation of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals, the topic of the last portion of the sedra.
That leave three as yet unexplained elements. TTriddles. Busy sedra. Enjoy.

TTRIDDLES...
are Torah Tidbits-style riddles on Parshat HaShavua (sometimes on the calendar). They are found in the hard-copy of TT scattered throughout, usually at the bottom of different columns. In the electronic versions of TT, they are found all together at the end of the ParshaPix-TTriddles section. Some TTriddles are also presented for call-in solution on Torah Tidbits Audio (Arutz-7, Thursday night). The best solution set submitted each week (there isn't always a best) wins a double prize a CD from Noam Productions and/or a gift (game, puzzle, book, etc.) from Big Deal

Last issue’s (EIKEV) TTriddles:
[1] How do you say ? in Hebrew? :
[2] The 9th is the 2nd, the 2nd, and the 4th
[3] The question that lingers: this week, next, and the next
[4] A Divine anagram precedes a beheaded ancestor
[5] 1083°C • 1535°C
[6] Echo 10
[7] 31 times in Tanach, including 11 in the Torah, but this week's three are THIS
[8] The seven greatly toggled bais were Wippasosa frames
[9] The baby and tomatoes from the ParshaPix.
[10] The bread and the key from the ParshaPix.
[11] The XL from the ParshaPix.
[12] the letter B from the ParshaPix.

And the envelope please...
[1] The answer to this TTriddle was given in the question itself. How do you say ? in Hebrew? Answer, with : - not a colon, but the SH’VA next to a PATACH that make up a CHATAF-PATACH. One method of posing a question in Hebrew is with the use of the HEI HASH’EILA, the questioning letter HEI. The haftara of Eikev has two examples. The second pasuk starts: HATISHKACH ISHA ULA...? Will a woman forget her nursing child... Later in the haftara is HAYUKACH MIGIBOR MALKO’ACH...? will the prey be taken from the warrior? The more common HEI is the HEI HAYEDI’A, similar to the definitive article THE. That HEI is usually voweled with a PATACH. The questioning HEI most often has a CHATAF-PATACH, so in Hebrew, it is the : that signals the question.
[2] Often a TTriddle is made by leaving out an important word from a question or statement. With the word in place, in this TTriddle, you have a regular statement. Without it, you have a TTriddle. And that’s the whole idea. The missing word is PARSHA. A few other words are also missing, but with PARSHA, those other words are easier to get. The 9th PARSHA of Eikev is the second PARSHA of the SH’MA, the second PARSHA in a Mezuza, and the fourth PARSHA in T’filin. The parsha is V’HAYA IM SHAMO’A...
[3] The question - from D’varim, its haftara (Chazon from Yeshayahu), and from Tish’a b’Av is EICHA. It lingers in Eikev in 7:17 - If you will say in your heart, there are many nations in Eretz Yisrael, EICHA UCHAL... how will we be able to defeat them? In R’ei, 12:30, and in Sho’f’tim, 18.21. That’s “this week, next, and the next”. There is also an EICHA in Haazinu, but that didn’t fit well into the TTriddle. And that’s it for D’varim and the whole Chumash (not counting AYECHA from B’reishit, which is spelled like EICHA but doesn’t sound like it). Aside from the five EICHAs in D’varim, there are 4 in the book of EICHA, and another nine in the rest of Tanach, including two in one pasuk of Shir HaShirim. Aren’t computer searches fun?
[4] This one is a classic “cryptic crossword puzzle” type of clue. Divine anagram is the word V’HAYA, whose letters can rearrange to spell G-d’s name. Beheaded in cryptic CWP style usually means a word without the first letter. Ancestor Yaakov without the lead YUD give EIKEV. Therefore, the answer to this TTriddle is V’HAYA EIKEV.
[5] Got tired of representing metals by their atomic numbers, so we used melting points this time. The metals whose MP are the nes in the TTriddle are iron and copper, as in the description of Eretz Yisrael as a land whose rocks contain iron and from whose hills one can extract copper.
[6] The command in Parshat Eikev that echoes commandment from the Aseret HaDibrot is LO TACHMOD... Do not covet silver and gold... (Dv 7:25)
[7] 40 years. ARBA’IM SHANA. This 2-word phrase appears in Tanach 31 times. (Would have been nice had it been 40 times, but...) Among those 31 times are 11 times in Chumash. Among those 11 are three times in D’varim, two of which are in Eikev, that are preceeded by THIS, the word ZEH. ZEH ARBA’IM SHANA. (There are actually 6 more times in Tanach for ARBA’IM SHANA with a VAV or BET before ARBA’IM. Total is now 37, still short of 40.)
[8] Apologies for this one. All the others were gotten by someone, except this one. The idea was a good one, but the result isn’t as good as it could be. The only word in this nonsense sentence that serves as a clue is SEVEN. Referring, of course, to the seven species of D’varim 8:8 from Eikev. Wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, dates. The sentence of the TTriddle is an anagram of the names of the seven species.
And now for the unexplained elements of the ParshaPix. Part of the challenge is to know when two or more elements go together and when they don’t.
[9] The baby is PRI VITNECHA, the fruit of the womb, and the tomatoes of PRI ADMATECHA, the fruit of the ground.
[10] Note that the key is not on the bread. KI LO AL HALECHEM... After last week’s TT “went to bed”, I
thought of a better PPP from the same pasuk: This one would have used another word of the pasuk: The key is not alone on the bread: KI (key) LO AL HALECHEM L’VADO... but there is also a pair of glasses. (Do NOT try to figure out the significance to the choice of glasses to be on the bread with the key. There is none. And that made the choice of glasses all the more difficult.
[11] This was the TTriddle that you were warned about misdirection. The wording of the challenge at the end of the PP explanations gave the impression - the wrong impression (on purpose) - that it meant extra large. It doesn’t. It is Roman numerals for 40. A number that appears a lot in the Torah, and quite a number of times in Eikev. 12 times in Eikev, twice referring to years and 10 times to days and nights. Many times. Worthy of more than one TTriddle.
[12] Answer: EIKEV. Following sedra is R’EI, see. C. Eikev is before R’ei. B is before C. B = Eikev. QED

This week's TTriddles:
[1] A confused hint to a Kosher mammal and a confused sign for another
[2] From animal to city in two spelling mistakes
[3] arm, head, Va'etchanan, R'ei
[4] Make sure you have a bic parker zebra
[5] plus three unexplained elements in the parsha pix

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