PARSHA-PIX - Parshat Tazri'a

Parsha Pix
The baby in the upper-left is a boy, as evidenced by his helicopter beanie (girls are too smart to wear nerdy hats like that). His birth carries a 7 day period of TUM’A, followed by 33 days of “watching”.
To the baby boy’s right is a scalpel for circumcision. No claim is herein made for the acceptability of the knife as pictured.
Then comes the baby girl with her cute bow (no boy would dare wear a bow like that). The periods for the birth of a girl are double that of a boy - 14 days followed by 66 days.
After the total amount of time following the birth - 40 days for a boy and 80 days for a girl, the mother is to bring to the Beit HaMikdash a lamb and a dove. If she cannot afford a lamb, then she may bring two doves.
The hand in the Pix is afflicted with a NEGA, which the kohen inspects with his magnifying glass.
The chameleon is known for the changing color of his skin. The idea of changes in color of a blemish, its skin, its hair, are all essential to the topic of NEGA’IM.
The shirt with a blemish is a representation of NEGA’IM of BEGED. We will have to consider that the shirt in the Pix is made of linen. It does not look like either a wool or leather shirt.
A shirt on which a NEGA persists must be burned. (That’s what the fire stands for.)
And finally, we have the Tic Tac Toe board, known as a pound sign (of digital telephone fame). Some people call it a number sign. Others call it a hash mark, or hashmark (which has other meanings too) or a crosshatch or a sharp sign or a scratch. Whatever you call it, it actually has its own fancy name. Ready? OCTOTHORP. We’ll all probably continue calling it a pound sign, but it’s nice to know that it is an octothorp or octothorpe. But we digress. In this ParshaPix it appears because it is made up of horizontal and vertical (almost) lines, thus standing for the SH’TI and EIREV, the warp and woof threads of woven fabric. The two words SH’TI and EIREV appear several times in the end of Tazri’a, in the topic of NIG’EI HABEGET.

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 week’s (SH’MINI-HACHODESH) TTriddles:
[1] Three times in Tzav, three times in Sh'mini and that's it for the Torah
[2] If they were named in this week's sedra too, this one would match the sedra
[3] This Animal's Feet Zplit Aren't
[4] (Chayei Sara), Mikeitz, B’shalach, Sh’mini (Eikev); Mishpatim, Shmini, M’tzora, Matot, D’varim
[5] Yitzchak, Yosef, Par'o, Yitro, Moshe?
[6] Menashe the M'tzora saw a calf on Simchas Torah
[7] Plus one item in the ParshaPix

And the envelope please...
[1] The answer is VAYISHCHAT. The word sort of jumps at you from both Tzav and Sh’mini (more so in Tzav because of the SHALSHELET and the ETNACHTA). It came as a surprise that it only appears three each in these two sedras, and then not at all in the whole Chumash. [There are two more VAYISHCHATs in Yirmiyahu, but they are in very unpleasant contexts.] Of course, as far as the root word is concerned (SHIN-CHET-TET), there are over 80 appearances in Tanach.
[2] In addition to Sh’mini, R’ei also has the topic of kosher and non-kosher animals. In Sh’mini, no kosher mammals are identified; only the signs of kashrut are given. In R’ei, in addition to the signs, 10 kosher mammals are named. After the three types of kosher domesticated animals are named (cow, goat, and sheep), there is a list of seven CHAYOT. Had this list of ten also been in Sh’mini, then the DISHON, the fifth-mentioned CHAYA, would match the name of the sedra as the EIGHTH animal on the list.
[3] The three clues in this TTriddle were the Z instead of an S in Zplit, the fact that all words in the TTriddle began with a capital letter, and the awkward structure of the sentence. The sentence says, “this animal’s feet aren’t split. The clues all point to RASHEI TAVOT, intial letters of the sentence. TAFZA, which is Targum Onkeles’ way of saying SHAFAN, an animal whose hooves are not split.
[4] The first TTriddle was solved by only a couple of solvers. The second and third by no one. This fourth TTriddle was the most solved in the bunch. There are two sets of sedras, separated by a semi-colon. Sh’mini is in both sets. The sedras in the first set not in parentheses all begin with the word VAYHI. The two parentheses-ed sedras begin with a variation of the same root, VAY’H’YU and V’HAYA. The names of the sedras of the second set all begin with a HA, the definitive HEI, which is dropped in the common names of the sedra.
[5] The more common word for WHY in the Torah is LAMA. MADU’A appears in the Torah only 8 times. The people in the TTriddle said it one or two times in the Torah. (MADU’A is more common in NA”CH.)
[6] BAYOM HASH’MINI, on the eighth day. This is the common factor in each item in the TTriddle. Menashe’s leader, Gamliel ben Peda-tzur, brought his gift to CHANUKAT HAMIZBEI’ACH on the eighth day. The recovered M’tzora brings his korbanot on the eighth day. A calf (lamb and kid too) stays with its mother for the first seven days of its life and on the eighth day it may be brought as a korban. Simchat Torah, a.k.a. Sh’mini Atzeret, is the eighth dday of Sukkot (sort of). And, of course, the sedra of this TTriddle was BAYOM HASH’MINI. Brit Mila should have been on this list, but it has an UVAYOM, not BAYOM. And besides, it would have made the TTriddle easier.
[7] The one item in the ParshaPix that was unexplained in the ParshaPix explanation column, was a large hook. Hook in Hebrew is VAV. Sh’mini has a famous large VAV in the word GACHON. The VAV is identifed in many Chumashing as the middle letter of the Troah (which it is not, according to a computer count of our Chumashim).
Special mention of YYW who did a fair job on this week’s TTriddles. He took the Z/S switch of Zplit and came up with camel and gamal. With the C?G switch from English to Hebrew and the camel being mentioned as an animal whose hoof is not split. Nice try.

This week's TTriddles:
[1] Sounds like the great-grand-daughter of a rabbit. What's it really?
[2] Moshe: 91. Aharon: 2. Three others once. Who?
[3] Brazemu or...

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