Column #101. 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.

You see, it's like this. After insisting at length in last week's column that the first YUD (second letter) of VAI-CHI was part of a diphthong with the PATACH under the VAV, and had none of the consonant sound of the English letter Y, we received an email from one of our favorite TBDATR correspondents. And so we are reopening the issue.

Here's what DL has to say...
In last week’s TBDATR column you explained your spelling of VAI-CHI, in the course of which you wrote that “The YUD does not have a consonant-Y sound.”

A few months ago you published in TBDATR an email I sent to you about when a YUD at the end of a word is a consonant (following a PATACH, KAMATZ, CHOLAM or SHURUK) and when it is not (following a CHIRIK, SEGOL or TZEIREI). I proved the rule by examples in the Torah showing when there is a DAGESH KAL in a following BGDKF”Tletter and when not...
The rule is similar for a YUD with a SH'VA NACH in the middle of a word. In fact there is a simpler rule that any letter in the middle of a word with a vowel sign, even a SH'VA, is a consonant, and it is silent only if it has no vowel sign at all. Thus by both rules the YUD here is a consonant, not (part of) a diphthong.Although the difference in sound between VAI-CHI and VAY-CHI is barely discernable, technically speaking the latter is correct. According to the rule that any letter in the middle of a word with a vowel sign is a consonant, even a YUD with a SH'VA NACH following a CHIRIK, SEGOL, or TZEIREI would not be silent in the middleof a word. However, as far as I know, there are no examples anywhere of a YUD with a SHVA NACH following a CHIRIK or TZEIREI (although this is theoretically possible in an accented syllable). I know of only one occurrence in Tanach of a consonantal YUD with a SH'VA NACH following a SEGOL – SHEYSHALLEM (T’hilim 137:8) –the SH'VA there is NACH because there is no DAGESH in the YUD.

I (Phil) consider myself an informed amateur compared to the DIKDUK pros who periodically write in about this column, and am content to sit at the dust of their feet and learn more about our holy language.

I accept DL's comments and will change back to VAYCHI, with the reminder that the name of last week's sedra (and its first word) is not VA-Y'CHI. I also agree that it is very hard to distinguish between VAI-CHI and VAY-CHI, giving the first YUD a little consonant-Y sound, but not enough to sound like it has a SH'VA NA underit... which it doesn't. Thank you, DL.

EIM LAMIKRA HASHALEIM, the flagship source of this column, has a section called EIM LAMA- SORET, which we've looked at several times in past columns. The section covers the Chumash, sedra by sedra, and Megilat Esther, and "flags" words that tend to be misread by well-meaning BAALEI KRI'A (BAAL KOREIs). A couple of sedrasin Sh'mot, this week's sedra of Sh'mot included. begin with a list of words that we have examined well in the past. These are verbs that are in past tense format, but a "flipping" VAV at the beginning, switches their tense to future (or command). AMARTI means I said. Accent on the MAR. MIL'EIL. V'AMARTI means "(and) Iwill say". The tense flip is accompanied by an accent flip to MILRA. v'a-mar-TI, not v'a-MAR-ti. Mis-accenting these words often change their meaning (which is a more serious mistake than just sloppy pronunciation).

One of the 10 words flagged for Sh'mot is v'sam- TA, and you shall put. The word appears 21 times in Tanach, 20 of them are "and you shall put", accented v'sam-TA. Only once (but that's enough to show the contrast), it is past tense. The pasuk is in Nechemya, and most people wouldn't be aware of it, except for the factthat the pasuk is quoted in P'sukei D'Zimra of our daily Shacharit. You are HaShem, the G-d, Who chose Abram, took him our of Ur Kasdim, and gave (past tense) him the name Avraham. Anyone named Avraham who says his pasuk at the end of each Amida, knows this pasuk even better than the rest of us. Here's the only case ofv'SAM-ta. The other 20 are v'sam-TA. 2

One more Sh'mot word...
When she was no longer able to hide baby Moshe, Yocheved took a reed basket, and she water-proofed it... VATACH-M'RA, she coated it with tar and pitch (or other "stuff"). The word should have a MAPIK-HEI indicating that she coated IT (the teiva). There is no dot in the HEI. This is a Tradition, which goes against the expectedform of the word. Without that dot, the DAGESH in the following word's first letter also drops out. It "should be" VATACH-M'RAH BA- CHEIMAR. Instead, it is VATACH-M'RA VACHEI- MAR. No difference in meaning, not a serious "mistake" if read "the other way", but that's the way it works, sometimes.

Think of a stamp collector, a serious stamp collector. Picture him taking his tweezers and magnifying glass and lovingly examining one stamp of his collection. He notes the color, the style of printing, the design, the... who knows what? Am I a philatelist?

There are almost 80,000 words in the Torah, and every one is holy and special. What this column tries to do sometimes - a lot of the time - is use those tweezers and magnifying glass and lovingly examine the words of the Torah. It is by no means picayune or trivial what we try to do. Together with learning the weekly sedra and its commentaries, these examinations and clarifications of the grammar and pronunciation, etc. hopefully enhance our appreciation and love of the Torah.

[The Parshat Sh'mot Homepage]
[The TORAH tidbits Homepage] [How to use TORAH tidbits]
[About The OU/NCSY Israel Center] [About TORAH tidbits]
[www.ou.org]