Couple of fine-tuning
points from TO-L'DOT.
• First, the name of the sedra... again. This comes up a lot. Many people
say TOL (first syllable) DOT (or DOS, second syllable). Wrong. The first
syllable is TO. The CHOLAM is (most often) a strong enough vowel to be in an
open syllable with its letter (the one before it), and not get the next
letter as a closer of the syllable. TO - L'DOT. SHO - F'TIM. It's not just
the "problem" of taking a letter into one syllable that belongs to another.
It's the changing of the SH'VA from a NA to a NACH. The LAMED of L'DOT and
the FEI of F'TIM have a SH'VA NA under them. Wrongly saying TOL or SHOF
makes the SH'VA a SH'VA NACH. There are many examples of this in davening.
Take the weekday Amida, for example. Check out these words. SHO-F'TEINU (not
SHOF-TEINU); O-Y'VECHA (not OY-VECHA); SO-F'REIHEM, HABO - T'CHIM. It
happens with other vowels too, but we'll stick to the CHOLAM examples , in
honor of Parshat TO - L'DOT. (And, no, it doesn't change the meaning of the
words- not usually, at least - but it still is nice to pronounce words,
especially of LASHON HAKODESH, and especially in davening and Torah reading.
• B'reishit 25:21. And
(Yitzchak) prayed... VAYE-TAR. There is a SH'VA NACH under the AYIN.
Ashkenazim don't hear from that AYIN. Resist the temptation to say VAYE-E-TAR,
as if there is a CHATAF-SEGOL under the AYIN, which there occasionally is,
but not here.
• ANOCHI is usually MILRA,
i.e. ano-CHI. When the word comes at the end of a pasuk or at an ETNACHTA
(full stop in the middle of a pasuk), the accent shifts to MIL'EIL. So in
25:22, where Rivka is having a tough pregnancy and finds out why, she says,
LA-ma ZEH aNO-chi.
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