Couple of fine-tuning points from VAYEITZEI. Accent on the ALEF. MILRA. Present tense. Is coming. 29:9 says: He (Yaakov) is still talking with them (the shepherds) and Rachel came (had come is probably more like it). BA-a. Same spelling. Accent on the BET. On the first syllable. MIL'EIL. Past tense. So too, in Megilat Esther. In 1:17, ...the king said to bring Vashti the Queen before him, V'LO BA-a (MIL'EIL), and she did not come (past tense). In 2:13,14, And with this, the maiden comes to the king, ba-A el-ha-ME-lech. Present tense. MILRA. And again, in the evening, she comes... (ba-A). And in the morning she returns,sha-VA. Officially, mis-accenting ba-A as BA-a or vice versa requires rereading the word correctly. This applies to a lot of mis-accented words, but not, of course, all words not accented properly. Someone in shul is supposed to know which words require repeating if they are not accented correctly and which words can pass incorrectly accented. • u-fa-ratz-TA - even though the old Lubavitch song accents the RATZ syllable, this word is properly accented MILRA. It might be hard to sing it that way, but in Torah reading it should be accented properly. This is another example of the VAV-flip from past to future that we have featured more than once in this column. • Now check out 28:16. MISHSHNATO. There is a DAGESH CHAZAL in the SHIN. This strengthens the sound of the SHIN and also makes the SH'VA under the SHIN a SH'VA NA. The syllables are MISH, SH'NA, and TO. The SH at the end of the first syllable and the SH at the beginning of the second syllable are not from two letters. They should not be separated, but rather blended. But the SH'VA is definitely NA and should be sounded. For in this example, the meaning will change if one NACHs the SH'VA. MISH-NA-TO means "his Mishna", his learning. MIshSH'NA-TO means "his sleep", which is what the word is supposed to mean in Vayeitzei. Subtle, but important, nonetheless. • Here's a good one, because there are two ways to mispronounce it. Neither mispronunciation, by the way, will change the meaning, but it's still nice to learn the correct way to say it. After Leah gives birth to her sixth son Zevulun, the Torah tells us, v'a-CHAR YA-l'da BAT... and after, she gave birth to a girl (Dina).Not yal-DA and not ya-L'DA. In other words, the SH'VA under the LAMED is NA and attaches the LAMED/SH'VA to the following syllable with the DA. And the accent is on the firt syllable because of NASOG ACHOR. That means that the accent should have been and the last syllable, but it receded the the next to the last syllable because the word is followed by a one- syllable word within the same phrase. • Not in Vayeitzei. In Maariv. ZEH KELI ANU V'AMRU. Most people say these words together, without any pauses. Not the worst thing to do, but one loses out on the meaning of the phrase. The sentence before this one is, Your children saw Your majesty as you split the sea before Moshe, "ZEH KEILI" (this is my G-d), ANU (they answered), <pause> V'A-M'RU (and they said): HASHEM YIMLOCH L'OLAM VA'ED. That little pause between ANU and V'A-M'RU allows the words to make sense. And hopefully, to allow us to better understand what we are davening. That's what this column is really all about. Slow the davening down a bit and increase our understanding of what we are saying. This will enhance our KAVANA and performance of the mitzva to daven. [The Parshat Vayeitzei Homepage]
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