The Pause that... refreshes? No, that was an old Coca Cola slogan. Here it's the proper pause that helps put the meaning of a pasuk right. Look at this partial pasuk: V'CJHIBES HA'OSEIF ET-EIFER HAPARA ET B'GADAV To make sense of these words, there has to be a pause after the first word: V'CHIBES (and he laundered). Then to answer "who's he?" the phrase HA'OSEIF ET-EIFER HAPARA has to be without any pauses. And that's the way it is, if one realizes the difference between the KADMA above HA'OSEIF and the PASHTA above HAPARA. The KADMA and the PASHTA are the same mark, but the KADMA is printed above the accented syllable in the word. The PASHTA is above the extreme left of the word. (In many Chumashim when a PASHTA is on a word not accented on the last syllable, then a second mark is placed above the accented syllable. But placement isn't the main thing. It just tells us which mark is which. KADMA is a M'SHARIET, it links its word to the following word(s) without a pause. PASHTA is a MAFSIK, a level three stopper that gets a shortish pause before the next word or phrase. In this case, that's ET-B'GADAV, his clothes. V'CHIBES (pause briefly) HA'OSEIF ET EIFER HAPARA (short pause, maybe even exaggerated here) ET-B'GADAV. [The Parshat Chukat Homepage]
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