Rabbinical hutzpah

I get an R.Eli J. Mansour's Daily Halacha Sunday through Friday. The email for Friday, December 20, 2013 was titled “Peri Ha’gefen” or “Feri Ha’gefen” (http://tinyurl.com/m7ppx5w). (Which reminds me of the joke about "HaGefen, HaGafen" but that's for another time.)

The majority of the article revolved around a dagesh; its presence of absence in the letter פ.

I'm not going to join the debate on how to say the blessings over ground plants or wine. I'm not qualified.

Neither are the rabbis, gadolim they may be.

Whether or not there is a dagash in the character or not is a matter for grammarians and, although the blessings have been around for a very long time, the grammarians should examine the issue from today's Hebrew.

R. Monsour's column reads, in part:

"There is a debate among the Halachic authorities regarding the proper pronunciation of the Berachot recited over fruits and wine. According to some opinions, the text should be pronounced 'Boreh Feri Ha’etz' or 'Boreh Feri Ha’gefen,' as opposed to 'Peri.' Meaning, according to this view, the Beracha should be pronounced without a Dagesh (dot) in the 'Peh,' such that it is pronounced 'Feri' instead of 'Peri.' This was the view of Hacham Bension Abba Shaul (Israel, 1923-1998), in his Or Le’sion (vol. 2, p. 304), who noted the grammatical rule that when a word ends with an 'Alef,' and the next word begins with a 'Peh,' the 'Peh' is pronounced without a Dagesh (e.g., "Feh').

'Hacham Ovadia Yosef, however, disagreed. In his Yabia Omer (vol. 9, Siman 22), he explains that the aforementioned rule applies only when the two words are read together. But in the text of these Berachot, the words 'Peri Ha’etz' and 'Peri Ha’gefen' are read together, separate from the word 'Boreh.' As such, the letter 'Peh' is pronounced with a Dagesh, and the word should therefore be pronounced as 'Peri'."

I have a son-in-law who can - but fortunately for me does not - speak Temani Hebrew. He can pronounce ג with and without the dagesh - ah, you didn't know ג had a dagesh? Actually, you can find a dagesh lene in each of the following: ב, ג, ד, כ, פ, ת

(I just "discovered" there are TWO dagesh types: lene (ibid.) and forte. The commercial web site, Biblical Hebrew Made Easy ( http://tinyurl.com/m5lcjw5), explains the difference. )

There are two points to this rant.

Point 1: We can't even get together on how to pronounce unadorned (characters sans dagesh) Hebrew letters. Does a ת sound like a "t" or an "s" ? And what happens if that ת has a dagesh in it? Depends on who is saying the word in which the letter appears. (No, it's not just some Ashkenazim that make a ת sound line a ס.) Maybe some people put a dagesh into EVERYפ just as some Moroccans put a dagesh into every ב.

Point 2: Grammar is not part of the rabbinical purview. I understand that at one time the rabbis had a lock on how Hebrew was to be pronounced, but that was nearly two centuries in the past. Today, the use of a dagesh is the purview of the "Academy Of The Hebrew Language, an Israeli institution that is the supreme authority on the Hebrew language. Established by the Knesset in accordance with the "Law for the Supreme Institute for the Hebrew Language, 1953," it succeeded the Hebrew Language Committee (Va'ad ha-Lashon ha-Ivrit) inaugurated in Jerusalem in 1890. In 1889 a group calling itself "Safah Berurah" had been formed, with the object of "spreading the Hebrew language and speech among people in all walks of life." This group elected the Committee, the first members of which were Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, David Yellin, R. Ḥayyim Hirschenson, and A.M. Luncz. Initially the Committee devoted itself to establishing Hebrew terms needed for daily use and to creating a uniform pronunciation for Hebrew speech to replace the then current variety of pronunciations. After only one year of existence, organizational problems disrupted the Committee's activities, but in 1903 at the Teachers' Conference in Zikhron Ya'akov, it was reconvened with an enlarged membership, and thereafter held regular monthly meetings" (http://tinyurl.com/lwbyrox).

Flights of fancy?

Israel's knesset is considering whether the country's prime minister and president deserve an Air Force One of their own.

It seems the country's chief politician and its current has-been president now have to fly commercial and El Al, as many American Jews have found, is too expensive. It is embarrassing for a head of state to fly on another county's carriers.

But does Israel really need an especially configured 747 a la U.S. Air Force One?

Obungler is helping break America's bank by flitting all over the globe in AF1 and when he's not using it, his wife uses it for jaunts to places such as Hawaii. According to most reports, it costs the U.S. taxpayer nearly $182,000 an hour while it's in the air. The cost-per-hour does not include extras such as air crew (pilot, co-pilot, flight attendants), security, and catering to name a few "incidentals."

The fact that the United States cannot afford presidential jaunts should - but probably does not - give Israeli politicians promoting a similar chariot for the PM and president , even if they share it, second thoughts.

The U.S. president's plane can move along at about 530 mph (851 kph) and it's used for both short (DC to New York or, when the weather's cold, Miami or LA) and long (Far East and South Africa) flights.

Israeli politicians' travel normally is to Europe (roughly 5 air hours), with an occasional flight to D.C. (5,875 statute miles/5,105 nautical miles).

Things to keep in mind as you read on:
1 statute mile = 0.869 nautical miles (nm);
1 nautical mile (nm) = 1.151 statue miles;
1 knot = 1 nautical mile
mach 1 = 661 nm/hour

There must be a plane suitable for the head of state that won't break the bank. Indeed, there are several that could carry the PM or president AND family AND aides-de-camp in the style to which they think they deserve. Satisfactory aircraft that can make the Lod to D.C. flight non-stop include:

Dassault Falcon 7X, a tri-jet with a price tag of about US$50 million. It seats 16 passengers and has a range of 5950 nautical miles (6847 statute [land] miles) at a cruise speed of 459 knots with an estimated fuel cost of $4.81/mile.

Gulfstream 550, selling for US$57 million, is a twin-jet with a range of 6,750 nm and can carry 18 passengers. (A slightly used G550 can be had for a bargain price of US$30 million.)

Gulfstream 650, at US$71 million, is a twin-jet with a 7,000 nm range and can carry as many as 17 passengers with berthing for 7.

G650 configured for 17 passengers (Gulfstream graphic)

While paying $4.81/mile for a 11,570 mile flight (round trip Lod-D.C., US$56,517.5) is US$45,930 more than El Al's first class round trip fare of US$10,587, the politician can being along his pals for "free," leave and return on his whim (unlike sitting in a plane at Lod for 6 hours), and has a place to stretch out. Admittedly the US$56.5k fails to include the air crew, but IDF pilots probably need flight time just as USAF pilots do, so flight crew costs are an IDF write off.

Plus Israel can show its colors in a sensible-for-it aircraft.

Maybe the knesset committee looking into privileged person travel will crunch the numbers before trying to match the U.S

Political Correctness

 

REALLY?

 

Some folks, I suspect mostly white liberals, forced Walt Disney's company to shelve Song of the South, otherwise known as Uncle Remus Tales.

According to one source I found online, Joel Chandler Harris, the "author" of the Uncle Remus stories simply recorded morality tales told by slaves and ex-slaves, black Aesops if you will. According to Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/sots.asp:

Harris grew up in Georgia during the Civil War, spent a lifetime compiling and publishing the tales told to him by former slaves. These stories — many of which Harris learned from an old black man he called "Uncle George" — were first published as columns in The Atlanta Constitution and were later syndicated nationwide and published in book form. Harris's Uncle Remus was a fictitious old slave and philosopher who told entertaining fables about Br'er Rabbit and other woodland creatures in a Southern Black dialect.

Like Aesop, the Uncle Remus tales use animals to deliver the message.

The 1946 movies Song of the South included a series of "firsts," including the first combination of human actors and animated characters. The humans included James Baskett as Uncle Remus, Disney's first live actor ever hired by Disney. (See http://www.songofthesouth.net/movie/index.html for a list of all the characters in the movie.)

I saw Song of the South as a child and thought it wonderful; like most kids, I went around singing Zippidy do dah ; I still sing it many years later.

TO THE POINT, while the movie is available only overseas, you might be able to find a CD with four Uncle Remus tales. (The CD, if anyone is interested, is called Brer Rabbit and the Wonderful Tar Baby. There also are a number of books with Uncle Remus tales; check your local library Reference Desk.)

My Local Lending Library, hereafter LLL, had access to the CD and several Uncle Remus books. "Access" since the books were found in other libraries and shipped, albeit indirectly, to my LLL. I've been getting books this way for years.

The interesting thing about the CD is not the stores but the person telling the tales and the person providing the "mood" music.

Two gentlemen of - ahh - color are Danny Glover who reads the takes and Taj Mahal who provides the background music. (The "weasel words" are used since, in my lifetime, they have been called negro, colored, Afro-American, and black; I'm not sure what the term-du-jour will be when this is read; hopefully, "just folk.")

If, then, Song of the South and the Uncle Remus tales are so offensive to people of color, why are these two famous people involved with the CD?

Granted, "different strokes for different folks"; when the replica of the slave ship La Amistad was offered to Tampa FL, the locals rejected it; the folks of New Haven CN gladly accepted the chance to host the ship. (Read about the boat at - among other sites - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Amistad.)

Mr. Glover, who voices all of the characters on the CD, does does not use " Southern Black dialect" - no "dis 'n dat" but the story comes through just fine.

Still, I think maybe some folks are a little too sensitive to dialects; they are too quick to assume they are a "put down" yet those accents are very much a part of Americana. I have an accent, my wife has an accent, my neighbors all have accents; those accents make life interesting, colorful, and as long as they are mimiced in a kind way, no one is offended.

I think Disney's capitulating to a few, most likely Caucasian, liberals is a pity. Kids today need the morality lessons of Uncle Remus as much, if not more, than I did when I was a youngster.

Maybe I'll ask some of my acquaintenance overseas if they can get a DVD copy of the movie. My grand-daughter deserves to see it with her grandfather.