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114-606: Shem HaMephorash ( Hebrew : שֵׁם הַמְּפֹרָשׁ Šēm hamMəfōrāš , also Shem ha-Mephorash ), meaning "the explicit name," was originally a Tannaitic term for the Tetragrammaton . In Kabbalah , it may refer to a name of God composed of either 4, 12, 22, 42, or 72 letters (or triads of letters), the latter version being the most common. Early sources, from the Mishnah to the Geonim , only use "Shem haMephorash" to refer to

228-489: A German translation of the earlier Latin text, Liber Semiphoras (see previous section ), which Luppius augmented heavily with passages from Agrippa 's De Occulta Philosophia and other sources. Blaise de Vigenère (1523–1596), following Reuchlin, featured the 72 angels in his writings. De Vigenère's material on the Shemhamphorash was later copied and expanded by Thomas Rudd (1583?–1656), who proposed that it

342-685: A Hebrew form. Medieval Hebrew added 6421 words to (Modern) Hebrew. The approximate number of new lexical items in Israeli is 17,000 (cf. 14,762 in Even-Shoshan 1970 [...]). With the inclusion of foreign and technical terms [...], the total number of Israeli words, including words of biblical, rabbinic and medieval descent, is more than 60,000. In Israel, Modern Hebrew is currently taught in institutions called Ulpanim (singular: Ulpan). There are government-owned, as well as private, Ulpanim offering online courses and face-to-face programs. Modern Hebrew

456-595: A century ago, was fluent enough in this idiom to be able to follow the Mishna Berurah without any trouble." Hebrew has been revived several times as a literary language, most significantly by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of early and mid-19th-century Germany. In the early 19th century, a form of spoken Hebrew had emerged in the markets of Jerusalem between Jews of different linguistic backgrounds to communicate for commercial purposes. This Hebrew dialect

570-661: A corollary Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. Moshe Zvi Segal , Joseph Klausner and Ben Yehuda are notable exceptions to this view. During the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archaeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls has disproven that view. The Dead Sea Scrolls, uncovered in 1946–1948 near Qumran revealed ancient Jewish texts overwhelmingly in Hebrew, not Aramaic. The Qumran scrolls indicate that Hebrew texts were readily understandable to

684-579: A distinct style of philosophical Hebrew. This is used in the translations made by the Ibn Tibbon family. (Original Jewish philosophical works were usually written in Arabic. ) Another important influence was Maimonides , who developed a simple style based on Mishnaic Hebrew for use in his law code, the Mishneh Torah . Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between this style and

798-594: A gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904–1914 Second Aliyah that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A constructed modern language with

912-468: A literary language down through the Byzantine period from the 4th century CE. The exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated. A trilingual scenario has been proposed for the land of Israel. Hebrew functioned as the local mother tongue with powerful ties to Israel's history, origins and golden age and as the language of Israel's religion; Aramaic functioned as the international language with

1026-536: A literary language, especially in Spain, as the language of commerce between Jews of different native languages, and as the liturgical language of Judaism, evolving various dialects of literary Medieval Hebrew , until its revival as a spoken language in the late 19th century. In May 2023, Scott Stripling published the finding of what he claims to be the oldest known Hebrew inscription, a curse tablet found at Mount Ebal , dated from around 3200 years ago. The presence of

1140-588: A name of 8 letters. 8 X 3, the number of the Supernal Triad, yields the 24 thrones of the Elders of the Apocalypse, each of whom wears on his head a golden crown of three rays, each ray of which is a name, each name an Absolute Idea and Ruling Power of the great name YHVH Tetragrammaton. The number 24 of the thrones multiplied by the 3 rays of the crown which equals 72, the name of God of 72 letters, which

1254-584: A person through life by its association with the counting of the Omer, through its intertwining with the other 49–derived items. An additional verse for contemplation is inserted in the Omer service after the day's count in Edut Hamizrach, Sefard and Chasid Siddurim. These siddurim give the formula for the verse as: This constructed verse combines all the Kabbalah elements in these various sources into

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1368-457: A person to proceed in life. The 42 stations and 7 sefirot make 49 life stages. Sephirot : The 7 lower Sephirot are said to contain each of the Sephirot (including themselves) within them. There are therefore 49 permutations of Sephirot. Each Sefira is linked to a week in the Omer count. On each day of that week the week's Sefira is contemplated in relation to one of the others it contains. On

1482-548: A set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either. By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceased as a regularly spoken language, roughly a century after the publication of the Mishnah, apparently declining since the aftermath of the catastrophic Bar Kokhba revolt around 135 CE. In

1596-668: A spoken language, it continued to be used as a lingua franca among scholars and Jews traveling in foreign countries. After the 2nd century CE when the Roman Empire exiled most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt , they adapted to the societies in which they found themselves, yet letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry and laws continued to be written mostly in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms. After

1710-472: A truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in phonology , was to take its place among the current languages of the nations. While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous (because Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some thought that it should not be used to discuss everyday matters), many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of

1824-558: A vernacular in Judea until it was displaced by Aramaic, probably in the 3rd century CE. Certain Sadducee , Pharisee , Scribe , Hermit, Zealot and Priest classes maintained an insistence on Hebrew, and all Jews maintained their identity with Hebrew songs and simple quotations from Hebrew texts. While there is no doubt that at a certain point, Hebrew was displaced as the everyday spoken language of most Jews, and that its chief successor in

1938-518: Is 8198, of which some 2000 are hapax legomena (the number of Biblical Hebrew roots, on which many of these words are based, is 2099). The number of attested Rabbinic Hebrew words is less than 20,000, of which (i) 7879 are Rabbinic par excellence, i.e. they did not appear in the Old Testament (the number of new Rabbinic Hebrew roots is 805); (ii) around 6000 are a subset of Biblical Hebrew; and (iii) several thousand are Aramaic words which can have

2052-644: Is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family . A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages , it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until after 200 CE and as the liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period ) and Samaritanism . The language was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century, and

2166-574: Is also recited after the first verse of the Shema . the meaning, structure and power of the piyyut can be explained using the following Kabbalah related ideas: Numbers 33 sets out the route the Israelites took from leaving Egypt to entering the Promised Land. The route includes 42 journeys from one camp to another over 40 years before they eventually enter the land of Israel. According to

2280-567: Is fighting to stop businesses from using only English signs to market their services. In 2012, a Knesset bill for the preservation of the Hebrew language was proposed, which includes the stipulation that all signage in Israel must first and foremost be in Hebrew, as with all speeches by Israeli officials abroad. The bill's author, MK Akram Hasson , stated that the bill was proposed as a response to Hebrew "losing its prestige" and children incorporating more English words into their vocabulary. Hebrew

2394-533: Is highly important to Sefer Raziel HaMalakh . It is derived from Exodus 14:19–21, read boustrophedonically to produce 72 names of three letters. This method was explained by Rashi , (b. Sukkah 45a), as well as in Sefer HaBahir (c. 1150~1200). Kabbalist legends state that the 72-fold name was used by Moses to cross the Red Sea , and that it could grant later holy men the power to cast out demons, heal

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2508-536: Is one of several languages for which the constitution of South Africa calls to be respected in their use for religious purposes. Also, Hebrew is an official national minority language in Poland , since 6 January 2005. Hamas has made Hebrew a compulsory language taught in schools in the Gaza Strip. Ana b%27Koach The exact wording of the piyyut differs widely between manuscripts, with smaller variations in

2622-481: Is pronounced shewa-patah, there is one word pronounced shewa-shuruq, which is the thirteenth: the shin with a shewa and the waw with a shuruq. Piyyutim which used this 42-letter name as their acrostic were popular among the Hasidei Ashkenaz , and many different poems were composed based on different versions of the name. The only one of these to survive in Jewish liturgy is Ana b'Koach . The 72-fold name

2736-493: Is said outside formal services: It is the custom of Hasidim to recite the piyyut during: This table highlights the 42-word name by indicating the initial letter from each word forming it in b old. The greyed-out acronyms are not spoken aloud in Orthodox practice. Each verse is linked to: The eighth verse ( Ps 72:19 ) following the piyyut is not part of it but serves to close it like Amen closes blessings. This verse

2850-573: Is the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival . It is the only Canaanite language, as well as one of only two Northwest Semitic languages, with the other being Aramaic , still spoken today. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew , with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around

2964-457: Is the primary official language of the State of Israel. As of 2013 , there are about 9 million Hebrew speakers worldwide, of whom 7 million speak it fluently. Currently, 90% of Israeli Jews are proficient in Hebrew, and 70% are highly proficient. Some 60% of Israeli Arabs are also proficient in Hebrew, and 30% report having a higher proficiency in Hebrew than in Arabic. In total, about 53% of

3078-676: Is thus mystically shown in the name YHVH, as under: (Or as the book of Revelation says: "When the living creatures (the four Kerubim the Letters of the Name) give glory to Him, etc. the four and twenty elders fall down before Him and cast their crowns before the Throne, etc." (that is the Crowns, which each bear 3 of the 72 Names, and these 72 names are written on the leaves of the Tree of Life which were for

3192-547: Is used to pronounce the Hebrew Bible; however, properly it should be distinguished from the historical Biblical Hebrew of the 6th century BCE, whose original pronunciation must be reconstructed. Tiberian Hebrew incorporates the scholarship of the Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who added vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting

3306-471: Is אל יהוה אלהינו from Deut. 6:4. Cairo Geniza amulets (Oxford e.107:10, T-S K 1.127) contain the name א◌ׄנ◌ׄק◌ׄת◌ׄם◌ׄ פסתם פספסים ודיונסים. A similar amulet is included in the back of Sefer Raziel HaMalakh , containing אנקתם פסתם פספסים דיונסים , which the commentary describes as "the 22-letter name." Its origins are unknown, with no connection to Hebrew or Aramaic being found, and no agreement on any particular Greek or Zoroastrian origin. Nathan Hannover

3420-650: The Chayei Adam in Hebrew, as opposed to Yiddish , as a guide to Halacha for the " average 17-year-old" (Ibid. Introduction 1). Similarly, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan 's purpose in writing the Mishnah Berurah was to "produce a work that could be studied daily so that Jews might know the proper procedures to follow minute by minute". The work was nevertheless written in Talmudic Hebrew and Aramaic, since, "the ordinary Jew [of Eastern Europe] of

3534-727: The Ancient Greek Ἑβραῖος ( hebraîos ) and Aramaic 'ibrāy , all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew Ivri ( עברי ), one of several names for the Israelite ( Jewish and Samaritan ) people ( Hebrews ). It is traditionally understood to be an adjective based on the name of Abraham 's ancestor, Eber , mentioned in Genesis 10:21 . The name is believed to be based on the Semitic root ʕ-b-r ( ע־ב־ר ‎), meaning "beyond", "other side", "across"; interpretations of

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3648-567: The Baal Shem Tov each of the 42 camps represents steps that person must successfully navigate to fulfill their life purpose from birth (the exit from Egypt) to death and entry into Olam Haba ( World to Come ) equated with the Israelites entering the Promised Land. Piyyut and other liturgy based on 42, and the 42-letter name assist those who contemplate them to understands each of the 42 personal waypoints they must encounter, and how to surmount them. The forty-two 'stations' from Egypt to

3762-618: The Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple) services, which links the Psalm and the Omer count to the Beit HaMikdash where the Omer (a measure of barley) was brought on the second day of Pesach as an offering of the first part of the harvest to HaShem. Exodus journey stations : The stations represent life experiences which a person needs to overcome. The lower 7 sefirot are part of these experiences each of which needs to be understood for

3876-547: The Canaanite group of languages . Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages. Hebrew was the spoken language in the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE. Epigraphic evidence from this period confirms the widely accepted view that the earlier layers of biblical literature reflect the language used in these kingdoms. Furthermore,

3990-572: The Gospel of Matthew . (See the Hebrew Gospel hypothesis or Language of Jesus for more details on Hebrew and Aramaic in the gospels.) The term "Mishnaic Hebrew" generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud , excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which

4104-660: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn . Mathers describes the descent of power from Tetragrammaton through 24 thrones of the Elders of the Apocalypse , each with a crown of three rays: Four is the number of the letters of the Tetragrammaton. Four is also the number of the letters of the name ADNI which is its representative and key. The latter name is bound with the former and united thereto, thus IAHDVNHY forming

4218-495: The Latin alphabet of ancient Rome . The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels , and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places in which later Hebrew spelling requires them. Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example, Proto-Sinaitic . It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs , though

4332-682: The Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE) and the emergence of the Hasmonean kingdom , the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE). The nationalist significance of Hebrew manifested in various ways throughout this period. Michael Owen Wise notes that "Beginning with the time of the Hasmonean revolt [...] Hebrew came to the fore in an expression akin to modern nationalism. A form of classical Hebrew

4446-536: The Second Aliyah , it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time. Those languages were Jewish dialects of local languages, including Judaeo-Spanish (also called "Judezmo" and "Ladino"), Yiddish , Judeo-Arabic and Bukhori (Tajiki), or local languages spoken in the Jewish diaspora such as Russian , Persian and Arabic . The major result of the literary work of the Hebrew intellectuals along

4560-462: The literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language . However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of people like Ahad Ha'am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into

4674-620: The official language of the State of Israel . Estimates of worldwide usage include five million speakers in 1998, and over nine million people in 2013. After Israel, the United States has the largest Hebrew-speaking population, with approximately 220,000 fluent speakers (see Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans ). Modern Hebrew is the official language of the State of Israel, while pre-revival forms of Hebrew are used for prayer or study in Jewish and Samaritan communities around

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4788-543: The ostraca found near Lachish , which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. In its widest sense, Biblical Hebrew refers to the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between c.  1000 BCE and c.  400 CE . It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them. Sometimes

4902-607: The 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic period , the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon . Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew , the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that, through the Greeks and Etruscans , later became

5016-555: The 1980s in the USSR , Hebrew studies reappeared due to people struggling for permission to go to Israel ( refuseniks ). Several of the teachers were imprisoned, e.g. Yosef Begun , Ephraim Kholmyansky , Yevgeny Korostyshevsky and others responsible for a Hebrew learning network connecting many cities of the USSR. Standard Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, was based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. However,

5130-611: The 19th century was a lexical modernization of Hebrew. New words and expressions were adapted as neologisms from the large corpus of Hebrew writings since the Hebrew Bible, or borrowed from Arabic (mainly by Ben-Yehuda) and older Aramaic and Latin. Many new words were either borrowed from or coined after European languages, especially English, Russian, German, and French. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of

5244-407: The 42-letter name (Talmud Kedushin 71). Ana BeKoach : Each verse of the 7 verses of the piyyut contains contains 6 word. The 6-letter acronym (two 3-letter acronyms taken together), derived from each verse, which forms part of the 42-letter name, is added to the end of the verse as a word. Constructed in this way it has 49 words (7 verses of 7 words each). Psalm 67 : After counting the Omer for

5358-470: The 42-letter name since the early 12th century. The piyyut is included in some siddurim in the Parashat Korbanot reading during Shacharit as well as during Kabbalat Shabbat before Lekha Dodi. It is also recited in some communities after each of the 49 daily Omer countings, both in its full form and intertwined in commentary verses included after the count for each day. Other times Ana BeKoach

5472-490: The 42-letter name]. Some pronounce it as fourteen words composed of three letters each, while others pronounce it as seven words composed of six letters each. The scholars of this land [Spain] follow the latter method, and such is the tradition received from Hayy, but I heard that the scholars of Ashkenaz pronounce it as fourteen three-letter words. There are also differences between the letters of our version and those of Ashkenaz . . . as to what you say, that each three-letter word

5586-491: The 49 words of Psalm 67 and the 49 letters of verse 5 of that Psalm are associated with days of the Omer, to assist a Jew to understand the life steps and how to confront them. Ana BeKoach is one of the Kabbalistic inspired piyyut included in all orthodox services. It was constructed to associate it with the mystical meaning of the lower seven Sephirot and the 42-letter name. Its various uses by all Jewish traditions include

5700-604: The 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity . For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh ( לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶש , lit.   ' the holy tongue ' or ' the tongue [of] holiness ' ) since ancient times. The language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Bible , but as Yehudit ( transl.  ' Judean ' ) or Səpaṯ Kəna'an ( transl.  "the language of Canaan " ). Mishnah Gittin 9:8 refers to

5814-766: The Aramaized Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud. Hebrew persevered through the ages as the main language for written purposes by all Jewish communities around the world for a large range of uses—not only liturgy, but also poetry, philosophy, science and medicine, commerce, daily correspondence and contracts. There have been many deviations from this generalization such as Bar Kokhba 's letters to his lieutenants, which were mostly in Aramaic, and Maimonides' writings, which were mostly in Arabic; but overall, Hebrew did not cease to be used for such purposes. For example,

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5928-482: The Ashkenazic masters, but the baqasha of Nehunya ben HaKanah ( c.  100 CE ) agrees with our version." Many different piyyutim based on the 42-letter acronym were popular at the time, all obviously the work of medieval poets. According to Moshe Hallamish , the first piyyut to largely resemble the modern form of Ana BeKoach was recorded by Jacob of Segovia (13th century), who probably learned it from Hasidei Ashkenaz , who had been composing piyyutim around

6042-503: The British Mandate who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. After the establishment of Israel, it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language . The results of Ben-Yehuda's lexicographical work were published in a dictionary ( The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew , Ben-Yehuda Dictionary ). The seeds of Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by

6156-416: The Great conquered Babylon, he allowed the Jewish people to return from captivity. In time, a local version of Aramaic came to be spoken in Israel alongside Hebrew. By the beginning of the Common Era , Aramaic was the primary colloquial language of Samarian , Babylonian and Galileean Jews, and western and intellectual Jews spoke Greek , but a form of so-called Rabbinic Hebrew continued to be used as

6270-432: The Hebrew name of god , Yahweh, as three letters, Yod-Heh-Vav (YHV), according to the author and his team meant that the tablet is Hebrew and not Canaanite. However, practically all professional archeologists and epigraphers apart from Stripling's team claim that there is no text on this object. In July 2008, Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa that he claimed may be

6384-437: The Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. The Syriac alphabet , precursor to the Arabic alphabet , also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The Aleppo Codex , a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century, likely in Tiberias, and survives into

6498-454: The Israeli population speaks Hebrew as a native language, while most of the rest speak it fluently. In 2013 Hebrew was the native language of 49% of Israelis over the age of 20, with Russian , Arabic , French , English , Yiddish and Ladino being the native tongues of most of the rest. Some 26% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and 12% of Arabs reported speaking Hebrew poorly or not at all. Steps have been taken to keep Hebrew

6612-417: The Middle East was the closely related Aramaic language, then Greek , scholarly opinions on the exact dating of that shift have changed very much. In the first half of the 20th century, most scholars followed Abraham Geiger and Gustaf Dalman in thinking that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel as early as the beginning of Israel's Hellenistic period in the 4th century BCE, and that as

6726-506: The Promised Land are replayed in the life of every individual Jew, as his soul journeys from its descent to earth at birth to its return to its Source. When God brought the Jews out from Egypt, He brought them out with the mystery of the 42-letter name, just as He created heaven and earth... R. Yehudah b. Shalom HaLevi said in the name of R. Yonah; and also R. Levi in the name of R. Hama b. R. Hanina said: 'The manna descended after [it had journeyed through] forty-two stages.' A permutation of

6840-449: The Talmud, the Gemara , generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in two forms of Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which occasionally appears in the text of the Gemara, particularly in the Jerusalem Talmud and the classical aggadah midrashes . Hebrew was always regarded as the language of Israel's religion, history and national pride, and after it faded as

6954-406: The Talmud, various regional literary dialects of Medieval Hebrew evolved. The most important is Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that became the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus still influences all other regional dialects of Hebrew. This Tiberian Hebrew from the 7th to 10th century CE is sometimes called "Biblical Hebrew" because it

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7068-757: The Talmudic intent. By the start of the Rishonic period , the term "Shem haMephorash" could also be used for the 42-letter name and this interpretation was retrojected into the Mishnah, although even Hayy did not claim to know its pronunciation. According to Hayy, Though the letters of the 42-letter name are known, the pronunciation has not been [successfully] transmitted. Some say that it begins אַבְגִיתַץ ʾabgîtaṣ while others say that it begins אַבַגְיְתַץ ʾabagyǝtaṣ , and some say that it concludes שְׁקוּצִית šǝqûṣît while other say that it concludes שַׁקְוַצִית šaqwaṣît , and there are many more disputes besides which none can resolve. Solomon ibn Adret (1235-1310) records that: Different places have different pronunciations [of

7182-422: The ability to speak the language and attempted to promote its use. According to the Jerusalem Talmud , Megillah 1:9: "Rebbi Jonathan from Bet Guvrrin said, four languages are appropriate that the world should use them, and they are these: The Foreign Language (Greek) for song, Latin for war, Syriac for elegies, Hebrew for speech. Some are saying, also Assyrian (Hebrew script) for writing." The later section of

7296-411: The above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 10th century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls). However, today most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as

7410-427: The addition of suffixes such as 'El' or 'Yah', to be the names of angels, individuated products of God's will. Reuchlin refers to and lists the 72 Angels of the Shem Hamephorash in his 1517 book De Arte Cabalistica . According to Bernd Roling, After deriving a Shem ha-mephorasch of the 72 angelic names from the biblical verses of Exodus 14,19ff., Reuchlin makes a statement concerning the metaphysical significance of

7524-455: The average Jew, and that the language had evolved since Biblical times as spoken languages do. Recent scholarship recognizes that reports of Jews speaking in Aramaic indicate a multilingual society, not necessarily the primary language spoken. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew co-existed within Israel as a spoken language. Most scholars now date the demise of Hebrew as a spoken language to the end of the Roman period , or about 200 CE. It continued on as

7638-428: The beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British Palestine. At the time, members of the Old Yishuv and a very few Hasidic sects, most notably those under the auspices of Satmar , refused to speak Hebrew and spoke only Yiddish. In the Soviet Union, the use of Hebrew, along with other Jewish cultural and religious activities,

7752-541: The composition of 1 Maccabees in archaizing Hebrew, Hasmonean coinage under John Hyrcanus (134-104 BCE), and coins from both the Great Revolt and Bar Kokhba Revolt featuring exclusively Hebrew and Palaeo-Hebrew script inscriptions. This deliberate use of Hebrew and Paleo-Hebrew script in official contexts, despite limited literacy, served as a symbol of Jewish nationalism and political independence. The Christian New Testament contains some Semitic place names and quotes. The language of such Semitic glosses (and in general

7866-410: The content of Hebrew inscriptions suggests that the written texts closely mirror the spoken language of that time. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a spoken vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile when the predominant international language in the region was Old Aramaic . Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by late antiquity , but it continued to be used as

7980-415: The day, Psalm 67 is recited and then Ana BeKoach is read. If the first verse to Psalm 67 (which gives introductory information only) is ignored, the Psalm consists of 49 words each of which is associated with successive Omer days. Similarly verse 5 of Psalm 67 contains 49 letters which are also each linked to the Omer days. This Psalm is further associated with the Temple menorah , the 7 armed oil lamp used in

8094-440: The devine mystical power into these observances. Reciting the piyyut has the power of bringing the Ein Sof light to earth strengthening the person reciting it, and the nation to face it ongoing journey. Every time the piyyut is recited one must focus on how it's can assist them in their life journey. The piyyut is said in the Parashat Korbanot read during Shacharit and during Kabbalat Shabbat. It reaches its full potential of guiding

8208-568: The dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel. A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the halachic Midrashim ( Sifra , Sifre , Mekhilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta . The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere;

8322-423: The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating from around 3,000 years ago. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said that the inscription was "proto-Canaanite" but cautioned that "[t]he differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear", and suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. The Gezer calendar also dates back to

8436-513: The earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had Yiddish as their native language and often introduced calques from Yiddish and phono-semantic matchings of international words. Despite using Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation as its primary basis, modern Israeli Hebrew has adapted to Ashkenazi Hebrew phonology in some respects, mainly the following: The vocabulary of Israeli Hebrew is much larger than that of earlier periods. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann : The number of attested Biblical Hebrew words

8550-532: The early 6th century BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the ancient Kingdom of Judah , destroying much of Jerusalem and exiling its population far to the east in Babylon . During the Babylonian captivity , many Israelites learned Aramaic, the closely related Semitic language of their captors. Thus, for a significant period, the Jewish elite became influenced by Aramaic. After Cyrus

8664-490: The first 42 letter of Genesis are said to indirectly encode the 42-letter name. This is interpreted by Kabbalah and Talmud as indicating that HaShem used his 42-letter name to create the world. The Hebrew name for the 42 letter name is שם מ'בֶ (The Mem Bet name). God created the world with this forty-two lettered name. 'And the Earth Was Void and Without Form.' This describes the original state, as it were..., until

8778-711: The first Middle East printing press, in Safed (modern Israel), produced a small number of books in Hebrew in 1577, which were then sold to the nearby Jewish world. This meant not only that well-educated Jews in all parts of the world could correspond in a mutually intelligible language, and that books and legal documents published or written in any part of the world could be read by Jews in all other parts, but that an educated Jew could travel and converse with Jews in distant places, just as priests and other educated Christians could converse in Latin. For example, Rabbi Avraham Danzig wrote

8892-603: The four-letter Tetragrammaton . In addition to the Shem haMephorash, b. Qiddushin 72a describes a 12-letter name and a 42-letter name. The medievals debate whether the 12-letter name is a mundane euphemism, unknown, YHVH-EHYH-ADNY, or YHVH-YHVH-YHVH. Wilhelm Bacher and Adolphe Franck suggest that the 12-letter name was Chokmah - Tevunah - Da'at , but the Sefirot did not yet exist in Talmudic times. A. Haffer suggests that it

9006-406: The generic term for these passages is Baraitot . The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew. About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language. By the third century CE, sages could no longer identify the Hebrew names of many plants mentioned in the Mishnah. Only a few sages, primarily in the southern regions, retained

9120-696: The healing of the nations.) These are also the 72 names of the ladder of Jacob on which the Angels of God ascended and descended. It will presently be shown how the 72 Angelic names are formed from the 72 Names of the Deity, and also how their signification is to be found. The 72 Names of the Deity are thus obtained. The 19th, 20th, and 21st verses of the XIV Chapter of the Book of Exodus each consist of 72 letters... Contemporary books on Hermetic Qabalah which discuss

9234-453: The intermediaries could be approached. Contact with this celestial world was achieved by manipulating the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. [...] This invocatory technique may be traced through the works of Joseph Gikatilla to the famous thirteenth-century Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia . Liber Semamphoras (aka Semamphoras, Semyforas) is the title of a Latin translation of an occult or magical text of Jewish provenance attributed to Solomon . It

9348-462: The language as Ivrit , meaning Hebrew; however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit , meaning Assyrian , which is derived from the name of the alphabet used , in contrast to Ivrit , meaning the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet . Hebrew ceased to be a regular spoken language sometime between 200 and 400 CE, as it declined in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba revolt , which

9462-465: The language spoken by Jews in scenes from the New Testament) is often referred to as "Hebrew" in the text, although this term is often re-interpreted as referring to Aramaic instead and is rendered accordingly in recent translations. Nonetheless, these glosses can be interpreted as Hebrew as well. It has been argued that Hebrew, rather than Aramaic or Koine Greek, lay behind the composition of

9576-471: The language. The revival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated in the late 19th century by the efforts of Ben-Yehuda. He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 immigrated to Palestine , then a part of the Ottoman Empire . Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora " shtetl " lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making

9690-531: The names listed by Sifra d'Tziuta Ch. 4, winning the support of Ginsburg , but this passage is not even as old as the Zohar . Robert Eisler derives it from Ex. 34:6. A. Haffer suggests that it is יהוה אחד ברוך שם כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד. According to Maimonides and Rashi, the 42-letter name is unknown, but Hayy ben Sherira says it is the acronym of the medieval piyyut Ana b'Koach , and Joshua Trachtenberg argues that Hayy's tradition may legitimately represent

9804-574: The names. [...] The names of the angels are products of the will of God. They are substantially based on the tetragrammaton, and through this connection they illumine and enhance man's spiritual return to God. [...] With the insertion of divine names such as 'El' or 'Yah', angelic names become pronouncable, and God himself (being nature) is the basis of angelic individuation. Reuchlin's cosmology in turn influenced Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535) and Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680). In 1686, Andreas Luppius published Semiphoras und Schemhamphoras ,

9918-727: The newly declared State of Israel . Hebrew is the most widely spoken language in Israel today. In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew tradition revived as the spoken language of modern Israel, called variously Israeli Hebrew , Modern Israeli Hebrew , Modern Hebrew , New Hebrew , Israeli Standard Hebrew , Standard Hebrew and so on. Israeli Hebrew exhibits some features of Sephardic Hebrew from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous neologisms, borrowed terms (often technical) from European languages and adopted terms (often colloquial) from Arabic. The literary and narrative use of Hebrew

10032-534: The phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite , and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from that of Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone , written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam inscription , found near Jerusalem , is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include

10146-591: The present day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence. During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain , important work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the grammarians of Classical Arabic . Important Hebrew grammarians were Judah ben David Hayyuj , Jonah ibn Janah , Abraham ibn Ezra and later (in Provence ), David Kimhi . A great deal of poetry

10260-635: The primary language of use, and to prevent large-scale incorporation of English words into the Hebrew vocabulary. The Academy of the Hebrew Language of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem currently invents about 2,000 new Hebrew words each year for modern words by finding an original Hebrew word that captures the meaning, as an alternative to incorporating more English words into Hebrew vocabulary. The Haifa municipality has banned officials from using English words in official documents, and

10374-734: The rest of the Middle East; and eventually Greek functioned as another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire. William Schniedewind argues that after waning in the Persian period, the religious importance of Hebrew grew in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and cites epigraphical evidence that Hebrew survived as a vernacular language – though both its grammar and its writing system had been substantially influenced by Aramaic. According to another summary, Greek

10488-412: The resulting acronym. Hayy ben Sherira (d. 1038), the first scholar to mention its 42-letter acronym, did not know of any piyyut and writes that the name was only passed down among the Babylonian geonim . By contrast, Rashi and Maimonides write that the 42-letter name is lost. According to Shlomo ibn Aderet , "The letters [of the 42-letter name] differ between our [Sephardic] tradition and that of

10602-480: The seventh day of a particular Sefira's week, the Sefira is contemplated, as it relates to itself. the 49 days of the Omer should remind Jews of the journey of the nation from Egypt to Israel through 42 waypoints and 7 Sephirot, and how this relates to the steps they must take in their personal life journey. The piyyut with its 49 nine words (42 words plus the 7 component parts of the 42-letter name derived from it),

10716-452: The sick, prevent natural disasters, and even kill enemies. According to G. Lloyd Jones, To overcome the problems posed by the doctrine of God's transcendence, the early Jewish mystics developed an emanation theory in which the alphabet played an important part. They taught that the universe was divided into ten angelic spheres each one governed by an intermediary or emanation of the divine. There were seventy-two inferior angels through whom

10830-493: The southern villages of Judea." In other words, "in terms of dialect geography, at the time of the tannaim Palestine could be divided into the Aramaic-speaking regions of Galilee and Samaria and a smaller area, Judaea, in which Rabbinic Hebrew was used among the descendants of returning exiles." In addition, it has been surmised that Koine Greek was the primary vehicle of communication in coastal cities and among

10944-474: The spoken language of the Russian Jews, should be treated as their only national language, while Hebrew was to be treated as a foreign language. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries, although liturgical texts were still published until the 1930s. Despite numerous protests, a policy of suppression of the teaching of Hebrew operated from the 1930s on. Later in

11058-984: The subject include Lon Milo DuQuette 's The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Ben Clifford. Shem HaMephorash figures in the legend of the golem , an animated anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore that is created entirely from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). The earthen figure is then animated by saying the Shem Hamephorash over it. Jorge Luis Borges refers to this legend in his poem The Golem and in his essay The Golem . The Shem haMephorash also appears in Borges's stories Three versions of Judas and The Circular Ruins . [REDACTED] The dictionary definition of shem hamephorash at Wiktionary Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית ‎, ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ‎ ʿÎbrit )

11172-470: The term "Hebrew" generally render its meaning as roughly "from the other side [of the river/desert]"—i.e., an exonym for the inhabitants of the land of Israel and Judah , perhaps from the perspective of Mesopotamia , Phoenicia or Transjordan (with the river referred to being perhaps the Euphrates , Jordan or Litani ; or maybe the northern Arabian Desert between Babylonia and Canaan ). Compare

11286-580: The upper class of Jerusalem , while Aramaic was prevalent in the lower class of Jerusalem, but not in the surrounding countryside. After the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century CE, Judaeans were forced to disperse. Many relocated to Galilee, so most remaining native speakers of Hebrew at that last stage would have been found in the north. Many scholars have pointed out that Hebrew continued to be used alongside Aramaic during Second Temple times, not only for religious purposes but also for nationalistic reasons, especially during revolts such as

11400-505: The word Habiru or cognate Assyrian ebru , of identical meaning. One of the earliest references to the language's name as " Ivrit " is found in the prologue to the Book of Sirach , from the 2nd century BCE. The Hebrew Bible does not use the term "Hebrew" in reference to the language of the Hebrew people; its later historiography, in the Book of Kings , refers to it as יְהוּדִית Yehudit " Judahite (language)". Hebrew belongs to

11514-595: The world today; the latter group utilizes the Samaritan dialect as their liturgical tongue. As a non- first language , it is studied mostly by non-Israeli Jews and students in Israel, by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations , and by theologians in Christian seminaries . The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French Ebrau , via Latin from

11628-462: The world was graven with forty-two letters, all of which are the ornamentation of the Holy Name. When Moses asked HaShem who he should tell the Israelites had sent him, he was told that HaShem's name was "Ehkeh asher Ehkeh" (I will be what I will be) Exodus 3:13–14 . The Gematria numerical equivalent for Hebrew word "Ehkeh" is 21. Since the word appears twice in the name this gives 42, referring to

11742-421: Was a spoken language , and Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a literary language . The earlier section of the Talmud is the Mishnah that was published around 200 CE, although many of the stories take place much earlier, and were written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered to be one of

11856-763: Was a key (but often missing) component to the magical practices in the Lesser Key of Solomon , as a balancing force against the evil spirits of the Ars Goetia or in isolation. Skinner and Rankine explain that de Vigenère and Rudd adopted these triliteral words with '-el' or '-yah' (both Hebrew for "god") added to them as the names of the 72 angels that are able to bind the 72 evil spirits also described in The Lesser Key of Solomon (c. mid-17th century). Blaise de Vigenère's manuscripts were also used by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (1854–1918) in his works for

11970-528: Was attested in 1260 by Roger Bacon , who complained about the linguistic corruption that had occurred in translating Liber Semamphoras into Latin from Hebrew. It is heavily indebted to Sefer HaRazim through its Latin versions, Liber Sepher Razielis idest Liber Secretorum seu Liber Salomonis , and seemingly replaced the more explicitly magical text Liber magice in the Razielis . Johann Reuchlin (1455–1522) considered these 72 names, made pronounceable by

12084-457: Was carried out against the Roman Empire by the Jews of Judaea . Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among societal elites and immigrants. Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy , rabbinic literature , intra-Jewish commerce, and Jewish poetic literature . The first dated book printed in Hebrew

12198-491: Was now a more significant written language than Aramaic within Judaea." This nationalist aspect was further emphasized during periods of conflict, as Hannah Cotton observing in her analysis of legal documents during the Jewish revolts against Rome that "Hebrew became the symbol of Jewish nationalism, of the independent Jewish State." The nationalist use of Hebrew is evidenced in several historical documents and artefacts, including

12312-566: Was published by Abraham Garton in Reggio ( Calabria , Italy) in 1475. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century, the Hebrew language experienced a full-scale revival as a spoken and literary language. The creation of a modern version of the ancient language was led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda . Modern Hebrew ( Ivrit ) became the main language of the Yishuv in Palestine , and subsequently

12426-471: Was responsible for introducing it into popular Priestly Blessing liturgy, and also composed poems on the model of Ana b'Koach using the 22-letter name as his acrostic. Wilhelm Bacher and Adolphe Franck suggest that the 42-letter name was the full 10 Sefirot , but the Sefirot did not yet exist in Talmudic times. J. Goldberger argues that the 42-letter name was derived by gematriya, representing either אהיה אהיה or אלוה. Ignatz Stern claims that it represents

12540-629: Was revived beginning with the Haskalah movement. The first secular periodical in Hebrew, Ha-Me'assef (The Gatherer), was published by maskilim in Königsberg (today's Kaliningrad ) from 1783 onwards. In the mid-19th century, publications of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e.g. Hamagid , founded in Ełk in 1856) multiplied. Prominent poets were Hayim Nahman Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky ; there were also novels written in

12654-531: Was suppressed. Soviet authorities considered the use of Hebrew "reactionary" since it was associated with Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the People's Commissariat for Education as early as 1919, as part of an overall agenda aiming to secularize education (the language itself did not cease to be studied at universities for historical and linguistic purposes ). The official ordinance stated that Yiddish, being

12768-551: Was the language of government, Hebrew the language of prayer, study and religious texts, and Aramaic was the language of legal contracts and trade. There was also a geographic pattern: according to Bernard Spolsky , by the beginning of the Common Era, " Judeo-Aramaic was mainly used in Galilee in the north, Greek was concentrated in the former colonies and around governmental centers, and Hebrew monolingualism continued mainly in

12882-408: Was to a certain extent a pidgin . Near the end of that century the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda , owing to the ideology of the national revival ( שיבת ציון , Shivat Tziyon , later Zionism ), began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken language. Eventually, as a result of the local movement he created, but more significantly as a result of the new groups of immigrants known under the name of

12996-570: Was written, by poets such as Dunash ben Labrat , Solomon ibn Gabirol , Judah ha-Levi , Moses ibn Ezra and Abraham ibn Ezra , in a "purified" Hebrew based on the work of these grammarians, and in Arabic quantitative or strophic meters. This literary Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets. The need to express scientific and philosophical concepts from Classical Greek and Medieval Arabic motivated Medieval Hebrew to borrow terminology and grammar from these other languages, or to coin equivalent terms from existing Hebrew roots, giving rise to

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