nav-left cat-right
cat-right
Recent Comments
  • Rae: I hope you like the new site! I think it's much cleaner, mor...
Random Articles
Page 22 — It Is This Promise…
Page 22 — It Is This Prom... Vehi she’ameda la’avoteinu velanu, shelo ekhad bilevad amad aleinu...
Page 7 — The Four Questions
Page 7 — The Four Questio... Ma nishtana halayla hazeh mikol haleilot? Shebekhol haleilot anu okhelin...
Page 5 — Kiddush and Havdalah
Page 5 — Kiddush and Havd... Kiddush [Vayhi erev, vayhi boker, yom shishi.  Vaykhulu hashamayim...
Page 51 — Song of the Marsh
Page 51 — Song of the Mar... Ashira l’Adonai ki ga’o ga’a – sus verokhevo rama vayam. Ozi vezimrat...
Ham and Wry Ham and Wry. Linguists formerly used the term “Hamitic languages” to refer...
Psalm 136
Psalm 136 This song can be sung to the tune, “Let my people go!” with the words “Ki...

The Gods of Egypt

“Upon all the ‘gods’ of Egypt, I will execute judgments – I – Adonai,” declares God in Exodus 12:12. The passage promises the utter destruction of the Egyptian gods, yet curiously, the Book of Exodus seems not to describe a single judgment against a god of Egypt.  Now, some might dismiss the “broken promise” as a redacting error, a careless scribe’s leaving the battle between God and gods on the cutting...
Read More

Ayin Caramba!

For most of the 20th century, Hebrew teachers dutifully taught pupils that the Hebrew alphabet had two “silent letters,” aleph and ayin.  While this may be true of Modern Hebrew, both letters were pronounced in Biblical Hebrew.  Eastern European Jews continued to pronounce the ayin until at least the 1700s. Ayin and aleph are still pronounced in the Synagogue Hebrew of Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jews. The sound of an...
Read More
Welcome to the new Exodus Haggadah site!

Welcome to the new Exodus Haggadah site!

The Exodus Haggadah site lets users of this Haggadah interact with the author, view articles and blogs about the Exodus Haggadah, and read articles on the meaning of various Jewish texts. Enjoy! We love to hear from you.
Read More

After a While, Crocodile

After a While, Crocodile.  By expelling the Jews from England in 1390, King Edward I retarded Hebrew scholarship for centuries.  So when King James I ordered a new translation of the Bible in 1604, Hebrew dictionaries and grammar books were rudimentary.  Occasionally, the translators sought divine inspiration to understand obscure Hebrew words.  Naturally, some interesting errors resulted.  Modern translations generally...
Read More

Ham and Wry

Ham and Wry. Linguists formerly used the term “Hamitic languages” to refer to ancient Egyptian and the Berber, Chadic and Cushitic languages of North Africa.  The Hamitic languages are closely related to each other and distantly related to the Semitic languages.  The common ancestor of both groups, formerly called “Semito-Hamitc,” is now called “Afro-Asiatic” to avoid naming a language group after Ham, the...
Read More

Parts

Parts. An ideal translator exactly reproduces the meaning of a text from one language in a second language.  Exact translations are possible when the author of a text and the translator are contemporaries in the same culture.  So in Belgium, where French and Dutch speakers live side by side, exact translations from one language to the other are possible.  But exact translations from ancient to modern languages are rare:...
Read More

“He Wrestles Bears.”

“He Wrestles Bears.” We would almost certainly scoff at a new neighbor who declared “When I wrestle a bear, people will know my name!” Boasting is unseemly and bear-wrestling is a poor way to teach one’s name, unless the name is He-Wrestles-Bears.  Yet at least 11 times in Exodus, God declares that when he does some deed, Egyptians and Israelites will know that he is Y-H-W-H. If the divine name is merely a personal...
Read More
“House of Slaves”

“House of Slaves”

The Book of Exodus, narrating the events that occurred on the eve of the Israelites’ departure from Egyptian slavery, calls Egypt “בֵּית עֲבָדִים” (beit ’avadim).  The phrase is usually translated as House of Bondage, yet it literally means House of Slaves.  On the surface, the phrase seems accurate enough.  The Israelites were slaves in Egypt.  The name can hardly offend the Egyptians.  Yet when the...
Read More