You favor man with perception and teach mankind understanding. Grant us knowledge, understanding and intellect from You. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Grantor of perception. Amidah (Ashkenazi version) Knowledge, understand and intellect – Let’s be consistent. That’s one of the fundamental requirements of good translation. The same word needs to be rendered as the same word. …
You favor man with perception and teach mankind understanding. Grant us knowledge, understanding and intellect from You. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Grantor of perception. Amidah (Ashkenazi version) Teach understanding – da’at is gifted. bina is taught. What’s the difference? First, the verb. You’ll remember that the verb for da’at is nātan. The first sequence is…
You favor man with perception and teach mankind understanding. Grant us knowledge, understanding and intellect from You. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Grantor of perception. Amidah (Ashkenazi version) Perception/ Understanding – Let’s summarize yesterday’s insights. This version of the Amidah suggests that da’at was given to Adam, and that bina was taught to ‘enosh. These are…
You favor man with perception and teach mankind understanding. Grant us knowledge, understanding and intellect from You. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Grantor of perception. Amidah (Ashkenazi version) Man/ mankind – Before we begin to explore the subtle changes in the Sephardic and Ashkenazi versions of the Amidah, let’s look at translation consistency. Robert Alter makes…
Be silent before the Lord God! For the day of the Lord is near, because the Lord has prepared a sacrifice, He has consecrated His guests. “Then it will come about on the day of the Lord’s sacrifice that I will punish the princes, the king’s sons, and all who clothe themselves with foreign garments.” Zephaniah 1:7-8 NASB Sacrifice – Robert Alter makes an important comment…
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, Jude 1:20 NASB The Holy Spirit – “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom” (Song of Songs 2:15). Now wait a minute! What does Song of Songs have to do with Jude? …
It was also about these people that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord has come with [n]many thousands of His holy ones, 15 to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” …
Can you discover the depths of God? Can you discover the limits of the Almighty? They are as high as the heavens; what can you do? Deeper than Sheol; what can you know? Job 11:7-8 NASB Depths of God – First, let’s put the emphasis in the right place. To do that, we need to read Hebrew…
Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; with [a]hard labor you shall eat from it all the days of your life. Genesis 3:17 NASB Listened…
Are You not from time everlasting, Lord, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Habakkuk 1:12a NASB We – What is a tiqun sofrim? As you might guess, it is a written restoration, a place where a scribe corrected the text because of the theological implication. In this case, the Masoretic text reads “we,”…
