We recently looked at Rosh Hashana. This week we examine the words that form a few more holidays.
By DR. JOEL M. HOFFMANsuccot 88(photo credit: )
We recently looked at the name Rosh Hashana. This week we examine the words that form a few more holidays.
In addition to "head of the year," Rosh Hashana has traditionally enjoyed a second name, yom hazikaron, though that name now tends to refer to Yom Kippur. Yom means "day," and zikaron is a word commonly translated as "remembrance." But it, and the words related to it, are more complicated.
The word zikaron comes from the interesting root z.k.r. Those three letters give us a variety of "memory" related words, including the basic verb lizkor, "to remember." In the hif'il paradigm (l'hazkir) we get "to remind," and in nif'al (nikzar), "to recall." Zikaron, the noun formed by adding the common ending -on, is "memory." If you are skilled at remembering things, for example, you have a good zikaron. Zikaron is also used as a synonym for zecher, often translated as "reminder" or "hint" in addition to "memory." But those translations don't do the word justice.
Zecher is the part of something that is divorced from its immediate presence. It could be what's left of a thing when the thing itself is gone, or specifically evidence of former existence. That's why when something vanishes "without a trace," it has disappeared "l'lo zecher." (L'lo is a fancy way of saying b'li, "without.") Similarly, the phrase zecher tzadik livracha ("may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing") doesn't really refer to the righteous person's memory, but rather the broader concept of everything about the person that lives on once the person is gone. This is why zecher is often used in parallel with shem, "name." An unnamed person or object must be described or physically pointed to, but a name lets us refer to things that are not in front of us.
Other words from z.k.r include mazkeret, "souvenir" (that is, an object by which you might remember a place - an etymology reflected in English, too), and the somewhat rare word zichra, "association."
Perhaps most interesting, though, is the related noun zachar. Still from the root z.k.r, it means "male." What may have happened is this: Originally, the root z.k.r had to do with pointing. Over time, that morphed into "calling attention to," "highlighting," etc., and finally "remembering." Also related to pointing is the pointing organ, and therefore, by metonymy, "male." (Remember metonymy? It means referring to something by association.)
Moving on, we get to Yom Kippur, which literally means "day of atonement," but only if by "atonement" is meant "preventing retribution or punishment, wiping things away or covering up." The Hebrew doesn't directly invoke "saying sorry," though that might be one way of atoning. The day also goes by the name yom hakippurim, literally "the day of atonements," though the linguistic meaning of the plural is essentially the same as the singular.
We have space for one more holiday: Succot. The name comes from the Hebrew word succa, "booth." In English, a succa is the temporary booth erected to celebrate Succot. In Hebrew, the word is more general, denoting any covered booth. The noun comes from the root s.k.k (usually spelled with a samech - samech.kaf.kaf - but sometimes with a sin), which gives us a rare verb meaning "to cover," as with a screen or hatched roof.
The material used to cover a succa is known as s'chach (a phrase that rolls right off the English-speaking tongue), from the same root s.k.k. Add a prefixed mem to the root and you get the word masach, "curtain" or "screen." Like its English counterpart, it means the screen upon which one might show a movie and also a computer display.
The word also demonstrates a subtle point of Hebrew grammar concerning the dagesh (just when you may have thought we were done with it). The word masach, coming as it does from the root s.k.k, has two kafs. So you'd expect either to see both of them or to find a dagesh. But a dagesh at the end of a word drops out. Add the plural ending -im, though, and the kaf with a dagesh is no longer at the end of the word. The plural is, therefore, technically masakim. So if you have one computer display, it's a masach, two, and they are masakim.
As chance has it, then, Yom Kippur and Succot are subtly linked through their names, because both k.p.r and s.k.k have to do with covering. I guess the essence really is in the details.
The writer teaches at HUC- JIR in New York City.
www.Lashon.net
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