Volume 44 Number 59
Produced: Thu Sep 2 17:30:13 EDT 2004
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Brit - kvatter/in (5)
[Meir, Andrew Sacks, Martin Stern, Jack Gross, Meir]
Childless Kvatter?
[Leah S. Gordon]
Hareidi press
[Menashe Elyashiv]
Jewish Genetic Differences
[Ben Katz]
Melody for Rosh Hashana (and Shalosh Regalim and Shabbat) Mincha
[David Prins]
Pasuk for Leib (2)
[Ira L. Jacobson, Elazar M. Teitz]
Spelling Leyb
[Perets Mett]
Tefilin and source of Machloket
[Jack Gross]
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From: <meirman@...> (Meir)
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:55:49 -0400
Subject: Brit - kvatter/in
>From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
>On 27/8/04 11:01 am, Joseph Tabory <taborj@...> wrote:
>>Obviously, the Germans got this from the Jewish custom.
>Not at all obvious; it is used in German to mean not only godfather but
>sponsor and, colloquially, an intimate friend. It is therefore much more
>likely that the word was originally German and borrowed for an analogous
>person in Jewish ritual.
I don't see how this makes it at all more likely (or less likely). It
doesn't take much time for a word to get new uses or meanings, and not
much longer for those uses to become widespread. And German could do it
even if Yiddish didn't. One could even suggest that were it to have
come from German to Yiddish, it would have included the other two
meanings you mention, and therefore it's more likely it went the other
way and the other two meanings were adopted in German only later. Are
there equivalents to the OED, for German and Yiddish, that would give
some idea of when words and meanings were first used?
Meir
<meirman@...> Baltimore, MD, USA
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From: Andrew Sacks <raisrael@...>
Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 13:40:58 +0200
Subject: Brit - kvatter/in
The actual origin of the word Kvatter is NOT so certain. In addition to
the ideas presented on the list - I present others:
1. The men and women were in separate rooms. The man who took the baby
from the doorway of the women's room and brought him to the father
received the "Kavod Tir" (Kavod=honor. Tir=Door).
2. There were inns attached to shuls in the middle ages. These were the
living "Quarters." Corrupted the word for the person who carried the
infant from the Quarters to the shul became "Kvatter."
3. The table with all of the tools for the Brit is like the table used
to prepare for Korbanot. We have a "Ktoret". The verb would be
"Koter." Koter and Kvatter are spelled the same in Hebrew (with the
extra vav).
The REAL origin of the word? If we knew then there would not be so many
explanations.
Andy Sacks
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From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 16:51:00 +0100
Subject: Re: Brit - kvatter/in
on 30/8/04 10:56 am, Elozor Reich <lreich@...> wrote:
> All nice drush, but kvatter is a corruption of (the German equivalent)
> godfather
The equivalent word in German is 'Gevatter' meaning 'sponsor' or
'Godfather'. as it is spelt with a double t, I doubt if it is
etymologically related to the German word 'Vater - father' from which
Grossvater (grandfather) is derived. It is more likely to be noun formed
from an obsolete verb 'vatteren' meaning 'to sponsor' or 'to present'
but I do not have an etymological German dictionary to check this. If
anyone else could do so, I should be most grateful.
Incidentally Yiddish preserves many family relation terms which are no
longer current in High German such as Schwer (father-in-law) and
Schwieger (mother-in-law).
Martin Stern
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From: Jack Gross <ibijbgross@...>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:56:33 -0400
Subject: Re: Brit - kvatter/in
From: Elozor Reich <lreich@...>
> All nice drush, but kvatter is a corruption of (the German equivalent)
> godfather
And "Vaterin" is the feminine form of "Vater"?
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From: <meirman@...> (Meir)
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 16:11:52 -0400
Subject: Brit - kvatter/in
>>Since four parties are involved, perhaps "kvatter" mean on who performs
>>one-quarter of the operation.
>
>All nice drush, but kvatter is a corruption of (the German equivalent)
>godfather
Why is it when words are used in English with different spellings or
pronunciations from the original language, we say they are "from French"
or "derived from German" etc., but when the destination language is
Yiddish, so many people, including Jews, say that the word is a
corruption of the foreign word?
Wachagonnado might be called a corruption of What are you going to do?,
or it might be called bad diction, but either way, it is within the same
language. When a word is borrowed from a foreign language, it gets a new
starting point.
Why is it so many people, especially Jews, say that Yiddish is not a
language but a dialect of German but no one says French or Spanish or
Italian is a dialect of Latin?
Meir
<meirman@...> Baltimore, MD, USA
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From: Leah S. Gordon <leah@...>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 05:39:35 -0700
Subject: Childless Kvatter?
Nathan Lamm wrote:
"I believe the kibud of Kvatter is often allocated to a childless couple,
so they will have the zechut to have a child. Obviously, one wouldn't
give it to a pregnant woman, not that there's a rule against it."
Leaving aside for the moment the pain/embarassment of having one's
apparent infertility become a subject of community supposition, do you
really mean 'segula' [charm/good-luck sign] instead of 'zechut' [merit]?
Since no one who has read Tanakh would suggest that fertility is a
function of merit, I must be misunderstanding the term 'zechut'.
Tangentially related to this thread is an important issue in the
community--how childless couples are treated and how infertility is
frequently misunderstood in general. I tend to cringe at these
'good-luck' things people are supposed to do so that they will get
pregnant. And I include in that category when someone tells a woman who
has miscarried that she should be more careful with mikvah.
It is well-established that infertility can be either male-factor or
female-factor (or both, or undeterminable), and that usually there is a
specific physical problem. This is as opposed to the years of people
being told to "relax" or "adopt and you'll get pregnant". (Research has
shown extensively that neither 'relaxing' nor adopting increases the
odds of conception.)
--Leah
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From: Menashe Elyashiv <elyashm@...>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 09:12:11 +0300 (IDT)
Subject: Hareidi press
As a regular reader of both ha'modia and yated, I can say that
1] not only womens names are left out, but women soldiers turn into
civilians
2] Habad does not exist in yatad, the habad Rabbi that was saved last week
from the russian plane clash was identified only as R'...
3] In yated only certain circles have Rabbis, no Mizrahi Rabbi is called
Rabbi. Every person from their circle receives semiha from yated, even if
he is a politician or a business man.
4] When the nahal haredi soldiers killed a terorrist a few months ago,
they were identified only as soldiers
5] They cover up peoples pasts, e.g. who knows were the mayor of Jerusalem
went to school? Or Rabbis that teached in YU or bnei akiva Yeshiva
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From: Ben Katz <bkatz@...>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:13:10 -0500
Subject: Re: Jewish Genetic Differences
>From: Rhonda Stein <rhondastein@...>
>I'm surprised no one has mentioned another possibility for the reason
>that Jews came to resemble the residents of the countries where they
>lived. Remember Yaakov Ovinu putting speckled and striped sticks at the
>watering troughs?
This is a very difficult story to understand unless you are a
Lamarkian and believe in the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
Even Nachum Sarna's attempt to explain it in the JPS Torah Series
Commentary does not seem to make biological sense to me. One certainly
should not use it to explain any genetic phenomenon in the (ralatively)
modern era.
Ben Z. Katz, M.D.
Children's Memorial Hospital, Division of Infectious Diseases
Chicago, IL 60614
e-mail: <bkatz@...>
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From: David Prins <prins@...>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:36:48 +1000
Subject: Melody for Rosh Hashana (and Shalosh Regalim and Shabbat) Mincha
Further to Mark Symons' question in MJ (v44i35) regarding Rosh Hashana
and Shabbat mincha melody in the Ashkenaz tradition, at the time of
writing there have been responses from Art Werschulz (v44i43), Baruch
Schwartz (v44i46), and Stuart Feldhamer (v44i51).
These responses have elicited differences in opinion.
For example, for shabbat mincha, Baruch Schwartz asserted:
> in hazarat hasha"tz it is correct to begin in the weekday mode and
to switch to the melody of shabbat minha at the end of the kedusha ...
the use of the mode for "atah ehad veshimkha ehad" etc. for avot,
gevurot and kedusha is an error (although pointing this out to adults is
usually hopeless).
In contrast, Stuart Feldhamer thought that using the Shabbat mincha
nusach here was more "authentic", and that using the standard weekday
nusach "is partially because of people who can't remember the correct
tune".
What we are lacking is sources. Can any mail-jewish readers provide
sources for the "correct" melody to use for any particular service?
David Prins
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From: Ira L. Jacobson <laser@...>
Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 18:31:14 +0300
Subject: Re: Pasuk for Leib
REMT stated the following on Mon, 30 Aug 2004 09:38:03 -0400
You might also inform your friend that the correct spelling
of Leib is with one yod, not two.
A Google search certainly confirms that the use of a single yod is more
prevalent (37,800 mentions of Leib(*) with one yod vs. 4850 with two.)
But what rule is invoked to show that the use of a single yod is the
correct version? And is this a spelling rule in Hebrew or in Yiddish?
(*) However, at least one use of lamed yod bet is is in "Long LIVE
the . . ." Another refers to Liv Tyler. And still another to
"lib gehat tsum himl kukn."
The other question I would ask is whether reacting a verse that
corresponds to a Yiddish name is what is really the intent, rather than
a Hebrew name. Leib is ordinarily coupled with Yehuda or Arye.
IRA L. JACOBSON
mailto:<laser@...>
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From: Elazar M. Teitz <remt@...>
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 17:47:23 GMT
Subject: Re: Pasuk for Leib
> A Google search certainly confirms that the use of a single yod is more
> prevalent (37,800 mentions of Leib(*) with one yod vs. 4850 with two.)
> But what rule is invoked to show that the use of a single yod is the
> correct version? And is this a spelling rule in Hebrew or in Yiddish?>
It's not a question of prevalence, but of halacha. For Ashk'nazim, the
tzeire in a non-Hebrew name is to be transliterated by a single yod.
Indeed, the spelling of the name Leib with a single yod is explicitly
mentioned in the Beis Shmuel in Even Haezer 129, in the list of men's
names for writing in a get.
It is _not_ the Yiddish spelling, which is most commonly two yods for
the "ay" sound. It is the proper Hebrew spelling of the Yiddish name.
> The other question I would ask is whether reacting a verse that
> corresponds to a Yiddish name is what is really the intent, rather than
> a Hebrew name. Leib is ordinarily coupled with Yehuda or Arye.
Not everyone is given a Hebrew name. Indeed, most p'sukim for women's
names in old siddurim are for Yiddish names. If the person's only name
is Leib, then the posuk should reflect that name. The fact that it is
usually an accompaniment to a Hebrew name does not mean that it is
always so. For instance, the name Zalman is not a Hebrew name; it is
the equivalent of Solomon, and usually accompanies the name
Shlomo. Nonetheless, if a person was named Zalman and not Shlomo, the
posuk he should recite should begin with a zayin and end with a nun.
Elazar M. Teitz
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From: Perets Mett <p.mett@...>
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 15:54:20 +0100
Subject: Spelling Leyb
Elazar M. Teitz wrote:
> You might also inform your friend that the correct spelling of Leib is
> with one yod, not two.
Might be the case if Leyb/Leib were Hebrew, which it isn't.
Leyb is Yidish (= lion) and is spelt with two yuds, not one. (With one
yud it would be "Lib" in Yiddish)
Perets Mett
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From: Jack Gross <ibijbgross@...>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:29:05 -0400
Subject: Re: Tefilin and source of Machloket
From: <Joelirich@...> (Joel Rich)
>Very similar to an explanation of how there could be a difference of
>opinion as to how to blow shofar(what is a truah). Originally our truah
>and shvarim were each accepted, then a unified halacha was decided upon.
While that's a tenable position with respect to Shofar, it doesn't work
for Tephillin:
The bottom line of the source Gemara (in Menachos) states explicitly
that the order is essential -- i.e., changing the order of the Parshiyos
(i.e., their assignment to respective Batim of the Shel Rosh) renders
the Tephilla Shel Rosh invalid.
[Note that the Shel Yad is a different matter: One opinion in Hagahos
Maimoniyos is that the order in the Shel Yad for R. Tam is identical to
Rashi; and R. Chaim Brisker writes that, since the four parshyos of the
shel yad are not required to be connected, the order is not essential
even when they are connected.]
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End of Volume 44 Issue 59
