The Heat Of Summer – In Hebrew

Dr. Jeremy Benstein, HATC Senior Consultant

In Israel, we take our vacations very seriously. Even a short respite from work or school here is called a chufsha, from the root ch-f-sh, meaning “freedom” or “liberty.” We don’t just vacation, we escape bondage! Even more dramatically, the two-month summer break from school, which we are currently in the thick of, is called hachofesh hagadol – “The Great Freedom.”

We devote most of this chofesh, an alternative word for “vacation,” to finding ways to beat the “heat,” chom. When there’s a heat wave – gal chom – we look for galim, waves of a different sort down at the chof, “beach” (unrelated to the word for vacation).

Jerusalem, the holy city, ‘ir hakodesh, is landlocked and surrounded by hills. But coastal Tel Aviv has many beautiful beaches, making it the preeminent ‘ir shel chol – meaning both “city of sand” but also “secular city” (chol from chullin, means “secular” or “profane,” while another chol means “sand”).

The words for hot and cold have parallel forms. “Hot” is cham, “warm” is chamim and “heating” is chimum. “Cold” is kar, “cool” is karir, and “cooling” is kirur. You may be chilling drinks in the mekarer, the refrigerator. But when you drink them, please go easy on the environment, and don’t use cups made of that light-cooling stuff – kal, light, fluffy + kar, cold = kalkar, “styrofoam.”

Struggling to find time for a drink? Maybe the kids would enjoy some time at camp. There are two words for camp in Israel. “Overnight camp” – often organized by a youth movement – is a machaneh, also the word for a military encampment.

The root, ch-n-h, also gives us the contemporary word for ‘park’ – not the type where you would go camping, but what you do with your car, lehachnot, “to park,” and chanayah, “parking.” And what do you call going camping in Hebrew? La’asot kemping, of course. Go figure.

The other word for “camp,” usually used for the day camp variety, is kaytana. Since day camp is usually for small children, I used to assume the word had something to do with katan, “small.” But it turns out it’s from the Aramaic word for “summer,” kayta – kayitz in Hebrew – which also gives us kayit, a “recreational holiday.”

If you can’t ship your kids off to camp, you can all go for a dip at the pool. A pool is a bereicha, and while there probably is no linguistic connection, you may feel that on these long days in this ‘Great Freedom,’ the chofesh hagadol, there is no greater blessing, beracha, than that.

In the spirit of Purim: some antics with Semitic semantics.

In the spirit of Purim: some antics with Semitic semantics.

By Dr. Jeremy Benstein, HATC Senior Advisor

 

1. Shikker House Rules

In Yiddish, “drunk” is shikker, from the Hebrew shikor. You get shikor from liquor, that is, shekhar (Hebrew “k” and “kh” alternate). Shekhar in the Tanakh is usually paired with wine, but its Latin translators didn’t know exactly what sort of drink it was, so they just transliterated it as sicera. That entered Old French as cisdre, and finally came into English as “cider.”

So even if you prefer beer, know that cider is the real He-brew.

2. Purim Unmasked

Another interesting English-Hebrew Purim connection is the word for “mask,” maseikhah. Now masks are daily de rigueur, but once, only Purim had a “mask mandate.” They sound so similar you might think the English word is derived from an ancient Hebrew root . . . but it isn’t.

The modern Hebrew maseikhah comes from the biblical root נ-ס-כ (n-s-k), which means “liquify” or “pour.” This root gives us words like nasikh, “prince,” close cousin to the “messiah,” mashi’akh, both of whom were regally anointed with oil. In Exodus 32:4 maseikhah refers to the formation of the Golden Calf, with molten metal cast in a mold.

With the modernization of Hebrew, many new terms had to be coined. In this case, however, an old word was pressed into service with a new meaning, simply because it sounded similar.

That’s how maseikhah was chosen to mean “mask,” because of the phonetic similarity with mask, masque, maske, maska, etc. (Likewise, the older Hebrew word m’khonah, which was chosen to mean “machine,” because of its similar sound).

3. Come as You (Really) Are

Purim masks are part of getting dressed up to “masquerade,” or in Hebrew, l’hitchapes. Here’s a little grammar to understand why this is such a cool word.

The root is ח-פ-ש (ch-p-s), which means to “search” or “look for,” in a form that describes something you do to yourself. For instance, from the root ל-ב-ש (l-b-sh), “dress, wear,” we get lilbosh, “to wear,” and l’hitlabesh, “to dress oneself” (get dressed).

So l’hitchapes, “to disguise oneself,” hyper-literally means “to look for oneself.” Instead of coming as someone or something else, you’re “coming out” as who you might be if you could. Whether it’s a superhero or celebrity, we express some aspirational part of ourselves through role-playing.

So whether you’ll be inebriating, masquerading, or just plain celebrating, enjoy it while it lasts. Soon enough, we’ll take off the masks, sober up, and start getting ready for Passover.

In other words: eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we clean.