______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.272 March 9, 1994 1) The sin of the census (Avremele Melamed) 2) Jews and numbers (Meylekh Viswanath) 3) Jews and numbers (Bob King and Alice Faber) 4) A kholem (Lou Fridhandler) 5) Takeh (Anatole Beck) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 12:58:28 1994 From: fac_albert@gsbvax.YCC.Yale.Edu (albert madansky) Subject: the sin of the census to respond to delphine bechtel's inquiry, refer first to exodus 30:11-16. the notion that one could not count, except by the device of the surrogate count (of, for example, the half-shekel) finds its origins in judaism in this set of passages. it was reinforced (biblically) in 2 samuel 24 and 1 chronicles 21, which describes what happened when king david did not follow this prescription. sir james frazer's 1918 'folklore in the old testament' devotes a chapter to a list of various cultures that had a superstition against being counted. archeological research at mari, one of the principal centers of mesopotamia during the third and early second millennia BCE has produced cuneiform letters which describe a census and an associated "purification" or "expiation", which may be akin to the "kofer" that the half shekel represents. finally, a pilpul on hosea 2:1 "...the number of the children of israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered" has been used to justify not being counted, as is jeremiah 33:13, which is interpreted as saying that there shall be no census until the messiah comes. indeed, today in mea shearim at israeli census time there are wall posters advising people not to participate. did this tell you more than you wanted to know? avremele melamed 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 12:59:09 1994 From: VISWANATH@draco.rutgers.edu Subject: Jews and numbers borkhobe, delphine! I believe its an iser dorayse. However, there are ways of getting around it (similar to nisht eyns, etc;). The torah itself recounts a couple of censuses. one of them leads to a plague (improper counting procedure), while another is conducted by counting the number of half-shekels, which were donated to the mishkan (permitted procedure). similarly, in shul, to check for a minyen, there is a regularly used posuk with ten words. (pl. check khumesh for details--this is off the top of my head). Meylekh 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 13:25:22 1994 From: Subject: About "Jews and Numbers" I know of at least two reasons why Jews, at least in earlier times, may have been averse to being counted or to counting themselves. From medieval times down into early modern times Jewish communities in Europe were frequently taxed as a whole, not as individuals. I imagine it has always been true that nobody like to pay taxes, and I'm sure Jews would have done what they could to keep the numbers reported as low as possible, in order to decrease the tax burden. Another reason for Jewish communities not to have undertaken censuses could have been fear of divine retribution like that following the Biblical census commissioned by King David (I Samuel 24). The census, which according to the Biblical record, took nine months to complete, showed a fighting population of 1,200,000. The plague, sent by God to punish David, killed 70,000 of the soldiers in a single day. The bane of the historical demographer working on Jewish population numbers during the Middle Ages is how to get accurate numbers. For the two reasons given above, and doubtless others, almost all population estimates of medieval Jewish populations down to about the 1700's are suspect. Bob King and Alice Faber 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 14:06:23 1994 From: Louis Fridhandler <74064.1661@CompuServe.COM> Subject: A kholem Being new to Mendele I am still reeling from the experience. That's why, no doubt, I had this dream last night: I was tooling along the information superhighway in my IBM compatible, enjoying the cyberspace scenery, when I was stopped for speeding by a superhighway officer on IRQ (interrupt request) patrol. Ticket book in hand, he approached my window and said (to my utter astonishment): "her nor, khaym-yankl, vu loyfstu?" and i answered, "ikh muz dir zogn (zolst nisht hobn keyn faribl) az mayn nomen iz nisht khaym-yankl. ikh heys leybl." "nu, loz zayn leybl. zog mir, leybele, tayrer. vos iz di mayse? me darf zikh dokh arumkukn af der velt, forn a bisl pavolyinke. nu, zog shoyn. vu loyfstu?" "ikh loyf brengen epes laytish far mentshn, abonentn af mendele, di vos leynen kompyuter-loshn. efsher vartn zey af mir." "nu, oyb azoy, iz gut. gey gezunterheyt, nor pavolye. nisht gekhapt. gedenkzhe, ober! drey mir nisht a spodek mit kompyuter- loshn. af dos bin ikh nisht keyn groyser meyvn. af mame-loshn, avade un avade." And then I awoke from a dream that underscores my wonder and delight at discovering a Yiddish Language and Literature circle on the internet. Lou Fridhandler. 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 15:17:47 1994 From: Anatole Beck Subject: Takeh For many years, I wondered about the derivation of takeh , meaning "indeed". I once went down a blind alley following tak which in Czech means "well", as in "Well, I guess so". But a few years ago, I heard my colleague at the London School of Economics use tak frequently when speaking Polish with his mother, & was pleased to discover that it is the Polish for "yes" (Russian cognate da ). It seemed to me that the step from yes to indeed was a natural one, especially since we already had a perfectly good Ashkenazic ioh for "yes". I would appreciate any comment on the authenticity of this etymology. As for the nasalization in Yankov (or Yankel) for Yakov, &c., I think that may also derive from the Polish where e.g. Walesa is pronounced Walensa, &c. I will check this out with my Polish colleague at LSE, to learn whether he finds this as credible as I do, and I ask comment from my colleagues in mendele. Anatole Beck ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.272 To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to: LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. 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