Wednesday, February 15, 2012

David Levi's tiny alphabetical Hebrew poems

Without a doubt one of my favorite books is a three-volume work called Lingua Sacra written by David Levi (1742-1801) and published beginning in 1785. It is part Hebrew grammar, part dictionary, and part Encylopedia. Levi possessed great learning, and Lingua Sacra is unusual, but highly pleasing mixture of traditional Jewish learning and modern European scholarship (modern=18th century). For example, it includes copious quotations from works like the Aruch and Sefer Yuchasin, as well as the Shulchan Aruch and Talmud. In the latter case, many of these quotations are quite possibly provided for the very first time in English translation. He also included transliterations in English of these passages - he calls them from the Gemara, not Talmud - which give an interesting guide to his pronunciation. It also includes a very handy 85-page English-Hebrew dictionary - as opposed to the lexicon proper, which is exhaustive of entries on the gamut of Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic as well as Rabbinic Hebrew, and ordered by Hebrew. What is special about this dictionary is that it is 18th century English. Thus, "צבי" does not appear under "Deer" but under "Roe, Roebuck"; "אף" is not "even" but "Yea, adv."

Levi himself was a one-man whirlwind of literary activity - a lonely Jewish one in late 18th century England. He translated the Chumash, multivolume sets of machzorim in the Sefardic and Ashkenazic rites. He also translated the siddur, wrote Lingua Sacra and a whole host of polemical pamphlets against Deism. He did this on the sidelines, as he was a hatmaker by trade.

I noticed that at the end of every letter in the lexicon part of Lingua Sacra (which is most of it) there are little Hebrew couplets for each one. Since I am pretty sure no one has ever called attention to them, I conveniently collected them, and here they are:

14 comments:

  1. "השלמתי אות הצדי - ועל זאת לאלהי אודה"
    What?! Besides not including the letter Tzdi in the last word as he does in the others, it doesn't quite rhyme. O'de -Tzadi? How about השלמתי אות הצדי - בעזר ה' הוא הצדיק

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  2. I'm not sure why I wrote הוא, take it out.

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  3. Tzade with a final tzere is standard among non-Ashkenazim, and he rhymes segol and tzere elsewhere, such as "teth/sholeteth"

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    1. I didn't know anybody pronounced it with any thing other then a hi'rek. The talmud in Shabbat 104a alludes to this vocalization, צד"י כפופה וצד"י פשוטה - צדיק כפוף צדיק פשוט. In all corresponding alphabets it is also pronounced with a long e, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsade .
      I also don't know why you assume he was Sfardi. I haven't looked into it, so can't say. Being born in London doesn't necessarily mean he was Ashknazi, but it is most likely that he was. But you should have picked up on his hint בשם שאנו מקדישין אותו which alludes to the ashknazic version of Kedusha. I will admit that his transliterations are not typical ashknazi pronunciation but they are not completely sphardic either, for example צ is ts.

      I wasn't saying that last word always had the letter in it, but that if it didn't rhyme that is the least we could expect. BTW you missed deleth-meshulesheth.

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    2. should be mosheleth

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    3. and the one before that also gimel-amal

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    4. Perhaps he had a really guttural 'ayin? Otherwise it seems a very weak rhyme.

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  4. Sorry, and he doesn't use the letter zayin in the rhymed word (me-ayin)

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  5. נשלמה אות הריש, כי אין בה עוד שרש

    Very funny :) :) Reminds me of a Blue Fringe song; "I'm flippin' out - and all I eat is cholent, I'm flippin' out - yeah well nothing rhymes with cholent." Now I can't get it out of my head.

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  6. Steg (dos iz nit der šteg)11:40 PM, February 15, 2012

    I was surprised by חית with שחת

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  7. Reminds me of the opening line of Rabbenu Hananel to Massechet Beitzah -
    אתחיל מסכת ביצה בעצת גדול העצה

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  8. "He translated the Chumash"

    no. just published the KJV (perhaps with a few corrections, but i don't remember if this is for sure). in 1789 isaac delgado published a KJV with a list of alternate readings for jews. and later mj raphall (i think it was him?) before coming to american translated genesis. but the first jew to translate the chumash (and later all of tanach) into english was leeser.

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    1. Hm. You're right. I never looked at it closely, and was thrown by the title page, which says "corrected and translated by David Levi," but that is referring to the "notes explanatory, practical, critical, and grammatical by Lion Soesmans." I also quickly scanned some of the text and I see that it is indeed the KJV.

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