about rain, and its teachings
Some of my readers are British, as I am writing in the UK with the much-appreciated support of the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford, where I teach modern Hebrew.
For these British readers, I must explain something very peculiar: it doesn’t have to rain all the time. Where there is a rainy season, like Israel, there is room for words that indicate exactly that – the beginning and the end of the rainy season..
yoreh – the first rain.
malkosh – the last rain.
It is easy to identify the first rain, and to define its etymology. Yoreh, the first rain, is most likely derived from the stem Y R H - like teacher (moreh) or instruction - to show the way, to teach what to expect. The first rain brings the smell of gratitude of parched earth as it rid itself of the stretch marks of drought. The mist of dust washes out of the air and suddenly you can see further than you could all summer, hoping to be able to find answers out of thin air, air that hasn’t been thin for so long.
Malkosh, the last rain, is a bit tricky.It is a matter of hindsight and its etymology is similarly a matter of looking backwards. When you grow up (like me) on a Galilean farm, you ask: was this the malkosh? Is this the beginning of the rage of summer? Similarly, you eagerly await for the grace of the first rain, yoreh - the teacher of the way.
To understand the meaning of malkosh מלקוש – the last rain, we have to make a detour through ancient history. From the Gezer calendar (לוח גזר), we learn that the Israelites had names for their months before they adopted the Sumerian calendar. The moon of Lekesh לקש was the moon of late sowing, corresponding to the fifth and sixth months of the Hebrew year (late February to early April, depending on the year). It is when we know to prepare ourselves for the hot season. The stem L K SH ל ק ש has dropped out of use and so the word malkosh will mean nothing, etymologically speaking, to any Hebrew speaker. But it is a genuinely Hebrew word, as opposed to the calendar that we use now, which is actually an imported Accadian calendar. Yet the imported, later calendar, sounds more like Hebrew to us now, just to show how little sense this world makes.
My Galilee goes from green to yellow to black as wildfires take hold of it every summer. My beloved beautiful Galilee is burning now with wildfires that remind me of older times, of 1982, of the Romans, the Crusaders, of memories that are mine and those who were embedded in me by a collective memory. In modern Hebrew when your heart aches you could say “my heart burns.” When your heart is in the Galilee, they both burn in front of your eyes.
So much grief is engulfed in the sigh of the earth as it takes in the first rain. The land knows how to let go of the signs of the dry season, and so do we, most years. First rain, first birds migrating south, first flowers growing out of a rock that seems like no life is possible within it.
Chatzavim in the national park of Mig’dal tzedek – picture taken by the ranger Daniel Di chizara
These flowers are called chatzavim – from the stem H Tz V ח.צ.ב– to chisel. This beautiful flower comes at the end of the summer, before any rain, out of the rocks. It is very tall and impressive. In Jewish antiquity it was used for marking of territories between neighbors and communities. It is poisonous but can be eaten by the deer of Israel. They found a way to live together – two stubborn life forms, both indigenous to this land and nowhere else.
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A student in class made a mistake, and her offhand remark was “I am such an idiot!”
To that I can only answer in Hebrew – you are not an idiot (אידיוט), but an Hidiot (הדיוט)
Hebrew adopted the Greek idiot early on to mean its original meaning: an untrained labourer. A foot soldier rather than a sniper for example. From that the word grew to mean (like in English) a stupid person.
But Hebrew created another variation, which means something closer to the original form: hediot, someone who’s uninformed on a matter. If you ask you GP about 15th century Japanese art, they can say “I am an hediot on the matter.” No false modesty or belittling oneself here. Just modesty.
It is October 7th today. And some readers might expect me to write in memoriam but as many Israelis were saying these past few days – you remember the past, not the present. October 7th is not in the past tense yet. We live it every day. I almost wrote “for better and for worse”, but there is no better. We live it in present tense – for worse and for worser.
I am truly sorry for writing so little lately. It’s a combination of several things. It seems that everyone who I read has a strong, clear view of things – who’s right, who’s wrong. Black and white, oppressor or oppressed. Everyone has an ownership of some truth, everyone but me.
When the Americans killed Osama bin Laden the headline in the Jerusalem local paper said:
בנפול אויבך אל תשמח, ובכשלו אל יגל ליבך
If your enemy falls, do not exult;
If he trips, let your heart not rejoice,
Proverbs 24 17
There has been a lot of that sentiment lately, on all sides. It tells me that humanity hasn’t changed one bit since king Solomon’s time, that we are still short-sighted and cruel as we’ve ever been.
It’s been a year, 101 of us are still in the tunnels, and the sacrifices are growing in Israel, Gaza and now Lebanon. Sacrifices made in the name of books that not one of the men sending us to our death has really read. My book is called the Torah, same stem as the first rain – to show a way. Maybe this year’s rain will wash away the dust and the way will be clearer? It’s only been 5785 years, we can still learn.
Happy new year.
שנה טובה.