English helps Israelis study Torah at YPT

I plan to write up the shiur I heard today from Rav Ti about Ruth, but with my laptop broken I wasn't able to take notes, and it may take some time. Meanwhile, its just intresting that for all the complaints people make about having to learn Tanakh in Hebrew, it actually helps to know English. Transilations by thier very nature will be impercise, but in the Tanakh it makes a big diffrence because the language is meant to be very very percise. Normally that means that when you try to transilate the Tanakh you have two problems (well there are many more, but these ones are relevant to what I am saying).

1) It is difficult or impossible to fight the equivlent word in English (or whatever language you are transilating into)

2) Since most words don't have an exact 1-to-1 correspondance from Hebrew to English, your word choice is by definition an interpretation.

So after all that introduction, what is my point?
רות א:5 Ruth 1:5

וַיָּמֻתוּ גַם-שְׁנֵיהֶם, מַחְלוֹן וְכִלְיוֹן; וַתִּשָּׁאֵר, הָאִשָּׁה, מִשְּׁנֵי יְלָדֶיהָ, וּמֵאִישָׁהּ.

And Mahlon and Chilion both died, and the woman (Naomi) Va'tishaer from/of her two children and of her husband.

So what belongs in place of Va'tishaer ?

Well Rav Ti asked the full room: "מה התגום של ותשאר...הרתגום לאנגלית?" (What is the translation of Va'Tishaer, the translation into English)

So people threw out ideas: survived, left, stayed, remained

The point was that it was pretty obvious that if her husband and children died, then she was survived by them, so what is this verse adding?

In context if you use the word stayed or remained then you develop a picture that Naomi is staying in the Galut outside of Eretz Yisrael. This is why English helps you understand Tanakh

This is a good time to mention that "A Jew is Israel has G-d, a Jew outside of Israel has no G-d." Not "is like he has no G-d." There is a reason that it was especially true in biblical times, but here is not the place to expand on it.

An interesting post on translating and Torah can be found here

Tafnit on thier night off - Pokemon

Tafnit, the other program from Australasia/South Africa besides MTA, while they are at YPT (Yeshivat Hesder Petach Tikva) usually get Tuesday as a night off. Yom Yerushalim is Tuesday night this week, so they have off tonight. On their night off, some are at the computers. Often they can be found playing Age of Empires II. The computers reset each time they are turned off, so they have to reload it each time off an ipod or disc-on-key(flash drive, USB stick etc), which takes 5-10 minutes per computer, but that doesn't deter them. Tonight however, most of them are playing Pokemon on the computer. Seven of them are playing the original Yellow (not Blue/Red) Pokemon on the computer, including their madrich. A little nostalgia never hurt, but it's quite funny. I guess it's better than GTA: Vice City which one of them is playing.

(correction thanks to The Life and Times of the World's Greatest Jewperhero )

In Israel electronically doesn't mean instant

I get my Teduat Zehut (identity card) on Sunday by picking it up at the NBN offices in Jerusalem. Without it I can't go to the Misrad Ha'klita or open a bank account. I do have a document called a Teduat Oleh, which looks like a passport, but is something that a new immigrant gets. I keep on hearing about its importance, but all I really know that it does is give Bnei Akiva money from the sochnut because I am a boger. I'll soon see what it actually is good for. Meanwhile with it and another piece of paper I went to the post office to get a form that lets me join a kupat holim(lit. sick fund, basically medical insurance). That is the only thing I can do in the bureaucracy chain that doesn't require a Teudat Zehut. I arrive at the post office and of course it is siesta, so I wait until 3:30. The post office workers get back earlier than that, but there is no way they will open it up until at least 3:32 at the earliest. To get free medical care for the first 6 months as an oleh, you need to pay 13.72 shekel. NBN had written down 12, I guess they need to tax you even on the fees you pay for your "free" services. The post office worker entered some information on a computer, scanned a printout had me sign something and that was it.

With the voucher from the post office I went to the Kupat Holim. I had chosen Klalit, purely for its location. There siesta ended at 4:00 so I waited around a bit. After some people pushed in front of me, I finally got to the desk armed with everything I needed. I lay it all out and say I want to join the Kupat Holim. The clerk starts to enter some data into her computer, and then enters some more information. Finally she looks up and says sorry you are not in the computer, did you go to the post office yet? I point to the form from the post office. I tell her I just came from the post office 45 minutes ago. Her response left me dumbfounded:
"Oh that was too soon, try coming back next week."

This was done by computers, it should be instant. Ok, if not instant, then at least overnight. How long could it take to transfer data, at worst there should be a nightly dump of data into the different systems.

Hey, at least I am Israeli now.

Two Words

I'm Israeli