Counting the uncountable

the light of 12 Tishrei 5781

The Hubble spacecraft took this pic on its 28th "birthday" in 2018. Can you find all the stars here?

 Since Israel came back into existence as a nation in its designated land, the Hebrew language we use has been discussed, with both praise and criticism, by people everywhere since the days of Eliezer ben Yehuda (who is credited with bringing it back "from the dead"). Here is a smattering of the current conversation in English:

Why is Ivrit not considered an artificial language? | Does Modern Hebrew/Israeli count as a constructed language? | How Yiddish influenced Modern Hebrew | An overview of the Hebrew language (Wikipedia) | 

(I wish I could see an article by someone more familiar with Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) or Judeo-Arabic.)

Remember where it comes from. Hebrew is one of the "classical" languages that used to be studied in the West along with an ancient form of Greek, and Latin. Easterners may have studied Arabic, Sanskrit, and others. Hebrew is a deep language with lots of meaning for those who give it the respect it deserves, even in its modern form. 

As a non-native speaker with over 50 years of a foreign language (this one, that I'm using right now) prior to my move to Yerushalayim, after my time in Hebrew language school (called ulpan, which is an Aramaic word), I could read and understand parts of the Book of Genesis (Bereshith - really ancient Hebrew there) easily. Not so with Old English, which is not nearly as old as Biblical Hebrew (which we call lashon hakodesh, the holy tongue). Native speakers and people who spent a greater percentage of their lives learning it, of course, understand it far better than I.

But I am not completely language-illiterate. I am still working on making my spoken Hebrew more fluent. I learned Spanish as a high-schooler and college student way-back-when, and became more fluent and literate later; also, to a lesser extent, I learned some Russian in high school. Upon reflection later, I realized that this reflected my dual Jewish background as both Sephardia and Ashkenazia. No Orthodox synagogues nearby, therefore no available Hebrew education for me!

For about a year recently, I attended "seminar" (a borrowed word used for the women's equivalent of a yeshiva) with a group of Spanish-speaking women, of varying ages and was thus prompted to revive my own Spanish, and I became fluent again, even more so, BC (before "corona"). So I am used to thinking of the words I use in different ways other than my first language.

Turning back to Hebrew, I have found that I could find meanings in old words that don't seem to appear in these discussions. The process is ongoing, and I've only just begun.

Here is only one example of defining a Hebrew word that even highly learned scholars (mostly non-Jews) have missed completely: limnót למנות, to count, is the infinitive, from which I'd like to look at several forms over the course of time, be"H, b"n (with the help of G-d, and I'm not vowing - that's a very serious matter Biblically.).

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UPDATE: I have a debt to pay here: I had forgotten to give credit for this idea where credit is due, until the day after I posted this article. The class above that I had attended was actually a return to an old class I had attended 10 years ago, but it was an English program for the most part then, until the pause in my journey there, as the Spanish program was starting up.

Machon Roni was the place in the Old City of Yerushalayim, where the Spanish program continues, and Rabbanit Mollie Goldstein was my teacher, both 10 years ago and in the last year or so before corona. 

We were studying the book of Bereshith, where the first mention of limnót למנות occurs in parashath VaYetze, as a noun. It is where Ya'acov Avinu accuses Lavan of changing his wages 10 moním (where the usual word for times would be pa'amím) - we learned that each mon does not refer to a single instance, but multiple. I hope to go into more detail when the parashah comes around again this year, be"H, b"n.

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Here it is, from the Book of Psalms: 

Tehillim 147:4 (Sefaria)

We're not going to go over the entire verse; it's more than I'd planned on writing this time around. 

The first word (on the far right), monéh, is actually the third person singular present tense (Sefaria translates the entire verse in the past tense. I prefer more the translation in my favorite Psalms book, also in both languages, that, in present tense, says: He counts the number of the stars; to all of them does He give names. It is more literally correct...), just as the verses before and after it are. 

I think this may mean He constantly keeps a count of the stars — which is a lot more than we can do, even with our most sophisticated equipment. Here is more about the Hubble craft, which circles the earth and takes all its pictures (more than 1.3 million since 1990) from a low earth orbit (LEO).

For us it is enough to know that the usual word for counting, lispór לספור, is not being used here. As far as anyone in the world is concerned, even the most dedicated space scientists, we cannot count the number of the stars in space. Can we even count the stars in the Milky Way without missing one or more? 

Include the fact that stars are born and die, and that it takes a long time for us to see and note the occurrence, due to the "slowness" of the speed of light across the universe.

Has any medical researcher counted the exact number of cells in a given human being? Or do we make do with mere estimates?

 I could ask similar questions about the number of water molecules in each of the many types of clouds or earth molecules in a dust cloud, the number of insects in a swarm, the number of air molecules that enter our lungs with each breath. I believe it is highly likely that researchers in all fields would (and if not, they should) use the infinitive limnót rather than lispór to describe their acts of counting.

For us the stars are still uncountable, as are many other things; and there are even more uses for the infinitive and the words that come from it. That's why I define limnót למנות as "to count by moním" or "to count in terms of magnitude or uncountable quantities." Maybe H' counts the stars by galaxy? Who knows? I have no idea, but this is just to convey the magnitude of what, and how, we're counting whenever this word is used.

By the way, even the days of our lives are uncountable until they're over. That one's in Psalm 90:12. The infinitive limnot is the first word in the Hebrew verse. 

[I should note here that I don't hold responsibility for the English translations of these verses. I only provide them because I think it might make my readers (and me) more comfortable, with the caveat that we shouldn't rely on them to relay the true meaning of King David's prayers. This also applies to other parts of the Tana"kh as well.]

All this, and much more, points to the Kingship and magnificence of the One True G-d of the Universe. Only He can count the uncountable. Is there another language that expresses this, other than Hebrew?

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NOTE: I apologize for not finishing this essay before Yom haKippurim, let alone Rosh haShana. If I have offended anyone unnecessarily or caused stumbling by not updating parts of the blog on time (which I'm sure I did at some point), I beg forgiveness. I forgive others of the same. May we all be blessed and merit to see the coming of Mashiah in our days, with our very own eyes.