devarim

Hey, your sister's birthday is the same as my birthday! Except, you know, nineteen years later.

:) abby

Just curious: Why are some letters in the middle of words capitalized? Does that indicate stress on the syllable?

Good question, Stella. It's actually a way of differentiating between the article and the rest of the word. Imagine that, in English, the word "the" was appended to a noun rather than existing as a separate word. So I'd do my work on thecomputer and when I wanted food I'd go to thestore. It would be easier to read if I wrote theComputer and theStore.

Of course, that's all kind of irrelevant in Hebrew, where there are no capital or lowercase letters. But many people do it when transliterating Hebrew words into English anyway, for clarity's sake.

Just to make a pest of myself I thought I'd point out that it's not quite Iyyar yet. A moot point in several hours...

This is true, aaron. I have made it my practice to put up these "chodesh tov" posts close to the start of Rosh Chodesh, even for a two day...but you are techinically correct, and I should be more careful about my language in the future. (I could have said, "It's the first day of Rosh Chodesh, and tomorrow is Iyar.")

*tap foot*

Stella, go ahead, ask. You know you want to.

Mine too, mine too! (20 Iyar)

You mean, "what does chodesh tov mean?" Yeah, I want to ask. ;-)

Bonfire and haircut day...

Priceless. :-)

Stella - Chodesh = month (from the same root word as chadash = new); the ch is gutteral, like in German, but not quite as rough. Tov = good. So "chodesh tov" wishes everyone a good month. While we're on this, rosh means "head" or "beginning" so "Rosh Chodesh" is the day or two marking the beginning of a new month. It is always celebrated after teh twenty-ninth day of the previous month; if that month is supposed to be only twenty-nine days long, then Rosh Chodesh for the new month is observed for only one day, ont he first of that new month. If, on the other hand, the previous month is supposed to be thirty days long, we celebrate Rosh Chodesh on the thirtieth day of the old month as well as the next day, which is the first day of the new month.

Related terms on this blog: mo'adim l'simcha and chag same'ach. Chag = festival/holiday; mo'ed (pl. mo'adim) = season or otherwise defined period of time; same'ach = happy or joyous, and the related simcha = happiness; l' is a preposition meaning "to" or "of." "Chag same'ach" (lit. "Happy Holiday") is a greeting commonly exchanged on or before festive days such as the first and last days of Pesach (Passover). "Mo'adim l'simcha" is also a holiday greeting, used for the intermediate days of holidays (because it is still a season or time of happiness, though not an actual chag/festival day). You may hear either greeting for minor holidays (Purim or Chanukah) or on days such as Yom Ha'atzma'ut; in the latter case, there are lots of fun religio-political arguments about whether it should be considered a religious holiday or not, or observed at all.