Gemara-kop ladies: settle this disagreement

Sadie

Sat, Dec 24 2016, 1:35 pm

I had a disagreement with an Israeli friend when I used the word menorah instead of hannukkiah (we were speaking in English) and she said "why do Americans always say menorah?? It's the wrong word!" I told her that the word menorah is actually the older term and that hannukkiah is a modern term invented by Ben Yehuda, and that sevivon is as well.

She said that maybe I'm right about hannukkiah but that sevivon was used in the Gemara to describe a spinning top gambling game.

After Shabbat I checked online and everything I saw says that sevivon was invented by Ben Yehuda's son. She won't accept the evidence I found and insists it's a Gemara word.

So is sevivon modern Hebrew or a Gemara word? Does the Gemara indeed speak about a spinning top game and what was it called? And where could that Gemara be found?

LisaS

Sat, Dec 24 2016, 1:47 pm

I'm no gemerakop but I was thinking of the same thing. Last night I was telling over a Chanuka themed story in Hebrew and I kept accidentally saying menorah instead of chanukiya and then correcting myself.

I think that in English menorah is fine. People use menorah exclusively for the Chanuaka menora. In Hebrew menorah is too generic a word to use. Menorah is any light/lamp.

In the shulchan aruch neither term is used, only ner/nerot.

5mom

Sat, Dec 24 2016, 3:18 pm

I don't know if the story of Jews playing with spinning tops to disguise their learning is in the gemara at all. I think it's a legend of much later origin. I know it's not mentioned in Maccabees 1 or 2, but I don't know how the story began.

The word sevivon is certainly modern Hebrew. Same with channukiah, because as the poster above said, modern Hebrew uses "menorah" for a lamp or light bulb. Also, channukiah refers to an eight-branched candelabra, as distinct from the seven-branched one that was in the Mikdash. It hasn't caught on fully, though.

5mom

Sat, Dec 24 2016, 3:35 pm

Iymnok wrote:

They were gambling.
Chanukiyah is for sure a modern word. I don't know what term was used 1200 years ago, but it was more likely menorah or Chanukah lights.

I think you are right that in the story, they may have been gambling. But the question is, what's the source of this story?

allthingsblue

Sat, Dec 24 2016, 11:08 pm

I thought menorah means it has 7 branches (like in the Bais hamikdash) and Chanukiah has 9 (8+shamash).
And the reason why it's a modern word is because until a few hundred years ago, people didn't necessarily have a Chanukiah, they just placed 8 candles in a row and lit them. So the chanukiah didn't exist until relatively recently (or so I've heard).

Iymnok

Sun, Dec 25 2016, 3:51 am

allthingsblue wrote:

Go tell the collectors that.

imasoftov

Sun, Dec 25 2016, 6:34 am

Sadie wrote:

After Shabbat I checked online and everything I saw says that sevivon was invented by Ben Yehuda's son. She won't accept the evidence I found and insists it's a Gemara word.

I would tell her that she can prove it by showing you where in the Gemara the word appears.

greenfire

Sun, Dec 25 2016, 10:46 am

allthingsblue wrote:

beer bottle menorah Idea

tryinghard

Sun, Dec 25 2016, 11:54 am

On Friday night, someone mentioned that there is a famous 12th century painting of some children by an X-mas tree playing... dreidel. He went on to say that there is little evidence of the dreidel story we all grew up on being factual. DH says I looked so sad and horrified, like a little kid whose candy was stolen Very Happy

trixx

Sun, Dec 25 2016, 12:05 pm

tryinghard wrote:

Just so you know... Santa isn't real.

LOL

imasoftov

Sun, Dec 25 2016, 5:45 pm

tryinghard wrote:

I'm wondering if you may have gotten a detail wrong about that painting. I'm not an art expert, but I would have expected Google to be able to find a painting based on that description. I did find some art of children playing with a teetotum, which is the predecessor of the dreidel, but nothing that old, or with a x-mas tree (although “A x-mas Tree” by Charles Dickens mentions teetotums among other objects hanging from one). The oldest painting I found was Bruegel's Children’s Games, from 1560, in which there's also another child climbing a regular tree (as well as many more playing other games).

I'm also trying to find out when the story of children using dreidels to hide from the Seleucids that they were learning Torah first appeared. I do know that the story everyone hears this time of year about Chana and her seven children, while it appears in 2nd Maccabees and Gittin 57b (although there the villain is not Antiochus, but "Caesar", doesn't say which one), doesn't name the mother. As far as I can tell the name Chana first appears in Yossipon, which as I've written a number of times is not a Hebrew translation of Josephus.

But yeah, there's no Santa Claus. Or sanity clause.

imasinger

Sun, Dec 25 2016, 7:09 pm

tryinghard wrote:

I also raise an eyebrow. It's pretty widely accepted that decorated fir trees originated in Germany in the 16th century. In the 12-14th century, Dec 25th was called "Adam and Eve Day", and outdoor trees might be decorated with apples. But no spinning tops.

It would be interesting to find out what was the origin that led to the conversation.

5mom

Sun, Dec 25 2016, 7:28 pm

Hardly any paintings (fewer than 20) from the twelfth century survive, and I think all of them are church art. Also, the practice of having a tree in the the house didn't start until the 16th century and didn't really take off in Germany and England until the 19th. However, there were probably special trees in public places and churches earlier than that.

(A side note: in the 15th century, Jews in Germany developed the practice of bringing trees into shul for Shavuot. At the end of the 18th century, according to the Chayyei Adam, 131 :13, the Vilna Gaon objected to this because it seemed too similar to the way Christians decorated their churches. Now we use greenery and flowers, but I've never seen a tree in a shul.)

I'm sure that a picture of children playing with spinning tops exists somewhere. We didn't invent the toy.

penguin

Sun, Dec 25 2016, 7:37 pm

Anyhow, OP, you don't mean a Gemara Kop, which would imply the ability to follow or utilize Talmudic reasoning, versus being a baki in Shas, which would mean the ability to reference a particular quotation as being found in some Gemara.

We suspect that dreidel playing may be in a Medrash, if at all. There are very few Gemaras about Chanukah. Now the bows & arrows, used on Lag b'Omer in memory of the time of Rabi Shimon Bar Yochai & the Romans, in order to hide the fact that they were learning Torah, may be in a Gemara.

5mom

Sun, Dec 25 2016, 7:58 pm

penguin wrote:

Agreed that she is using Gemara kop in an unusual way.

Anyhow, there's no gemara about pretending to use bows and arrows to hide from the Romans either. There is a gemara that says that no rainbow appeared in the lifetime of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. The bows and arrows might be a reminder of that. But of course, widespread celebration of lag b'omer (more than not saying tachanun) is fairly recent.