# If you understand Hebrew. . . **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 23, 1999, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361 "1999-12-23T21:50:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 1999, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/1 "1999-12-23T21:50:00Z")
and you have seen “Raiders of the Lost Ark. . .” What is Belloq saying as he is about to open the Ark? ---
**Author:** ![MadPoet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8c91f0/32.png) [@MadPoet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadPoet)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 1999, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/2 "1999-12-23T22:03:00Z")
Hey! That’s not pointless, and therefore off topic! * * * [http://www.madpoet.com](http://www.madpoet.com) Computers have let mankind make mistakes faster than any other invention, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 1999, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/3 "1999-12-23T22:48:00Z")
He’s saying, “Boy, I sure hope there aren’t any evil spirits trapped in here that will melt my face off AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” ---
**Author:** ![Yankee\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/7ea924/32.png) [@Yankee\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yankee_Blue)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 1999, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/4 "1999-12-24T14:53:00Z")
You’d think that if he knew enough to perform a ‘ritual’ he’d know the lore that said only members of one specific tribe could even touch the Ark, any one else risked death. Can’t remember the tribe, but maybe Belloq is shooting a line of bull trying to convince the Ark that it’s ok for him to touch it…as if he could fool it, sheesh. * * * ~There is no statute of limitations on karma~ ---
**Author:** ![Ayesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c0e974/32.png) [@Ayesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ayesha)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 1999, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/5 "1999-12-24T17:41:00Z")
The Levites were the priests, but even they could only have one priest a year go into the Holy of Holies, and then only with a blood sacrifice. And he had to wear certain garments, and have a rope tied around his ankles in case he screwed up and died, so the other priests could oull him out. ## No one was supposed to actually touch the Ark, they even had to use poles to carry it . Ayesha - Lioness * * * There are two solutions to every problem : the wrong one, and mine (Thomas A. Edison) ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 1999, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/6 "1999-12-25T02:09:00Z")
Hebrew speaker here. I saw _Raiders_ just a couple months ago, and I have to admit I didn’t pay attention to those words. That means it was probably nonsense. (I would have understood it - or at least recognized it for Hebrew - even if I wasn’t watching for it.) If someone can tell me what the words were, I could tell you definitively. Modern Hebrew, which is what I speak, is only vaguely similar to Biblical Hebrew, so Steven Spielberg probably wouldn’t mind faking it. * * * ~Kyla “You couldn’t fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine.” ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_Next\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@Girl\_Next\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_Next_Door)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 1999, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/7 "1999-12-25T06:37:00Z")
I love Kyla’s signature! ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_Next\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@Girl\_Next\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_Next_Door)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 1999, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/8 "1999-12-25T06:37:00Z")
I love Kyla’s signature! * * * Leslie Irish Evans [http://leslie.scrappy.net](http://leslie.scrappy.net) ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_Next\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@Girl\_Next\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_Next_Door)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 1999, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/9 "1999-12-25T06:37:00Z")
Oops, double post! * * * Leslie Irish Evans [http://leslie.scrappy.net](http://leslie.scrappy.net) ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 1999, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/10 "1999-12-27T00:08:00Z")
Here’s a puzzler: In one of the last Three Stooges movies, _The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze_ (1963), in a scene in a maharajah’s palace, Moe says “Khavaya!” or something like that to the maharajah’s bodyguards. This may have been Hebrew or Yiddish for all I know–after all, all the Stooges, except for Joe DeRita, were Jewish. Do any Dopers know what language Moe was speaking in, and the translation? 😃😃😃 ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 1999, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/11 "1999-12-27T14:38:00Z")
dougie\_montie: I can’t thinkn of anything that _exactly_ matches your Stooges quote, but maybe he said “Khaval”, which means “G-d forbid!”? * * * Chaim Mattis Keller [cmkeller@compuserve.com](mailto:cmkeller@compuserve.com) “Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible. The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.” – Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective ---
**Author:** ![PitBullDawg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@PitBullDawg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PitBullDawg)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 1999, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/12 "1999-12-28T11:59:00Z")
Maybe I shouldn’t post stuff like this, being a newbie to this forum, but Girl Next Door is hot! Woohoo! What a fine looking Irish woman! PitBullDawg ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 1999, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/13 "1999-12-30T23:28:00Z")
An aside, PitBullDawg: about Girl Next Door, I once saw a very large St. Patrick’s Day card in a stationery store (early 1980s). The front showed the head and chest of a _very_ beautiful young woman–creamy light complexion, long, flaming red hair, bright green eyes, smile with white teeth; wearing a tank-top over a shapely bust. You open the card and the rest of her body shows, with long shapely legs and rounded hips, and wearing bright orange cut-offs. The caption on the front reads “Bless Your Irish Heart…” and the inside reads “…and every other Irish part!” 🙂 I wish _I_ knew a fair coleen like that! ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 1999, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/14 "1999-12-31T01:39:00Z")
Damn, I’ve seen _Raiders_ a couple of dozen times and I speak hebrew, but I can’t remember exactly what Belloq says. I have a copy of the script and all it says is, “As Belloq mutters the ritualistic Hebrew prayers the lid of the Ark is slowly removed.” I’ll see if I can rent the movie this weekend and find out what prayer he is saying. ---
**Author:** ![Valley2city](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Valley2city](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valley2city)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/15 "2011-12-23T01:07:16Z")
I saw this archived and never answered. It’s actually not Hebrew but Aramaic from the mystical Zohar. It says (with my running translation): La al anash rachitzna (“I do not rely on men”) V’la al bar elohin samechna (“and not on angels do I rely”), vHu Eloha kshot v’Oraytei kshot (“He is the True God and his Torah is True”), bei ana racheitz v’lishmei kaidsha yakira… tushbechan (“in Him I trust and to His holy and precious Name… praises”). It is found in the Jewish liturgy in the Torah Service immediately before the Torah is removed from the Ark. Pretty appropriate as they are about to open the Ark of the Covenant. Spielberg went for accuracy, the Headpiece of the Staff of Ra is written in the Paleo-Canaanite script and I recognized one word as the Name of God in Hebrew. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Tyger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/16 "2011-12-23T01:18:56Z")
See, now this is how a thread should be resurrected. Well done **Valley2city**. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/17 "2011-12-23T02:47:22Z")
Well, thank you! Just one day short of exactly 12 years since I had originally posed the question? ---
**Author:** ![whiterabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/18 "2011-12-23T02:54:47Z")
Is this the oldest zombie yet? ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/19 "2011-12-23T02:58:18Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > Well, thank you! Just one day short of exactly 12 years since I had originally posed the question? Good things come to those who wait.. -D/a ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361/20 "2011-12-23T03:36:55Z")
> [@whiterabbit](#): > > Is this the oldest zombie yet? Well, nope. Here’s one of mine that was bumped [12 years and six days later](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=16208)–and by the person I was actually asking about! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-understand-hebrew/12361.md?page=2)