Rabbi Says "Giants" = "Aborted Fetuses" in Hebrew? Huh?

Severus linked to Dex’s Staff Report on the subject. Dex says:

That’s true, even today. If you ask most Americans what “N-F-L” means to them, they’ll speak of “men of great size.”

I love this board.

Lapin has this radio show and writes books about how evil liberalism is, and he makes most of his money as a public speaker to Republican and conservative Christian groups. He was a friend of Jack Abramoff (Lapin’s brother, who’s a rabbi in Capetown, was involved in Abramoff becoming a baal tshuva), and got tied up in that scandal (his organization, “Toward Tradition”, was used for money laundering).

He comes from a pretty famous family, though. His great-uncle, Elyah Lopian, was big in the Mussar movement, and the whole family were prominent Lithuanian mitnagdim.

Hijack:

That translates just fine … you just have to spell out the connotations. Just like any translation of “How are you doing?” into another language has to make clear that there is no actual query of … oh … “by what mechanism or means is some one doing something unnamed”.

That previous paragraph jars the eye, but I trust everyone gets the gist.

Yeah, but now go ahead and explain to someone who doesn’t even speak English what the difference between “How are you doing?” and “How you doin’?” is…

How about “all your aborted fetuses are belong to us” ?

Thank you, I nearly spat breadstick. :smiley:

No no. It’s pure genius.

As always, this Board comes through with its usual mixture of erudition, wit, and just plain wackiness. Thanks, everyone.

Which prayer is it that says of G-d ‘You keep faith with those who sleep in the dust’? While this is widely assumed to refer to the bodily resurrection of the faifthful in the time of the moshiach, can we be sure that it isn’t a reference to the Nefilim? :wink: Perhaps in the messianic age, the Nefilim will be revealed to be giant vegetarians thus fulfilling the prophecy. The children of Seth shall pass away and a handful of Nefilim will inherit the earth. Given the ratio of land to giants, there’ll be so much land and wealth that they’ll have no interest in making war on each other. The nations (of two, three Nefilim tops) will not lift up sword against nation and they shall make war no more.

Second blessing of the Amidah. The phrase is: …u’m’kaiyem emunato lishenei 'afar. I don’t see any Nefilim in that blessing; I read it as about both Divine mercy and Divine control over nature.

Though all the Andre the Giant stickers I ever saw in Israel were in English. :slight_smile:

Yes, I had this trouble trying to translate a movie for an Israeli roommate–“Zombie love slave” sounds ever so much better in English than in Hebrew.

I thought the translation was “live long and prosper”.

Given that to this English speaker’s ears it looks like that would sound like someone was spitting something out, I can understand why you don’t have them. :wink:

Perhaps, the rabbi is basing his case on that ancient Hebrew was often written without the use of vowels or spaces between the words, and that contemporary translators are misinterpreting things. However, it seems equally likely (if not moreso) that “people of the earth” could be the Old Testament version of “redneck” or that they’re talking about the last surviving remnants of neanderthals.

Tangentially, the Arabic word for giant is ‘imlâq - but this is a loanword from Hebrew, originally referring to the Amalekites. Why Amalekites, I don’t know, unless it was a confusion of them with the Amorites, who were said to be “tall as cedars.”