Parashah Parsing Practice: Aharei Mot-Kedoshim

Shalom, Hebrew learners!

Let's parse a verse from the Parashat Hashavua (weekly Torah portion): Aharei Mot-Kedoshim, Vayikra (Leviticus 16.1-20.27). We'll be parsing verse 16.1, the very first verse of this double parashah. Here is the verse in its entirety in Hebrew:

Transliteration:

Perek Tet-Zayin

Aleph Vaydaber Hashem el-Moshe aharei mot shnei bnei Aharon b'korvatam lifnei-Hashem vayamutu :

The first thing to notice is that chapters and verses in the Hebrew Bible are indicated with Hebrew letters. Aleph is 1, Bet is 2, all the way up to Yud (10), after which the letters count by 10: Kaf is 20, Lamed is 30, etc. When we see more than one letter, as in this case: Perek (chapter) tet-zayin, we just add the values together. Tet is 9, and Zayin is 7 = 16. (You didn't know you'd be doing math to learn Hebrew, did you?)

Why didn't they use Yud and Vav for 16? Basically we try to avoid writing the name of Hashem flippantly. Yud and Vav are two of the letters that make up the four-letter name of G-d (fancily called the tetragrammaton), so instead, out of respect, we use a different combination of letters that is numerically equivalent.

Now, back to our verse...

Vaydaber is a VERB

Root: ד.ב.ר to speak

Binyan: Pi'el*

Imperfect

3rd person masculine singular

Prefixed with a reversing vav

Translation: "He spoke"

*Note that the Pi'el can carry a sense of repeated action, causative action, or sometimes intensified action. However, in the case of ד.ב.ר, pi'el is this root's primary binyan, so it does not indicate any special meaning.

As Hebrew prose normally follows the pattern VSO (Verb-Subject-Object), it's a reasonable assumption that the subject of vaydaber is the masculine singular noun directly following it: Hashem.

The object of Vaydaber Hashem is indicated in orange and red, technically in this case a prepositional phrase. The preposition אל means to, into, or toward, usually indicating motion toward a person or object, and the one being spoken to in this case is מֹשה, Moshe.

Aharei is a preposition meaning behind or after, either in a spatial or in a temporal sense, which can be determined by the context.

The rest of this phrase, beginning with Mot and ending with Aharon, is actually one long Smikhut/Construct Chain/Word Pair. Let's start with the nouns and come back to the verb.

Shnei שני comes from the word Shnayim שנים, two. It loses its mem sofit and changes its vowel from a patah-hireq to a tseyre because it is in construct with the noun following it.

Translation: Two of

Likewise, Bnei בני is the smikhut form of בנים. Translation: Sons of

Lastly, the final word in the smikhut is a proper noun: Aharon (Aaron)

So let's translate the smikhut as "The two sons of Aharon," or "Aharon's two sons."

Now for the verb...

Mot is a VERB

Root: מ.ו.ת to die

Binyan: Pa'al (Qal)

Infinitive Absolute**

Translation: "dying" or "death"

**The infinitive absolute can be challenging to translate. Here it appears to simply be functioning as a verbal noun: dying, death.

Now, let's translate the entire phrase aharei mot shnei bnei Aharon: "After the death of Aharon's two sons"

Our next verb is another infinitive. Infinitives can seem daunting at first, perhaps especially because in Biblical Hebrew they are some of the last verbs we tend to teach and they can be challenging to translate into English. But what makes infinitives special can actually help us translate them. The name infinitive tells you that these verbs are infinite, meaning they are not bounded like the other finite verbs (perfect, imperfect, participles) by pesky things like person, gender, and number. Infinitives don't have any person or gender, and they have the same form with both singular and plural nouns. So they're much easier to recognize and very pleasant to translate once you've seen a bunch of them.

Here is the breakdown for this verb:

B'korvam is a VERB

Root: ק.ר.ב to approach, come near

Infinitive construct

Prefixed with a preposition ב

Suffixed with a 3rd person masculine plural possessive suffix (think "their")

Literal translation: "In their approaching" or "With their approaching"

Nicer translation: "When they approached" or "When they came near" (past tense assumed from the tense of the rest of the verse)

Notice also the kamatz under the Quf in this word that is larger than a regular kamatz. This is a kamatz katan, and it is pronounced "oh", like a holem.

Lifnei is a preposition meaning before or in front of. It comes from פנים, face or presence and the preposition ל. Translation: "Before Hashem" or, how I tend to think of it: "In the presence of Hashem."

Lastly, another verb. We have already seen this root, which is always nice when you're trying to learn vocabulary and how the same root can look different in different forms.

Vayamutu is a VERB

Root: מ.ו.ת to die

Binyan: Pa'al

Imperfect, 3rd masculine plural

Prefixed with a reversing vav

Translation: They died

Now that we have parsed all the components of the verse, we can attempt a translation:

Vaydaber Hashem el-Moshe aharei mot shnei bnei Aharon b'korvatam lifnei-Hashem vayamutu

"Hashem spoke to Moshe after the death of Aharon's two sons, when they approached the presence of Hashem and died."

Make sense?

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