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What Is the Origin of the Names of the Jewish Months?

Menachem Av -- We Comfort the Father. Does He Comfort Us?

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Class Summary:

This text-based class, in Likkutei Sichos vol. 23, Menachem Av/Matos-Masei, was presented by Rabbi YY Jacobson on Monday, Parshas Matos-Maasei, 25 Tammuz, 5781, July 5, 2021, live from his home in Monsey, NY.

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C
Chaim.S -3 years ago
The exact same idea is brought down from the TALMUDAI BAL SHEM, why we say by NICHUM AVAILIM."HAMOKEN YENACHEM ESCHEM" plural ?, even if there is only one person sitting SHIVA.

They answer, that ESCHEM includes HASHEM, we are being MENACHEM HASHEM too, as he has lost a child

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Anonymous -3 years ago
bs"d

since all languages stem from the original Hebrew (Tower of Babel), it makes perfect sense for there to be meaning and truth latent in foreign words.
even the Torah employs phrases - ie. "totafot".

it is actually amazing how many connections one can find even with English words - eg "fruit" coming from "peirot", or "breathe" from "b'rei'ot" (the Hebrew word for lungs)...

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S
Sara -3 years ago
Looked up Av, but no definition, but
Elul I found this..."The name of the month Elul, like the names of the rest of the Hebrew calendar months, was brought from the Babylonian captivity, and originated from the Akkadian word for "harvest".
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- Anonymous -3 years ago
  Very interesting. Please research the other ones and post them as well.
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  - S
    Sara -3 years ago
    Am doing so as we speak. Creating a table and will post when complete
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SG
Sarah Goldberg -3 years ago
Does Hashem need comfort?
It was Hashem Himself that decided upon and brought the churban!
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S
Sara -3 years ago
Curious...
What do the babylonian words of the months that we adopted actually mean?
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SG
Sarah Goldberg -3 years ago
The father comforts the child or the child comforts the father?
Surely when there is a loss that affects BOTH the father and the child, as the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash affects both Hashem and the yidden, BOTH comfort each other.
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SG
Sarah Goldberg -3 years ago
This comment made before the idea was presented in the shiur
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SG
Sarah Goldberg -3 years ago
Wait a minute! When the yidden went INTO Bavel
They called the names of the months by their ordinal place ("first month", "second month", etc). How did the Babylonians come to give the yidden names for Jewish months from their Babylonian language? Didn't the yidden resist such secularization and Babylonization of the names of the Jewish months they had BEFORE the yidden went to Bavel?

Did then the Babylonians give the yidden names for children also? How could the yidden be so affected as to change the names of the Jewish months they entered Babylonia with ?

Did the Babylonians even have the Jewish calendar? When was the the secular calendar with 12 months of 30 or 31 days introduced?
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- I
  isaac -3 years ago
  Maybe they thought it was not assimilation.
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SG
Sarah Goldberg -3 years ago
The medresh explains the names of the months
The midrash explains the names of the months that came from nonjewish countries and languages like Babylonia where the yidden were in golus.

Yet we know that Hebrew was the original language until the Tower of Babel (babble itself means to speak incomprehensible like a baby). There are thousands of words in many languages that originated in Hebrew.

E.g. There is a sefer, "The Word" that shows how thousands of English words came from Hebrew. (E.g. abracadabra came from "I spoke and it was").

So when the medresh analyzes the Jewish names of months that were brought back from Babylonia, it is no surprise that even that word in a foreign language originally came from the Hebrew.
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- SG
  Sarah Goldberg -3 years ago
  Also "alphabet" = Alef Bais
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- I
  isaac -3 years ago
  in tthe footnotes (number 18) he brings this idea as well, based on a teaching by the Shalah.
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SG
Sarah Goldberg -3 years ago
The names of the Jewish months came from nonjews
So too, even what eventually became Jewish names like Alexander came from non-jews.
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SG
Sarah Goldberg -3 years ago
"Menachem Av" can mean "to comfort the father"
By great hashgocha we learn today's sicha sponsored by R. Avraham Bruck who dedicated today's shiur in loving memory of his daughter Devorah Leah Yettel bas Avraham. May the z'chus of the shiur be a comfort to this father.
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SG
Sarah Goldberg -3 years ago
The idiom "Rule of thumb" was mentioned
In reference to the way the calendar and the parshas interact regarding Matos-Masei and Menachem Av

The use of this idiom is hashgochadik.

The idiom "rule of thumb" comes from medieval English law that limited the width of a stick a master could beat his slave. I.e. punishment could be to that extent and not more.

Hashem Himself limited His Gevura to the stones of the Beis Hamikdash and not to the yidden themselves.
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