The Meaning of our URL.

I did not think it would actually take me this long to get around to explaining something that I often did to help my self remember Hebrew words. The simple concept is transliteration. For example when one does not have the ability to write fluently in Hebrew (for any number of possible and valid reasons) one option is to spell the Hebrew word phonetically using the English alphabet.

There is a very well know book, which is called Pirkei Avos., which translates as Chapters of our Fathers. Before each of the five chapters there is a introductory saying. When I first heard the translation and the beautiful poetic quality of the verse in its original Hebrew, I committed four of these words of these into my memory as a musical sound. These two words are:

Netzer Mataae- Maaser Yodai

Now I am certainly willing to move some of the letters around, or even use apostrophes if needed. The idea here is there often is not any uniform way of transliterating a Hebrew word into English. Now I suppose if I were more linguistically inclined I might want to come up with those interesting little symbols and things that look like upside-down letters along with accent symbols. Yet it seems like a lot of trouble to go through and I really do not see them on my keyboard, nor do I know how to access them.

Now, coming up with your own transliteration when taking notes during a shirum (lecture) or when simply jotting down something to help your memory is one thing, however launching an entire website (even a free one on Blogspot) is entirely another thing.

So without further commentary I would like to quote another source I have located for these ides:

Before studying a chapter of Pirkei Avos, it is customary to read from an introductory mishnah from Sanhedrin as follows:

"kol yisrael yesh lahem chelek b'olam haba, sh'nemar, "v'amech kulam tzadikim, l'olam yirshu ha'aretz; netzer matai, ma'aseh yadai l'hitpaer."

(transl: "Every member of Israel has a portion in the world-to-come, as it states (in Isaiah 60:21), "Your people are all righteous, they shall inherit the land forever; they are the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, so that I may be glorified.").

Chizukshaya.com/netzer-matai- ma'aseh-yadai

netzer matai, ma'aseh yadai