Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Charles David Isbell" <cisbell AT home.com>]

One of our list members with an e-mail address only, but whose name I can not guess, has written the following response to my posting:  I find this anti-semitic joke highly offensive and ask the moderator to put a stop to it immediately.
Now I know there is no accounting for taste, but I would like to inform "Bearpecs" that I am as Jewish as chicken soup and a rabbi myself.  I have sat through six or seven days of dreary exchanges about the name of God ranging from one extreme to the other.  One faction slogs through rain, sleet and snow to "prove" what they began the debate already believing--that the "original" pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was Ye-Ho-wa, so convenient for the Jehovah's witnesses who find themselves commited to this crazy mix of a Ketiv/Qere that has absolutely no warrant at all.  All this gleaned from a book by a Frenchman, and everybody knows the French can't pronounce their own names correctly!  The other faction is championed by a lovely lady who is a serious practicing Jew of a very traditional ilk, who believes that only the high priest ever said the name, but who has yet to explain from whom HE heard it or why one of the Ten Commandments would prohibit something that was never done anyway!  All this gleaned from Qabbalah and a haredi view of "da toyra."  

One member, trying hard to be couteous, suggested we try humor.  I posted my attempt.  If you don't find it funny, so be it.  As they say, "beauty is in the groin of the beholder."  I intended it to be funny, I sent it as humor, and I still think it is funny.  If you don't get it, or if you don't think it is funny, don't laugh.  I live in the parish that borders the home parish of David Duke.  I know anti-semites.  And I ain't one.  

In my opinion, what does not belong on a list ostensibly devoted to classical Hebrew discussions among specialists and teachers of the language are:  [1] questions from stark beginners; [2] theological pleadings that always sound like the final refuge of the truly desperate; [3] ad hominem exchanges.

Shalom from one Jew who looks in the mirror and knows God has a sense of humor,

Charles David Isbell