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Thought for the Day: What's in a Name? In Lashon HaKodeh, Everything

During the recent celebration of the bar mitzvah of a grandson, many divrei Torah were shared. Among them, the following thought was shared:  Lashon HaKodesh is unique. In all other (human developed) languages, the words are merely labels that folks in a certain region have agreed to apply to this or that concept, this or that object. Lashon HaKodesh, though, captures the essence of the objects with the words it uses to describe them. In fact, the word דבר is translated as both "word" and "thing". (Except for Google Translate, which can't distinguish between דבר and שום דבר! That's certainly the peak of human invention!)

Here's a specific example: the word for "hand" is יד. The gematria of יד is 14, and there are 14 moveable joints in the hand; three on each finger, two on the thumb. Go ahead and try it; I'll wait. Now wasn't that satisfying? Cute. Nice short vort to add spice to a larger d'var Torah. Is it more than that, or just a random number association?

I would like to propose that it is more than just some cute happenstance. What is the value (yes, pun intended) of a hand? That it bends, and it bends in many different configurations. You can pick up a pin, you can swing a hammer, you can type on a computer. All of that is possible because the hand has joints. 

One more thing: the word יד is, of course, composed of two letters. That "14" is really "10 + 4". Any significance? Maybe. Note that there are four joints -- the top most joints on your fingers -- that can't move entirely independently of each othe. There are, in fact, scientific papers in respected journals of medicine and anatomy that explore the "D.I.P.-P.I.P. flexion interdependence in human fingers". (Distal and Proximal interphalangeal joints).

I am the last one to get excited by finding imagined correlations based on trial and error gematrias. However, when you have an authoritative source -- either a quote from a gadol/sefer or "heard in beis medrash", as this one -- then it seems reasonable to do some due diligence. Who knows what you'll discover!

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