Today the word mehadrin מהדרין is generally associated with “super” kosher food (or even bus lines…). But the word actually first appears in the laws of Chanukah, in Masechet Shabbat 21b. There it says that if one lights a candle for each...

Today I heard on the news a word I wasn't too familiar with: kalgas קלגס. The dictionary definition is "soldier", but the connotation seems to always be a brutal, thuggish soldier. It certainly sounded like it was not of Semitic origin, and Klein...

Sukkot was last week, and we just put away the last part of our sukkah. So it seems like a good time to finish one last sukkot related word. During the holiday, we took a tour of the Herodion fortress. The guide told us to meet at the בודקה budke...

On Hoshana Rabbah there is a custom to greet people with the Aramaic expression פתקא טבא pitka tava - for which the Hebrew equivalent is פתק טוב petek tov. In Modern Hebrew petek means note (or the piece of paper the note is written on),...

The Hebrew word cherem חרם is familiar to most of us as a ban, an excommunication. This type of censure developed in Talmudic and Medieval times. However, the Biblical word also means "to ban". Klein says that in Biblical Hebrew it meant to ban,...