Rabbi Nathan FarbJul 9, 2023

There is no such thing as "Haftorah."

The word "#Torah" comes from the word #teaching. A teacher is "Morah," and a parent is "Horeh." Parents are often the ones who teach us Torah.

#Haftarah comes from a completely different #Hebrew word. It means "additional," and is related to the word Maftir, the additional Torah reading.

To English ears, Haftarah and Torah sound similar. That leads to the common misspelling and mispronunciation, "Haftorah."

Show threadBenny Powers 🇨🇦️🇮🇱️Jul 9, 2023
@rabbinathan Whoa there buddy you can't just invalidate entire categories of dialects just because you don't like'm. Haftorah of a perfectly legitimate Ashkenazi pronunciation, even if it's English transliteration is a bit confusing to the uninitiated.
Show threadRabbi Nathan FarbJul 9, 2023

@bp

"Haftorah" is also not the correct transliteration of הַפְטָרָה in Ashkenazi pronunciation. Why would one kamatz gadol have a different pronunciation from another?

Edit: Great avatar. That takes me back!

Show threadEffy

@rabbinathan
I’m very confused by your claims. There are cases in *modern Hebrew* where kamatz gadol is pronounced as O.

Forget Ashkenazi/Yiddish what not.
Modern Hebrew.

And absolutely, historically, even *more* words using kamatz gadol were pronounced that way than today.
Furthermore, all non-Israeli Ashkenazis I know pronounce it that way. So when they tell you that’s the correct transliteration for their everyday life, listen. How many transliterations are there for Hanukkah??…

Also, what’s your source for Torah being based on “teaching”? That is unfamiliar to me.

Also #2 “Horah” is not a parent in Hebrew. It means “commanded” in the male form. “Horeh” is a singular parent (and shockingly for Hebrew - non gendered). Is that what you’re referring to?

Jul 9, 2023 at 7:27pmWeb
Show threadRabbi Nathan FarbJul 9, 2023

@effy

Torah, teacher, and parent share the root י.ר.ה. which is related to teach, transmit, send, throw.

I should use the more correct Horeh. Edited.

I know of many examples of a kamatz chataf or kamatz katan, all of which would be pronounced with an o sound. Can you send me an example an evidence of a kamatz gadol that is correctly pronounced as such? I've never heard of such a thing and I would love to learn more.