The term “Act of Speech” is, from the point of view of Halachah, an oxymoron. Speech is neither fully an act nor merely a thought, but something in between, something which, in many ways, mediates between the two. So how to do we parcel out words and sentences, utterances and soliloquies? When is a break in the continuum of speech merely a pause and when does it indicated that an utterance is complete? The halachic notion of “Toch K’dei Dibbur” – within enough time to say something – is used in many contexts to determine whether a pause separates two utterances or should be ignored. To illustrate: If I say “This animal is a burnt-offering…a peace-offering”. If the ellipsis is a pause less than the time it takes to say, “How are you doing?” (there are fine points we’ll ignore for now), then it may well be that my utterance is meaningful and I’ve made my animal a mixture of the two kinds of offerings (with all the problematics that causes). But if the ellipsis is longer than that, w
Thoughts and insights on the weekly Parashah, Daff Yomi, and whatever else I may be learning or brooding about, ranging from pedantic grammatical observations to sweeping generalizations of dubious provenance. Enjoy!