Glosses: On the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat

With What May One Kindle [the Sabbath Light]?

20b

• gushkara: The lasin [a kind of silk] that can be found in . . .

• metakhsa: This is a kind of silk.

• sirikon: Tatters.

• shivra: African rue [a medicinal plant].

• ukamta aharitsi: This is a green thing that appears in standing water.

• ’arbata: Boat. In Aramaic, [it is] ’arba [with the letter alef]. In the language of the sages, it is ‘arba [with the letter ‘ayin].

21a

• kazza: The letter z is doubled. This word is not used among us.

• tseluliva: Castor oil.

• berihe de-ma‘arva’: An illness of al-Sham [Syria or Palestine].

21b

• gets: Sliver.

26a

• ‘atse ha-ketaf: Balsam wood.

28a

• tale’ ilan: A Greek word, denoting that something is multicolored.

31a

• takhsise malkhut: The rules for serving kings.

• honton: Salty soil.

32a

tipos terus amta had mahutra le-have: This is a proverb that means that [all] a woman’s sins will be examined [and punished at one time] when she dies in childbirth [see b. Shabbat 32a]. Its translation [into Arabic] is the following: If the slave girl breaks a lot, she will be beaten only once. In other words, if she breaks many of her husband’s or master’s utensils, and he bears it for a long time, he will beat her only once.

Know that many [versions of the talmudic text] have this as: ve-had mahavat le-ha, and it has the same sense, since mahvatah [in those versions] means “beating,” and mahtara [as in our version] means “carding,” like the woman who cards cotton, and heavy beating is compared to it, and therefore it is called that.

ke-mi she he‘eluhu la-gardom li-don: Like one who was brought to the court of the police in order to be investigated.

paraklotin: Advocate.

33a

hidrokin: Dropsy, and it has three types: That which is related to the skin, and which is called “swollen”; that which is related to the flesh, and which is called “thick”; and that which is drum-shaped, and which is called “thin.”

35b

arane: It appears as arone as well, and that is more correct and more frequent in the language. It means the kaduk, which is a kind of vegetable that follows the movement of the sun all the time—in the morning, it turns toward the east and in the evening, it turns toward the west.