While reading Tehilim 27 (לדוד) last Elul, I realized suddenly what I perceived as an excellent play on words by the psalmist:
כי אבי ואמי עזבוני, וה' יאספני:
הורני ה' דרכך...
(9-10
perhaps it is a stretch, but i'd like to believe it was intentional.
Either way, don't let the ashkenazis drag you down.
-Ariel
I actually received this point in an email a few months ago.
After researching the post, I'm not so sure of the play on words. We might read הורני as verb like "to parent" based on the more modern understanding. But if there was a play on words between הורה and הרה in Biblical times, I think it would mean "to conceive" or "be pregnant", which doesn't really work with this verse.
Makes for a nice midrash now though...
Perhaps there is a connection to 'nahar'-a flowing river. And how about 'mehar'-rapid(s). And then there is 'dor' and 'dorer'--generation/dwell and flow, respectively. Many rivers likely originate in the Harim (mountains). The insight here is that parents (horim) are the source of transmitting their progeny from generation to generation. Peradventure, on a midrashic level, parents are a microcosm of the government which is compared to a Mountain.
Perhaps all this is a bit of a digression from horah=conceive/mother.
There is a similar concept in Latin, however, of namimg the Mother/Mater after the matrix (birth canal). And or mama after the breasts-the essence of a nursing mother.
As an addendum to my previous comments: I must a apologize for my poor Hebrew vowel punctuation, i.e.mahar, deror etc. Secondly, there is an interesting connection bewixt nahar and crossing (ever) over the nahar, to "ibbur," another word for pregnant.
Bartalmei, you may be going somewhere more meaningful if you compare the shape of a woman in pregnancy and the shape of a mountain.
From which, of course, the neharot flow.
Commenting by HaloScan
