Terumah 5772

The English translation of the Etz Chaim chumash comes from the Jewish Publication Society. The translation is respected for its nuanced synthesis of traditional meaning and historical opinion. In this vain, to read the JPS translation of tachash (תחש) – an animal whose hide was used as part of the covering of the tabernacle housing the ten commandments – as ‘dolphin’ is…perplexing? The commentary in the Etz Chaim chumash even says that the word more likely means “dyed sheep or goat leather.” The rabbis in the Talmud also debated the meaning of the word. They start by arguing if the animal must be of the kosher variety. They tackle the question of domesticated animal versus wild beast. The lone elements they seem to agree on is that it was a brightly colored animal that existed only during the days of Moshe. The King James Bible translates the word as ‘badger,’ and it is from this translation that we locate the path to the dolphin. The German word for badger is dachs (i.e., dachshund hound). Martin Luther believed the German language to be descended from Ancient Hebrew and deduced that the German cognate for tachash is dachs. Luther was wrong that German is phonetically derived from Hebrew. However, modern scholars have used Luther’s method to trace back cognates from Semitic languages that are related to ancient Hebrew. The Arabic word tuchEas is a word applied to small cetaceans (aquatic mammals), most commonly the dolphin. Were there dolphins in the desert? Only those left on dry land during the splitting of the sea….