The 14th Colony
November 13th, 2005, 07:00 AM
I don't know if this has been noted and discussed yet. Apologies if my topic is old news.
I am Jewish but I have not been able to read Hebrew in many, many years. I don't remember much since the last times I really read it and knew it was up to and just after my Bar Mitzvah. But at the end of Revenge of the Sith, aboard the Tantive IV in the meeting room where Bail, Yoda, and Obi-Wan spoke, I noticed something that led me to open up a book and then look up Hebrew letters online and their meaning. On the wall behind Bail, and behind Obi-Wan, and in the hallway just outside the room, as seen when you look past Yoda, are black panels and then lighted red symbols. There is just one red symbol, but repeated in the different places I mentioned. If I remember correctly, there were 3 side by side behind Bail. It struck me that the red symbol was the Hebrew letter "lamed". What struck me right away was my perhaps poor memory recalling that the lamed was sometimes used to indicate "lachayim" the Hebrew word for life. But upon reading up on the meaning attributed to the letter lamed, I learned (or perhaps relearned after all these years) that lamed has a different meaning.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b324/Tovor/Lamed.jpg
Pronounced "lah-med".
I quote this from a Hebrew alphabet page online:
"The letter Lamed is unique in the Hebrew alphabet since it is the tallest letter (it is the only letter that rises above the baseline) and, as the 12th letter, it is considered the central letter (or “heart”) of the Hebrew alphabet."
"The original meaning of Lamed probably was "to prick, sting, incite, goad,” as a shepherd might prod cattle to perform some action. Hence the ancient pictograph was that of a staff or goad, representing authority."
"The Hebrew name of the letter itself, lamed, comes from the root lamad meaning to learn or teach, which first occurs in Deuteronomy 4:1."
(This was followed by Hebrew text which I cannot reproduce here, but it included the lamed which means teaching or learning.) And then it said as a translation: "And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you..."
"From this we can see that the first business of learning is mishnei Torah, the repetition (or inculcation) of the Torah. Indeed, since Lamed is the tallest of the Hebrew letters, it draws our attention to the source of all learning, namely the Torah itself."
"Lamed and Heart Knowledge
Rabbi Akiva (50-135) is said to have noted that the spelling of Lamed can be seen as an acronym for the phrase lev meivin da’at, meaning "a heart that understands knowledge..."
That discussion in the Tantive IV meeting room was a crucial point in the movie and the saga. I believe that the prominant repeated lamed was no accident, it was symbolizing something. That they had all learned a vital and important lesson from the Sith and Anakin's fall, was a given. But when Yoda began telling Obi-Wan that that he had teachings for him to follow in his seclusion, from Qui-Gon himself, the lamed is clearly visible to the right of Obi-Wan, over his left shoulder.
It is already common knowledge to some SW fans that on Darth Vader's chestplate in ANH are Hebrew words with a possible translation of dark father, and/or something else which I don't readily recall, other than it having something to do with a denial of redemption (?). And so, once more GL has given us a tidbit of Hebrew as symbolization. And I had an interesting time pondering that tonight.
EDIT: What I forgot to post last night, which I had also considered, is that Lucas has said time and time again that one ofthe things he wanted to do with the ideas behind the Force and so forth, was to suggest that there was more out there in the world beyond what we can see, and perhaps lead people to come to or think more about their own faith. I cannot recall a quote offhand, maybe somebody else can. So then, the lamed could be a punctuation mark at that point in the story, a subtle suggestion for us to start thinking about the biblical overtones of the prophetic themes told through Anakin's storyline. I am actually surprised that there are no, none that I can see so far, similar symbols in the room when Yoda was telling Anakin to let go, that fear of loss was the path to the dark side.
I am Jewish but I have not been able to read Hebrew in many, many years. I don't remember much since the last times I really read it and knew it was up to and just after my Bar Mitzvah. But at the end of Revenge of the Sith, aboard the Tantive IV in the meeting room where Bail, Yoda, and Obi-Wan spoke, I noticed something that led me to open up a book and then look up Hebrew letters online and their meaning. On the wall behind Bail, and behind Obi-Wan, and in the hallway just outside the room, as seen when you look past Yoda, are black panels and then lighted red symbols. There is just one red symbol, but repeated in the different places I mentioned. If I remember correctly, there were 3 side by side behind Bail. It struck me that the red symbol was the Hebrew letter "lamed". What struck me right away was my perhaps poor memory recalling that the lamed was sometimes used to indicate "lachayim" the Hebrew word for life. But upon reading up on the meaning attributed to the letter lamed, I learned (or perhaps relearned after all these years) that lamed has a different meaning.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b324/Tovor/Lamed.jpg
Pronounced "lah-med".
I quote this from a Hebrew alphabet page online:
"The letter Lamed is unique in the Hebrew alphabet since it is the tallest letter (it is the only letter that rises above the baseline) and, as the 12th letter, it is considered the central letter (or “heart”) of the Hebrew alphabet."
"The original meaning of Lamed probably was "to prick, sting, incite, goad,” as a shepherd might prod cattle to perform some action. Hence the ancient pictograph was that of a staff or goad, representing authority."
"The Hebrew name of the letter itself, lamed, comes from the root lamad meaning to learn or teach, which first occurs in Deuteronomy 4:1."
(This was followed by Hebrew text which I cannot reproduce here, but it included the lamed which means teaching or learning.) And then it said as a translation: "And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you..."
"From this we can see that the first business of learning is mishnei Torah, the repetition (or inculcation) of the Torah. Indeed, since Lamed is the tallest of the Hebrew letters, it draws our attention to the source of all learning, namely the Torah itself."
"Lamed and Heart Knowledge
Rabbi Akiva (50-135) is said to have noted that the spelling of Lamed can be seen as an acronym for the phrase lev meivin da’at, meaning "a heart that understands knowledge..."
That discussion in the Tantive IV meeting room was a crucial point in the movie and the saga. I believe that the prominant repeated lamed was no accident, it was symbolizing something. That they had all learned a vital and important lesson from the Sith and Anakin's fall, was a given. But when Yoda began telling Obi-Wan that that he had teachings for him to follow in his seclusion, from Qui-Gon himself, the lamed is clearly visible to the right of Obi-Wan, over his left shoulder.
It is already common knowledge to some SW fans that on Darth Vader's chestplate in ANH are Hebrew words with a possible translation of dark father, and/or something else which I don't readily recall, other than it having something to do with a denial of redemption (?). And so, once more GL has given us a tidbit of Hebrew as symbolization. And I had an interesting time pondering that tonight.
EDIT: What I forgot to post last night, which I had also considered, is that Lucas has said time and time again that one ofthe things he wanted to do with the ideas behind the Force and so forth, was to suggest that there was more out there in the world beyond what we can see, and perhaps lead people to come to or think more about their own faith. I cannot recall a quote offhand, maybe somebody else can. So then, the lamed could be a punctuation mark at that point in the story, a subtle suggestion for us to start thinking about the biblical overtones of the prophetic themes told through Anakin's storyline. I am actually surprised that there are no, none that I can see so far, similar symbols in the room when Yoda was telling Anakin to let go, that fear of loss was the path to the dark side.