Sunday, October 19, 2008

World's first Yo Mama insult

ועיני לאה רכות אמוראי דר' יוחנן תרגם קודמוי ועיני לאה הוו רכיכין א"ל עינוהי דאימך הוו רכיכין ומהו רכות רכות מבכיה

"And Leah's eyes were 'rakot'" - one of R' Yochanan's interpreters translated this [to Aramaic] before him as "And Leah's eyes were [naturally] weak".
He [R' Yochanan] said to him: "Your mother's eyes were naturally weak. And what does 'rakot' mean? They were weak from crying [out of unhappiness that she was expected to marry Esav]."

(From Breishit Rabbah)

2 comments:

Ari E-B said...

You know what's funny, just a few days ago I stumbled across Sotah 42b and was going to make a post with the exact same title. Frankly I think the ones in Sotah are better.
http://www.come-and-hear.com/sotah/sotah_42.html

Beisrunner said...

There is a gemara (I think near the end of Kiddushin but I couldn't find it) observing that when people want to insult women, they insult their character ("you're a whore"). But when they want to insult men, they insult their ancestry ("you're a son of a whore").

Sotah 42b is a fine example of the latter category, but I think my quote is a better example of the particular "your mom" genre described here...