Ilustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
Gershayim appears a bunch of times in each parashah. It makes a pretty sound that goes down and then comes back up. It looks like a quotation mark, but it is actually just a double form of azla geiresh, a note we met before. Get it? 1 ozen → 2 oznayim; 1 geresh → 2 gershayim!
Gershayim can sometimes introduce dramatic details. Here it is setting up a revi’i (with a few munahim mixed in) to tell us that the people will have to spend 40 years in the desert, one year for each day that the מְרַגְּלִים (meraglim, spies) traveled through the land:
י֣וֹם לַשָּׁנָ֞ה י֣וֹם לַשָּׁנָ֗ה
A year for each day
There are only eight other gershayim in our parashah. Can you find them all?
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