Are Unicorns Real?

I do not think so, since other talmudic and midrashic sources say it was an animal. Reply

Possibly a Narwhal Reply

Languages are fascinating to me. I was really interested to see how you go into the matter of roots - the first 2 comments sound genuine; #3 is a lot less convincing. How do you know about Afro-Asiatic languages? Would be good to explain about #4 that "tor" in Arabic is shor in Hebrew = a bull. Shin and the Arabic letter thah are often interchangeable. Example, shalosh in Hebrew, thalatha in Arabic - shokel, it weighs [related, of course, to shekel] and th'qil, in Arabic, meaning heavy. Lots more. Would like to hear more. Reply

As for kelev and canis/hound, an interchange between N and L sounds is seen in ancient Egyptian, for example ancient Egyptian distant cognate of shalom/salaam was seneb with a meaning closer to "health" than "peace". Also we know from Greek transliteration of Egyptian and Babylonian names and N could become an L, for example the name Nabonidus appears also as Labynetus. Nimaatre appears as Limares. Thus a connection between the kel- of kelev and can-/houn- of canis/hound is certainly plausible but there is no definitive proof. Similarly the chat- of chatul is quite plausibly a cognate of cat but again no definitive proof. With regard to these bear in mind the tendency in Semitic to regularize words on three consonants with man three consonant roots going back to earlier two consonant roots that were extended. Reply

Hebrew, the Holy Language, was here thousands of years before German,etc. According to my Webster's, a cognate is a word related by a common original form. Perhaps I misunderstood you but the German form was not the original, as Hebrew was here first.

There are hundreds of words in other languages that came from Hebrew, the Holy Language (Lashone Hakodesh). Just to mention a few of the most common, that are almost the exact same word, -1- tourist from the Biblical word, "tor" the spies were sent "la tor-" to tour the Land. 2-over -Avraham was an Ivri, because he "avar" was over there, 3- wine- yayin in French, vin. 4- child yeled. Like I said, there are hundres, and many books written on the subject.
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My objection to badger as many English translation have it is that badgers would be unclean animals. Reply

In Aramaic the equivalent is actually tor, even closer to the Latin taurus than shor. Sometimes a shin corresponds to an Arabic th. In the early days of comparative linguistics, it was assumed that Arabic was purer and closer to proto-Semitic and that the th sound had become sh in Hebrew. The current thinking is that the proto-Semitic sound was probably a form of palatalized t i.e. a ty sound that became lisped to th in Arabic but hushed to sh in Hebrew. There is even reason to believe it was an English ch sound at some point before reaching the sh stage. Reply

I do see the connection.
That 'impossible love' might be exactly that unique mission that you just might have to be brave enough to engage with and grab it by the horn! Reply

Salomon,
We are under the ethical aegis of our beloved Rabbi Moss.
You know, the mind leaps from one thing to another, and to me Rabbi Moss seemed to be talking about a Tachash and I was thinking about something rather different called a unicorn. That one that appears on the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom which is the same that is used as a reference to a special girl. The Mishkan roof coverings were made out of a Tachash skin and that one Mishkan is no more now and so, we cannot possibly know how that skin was.
"Impossible love" fits only when talk is about a girl.
As far as I'm concerned, I have never had a mission in my life other than to make my surroundings a better place for G-d. And even, simple as it might seem that mission, it is very hard for me to accomplish. Reply