Friday, November 17, 2023

Different types of kissing

A reader recently asked me about the different forms of the word "to kiss" found in the תורה. As a simple illustration:

בראשית ל"ג:ד וַיִּשָּׁקֵהוּ
בראשית ל"ב:א וַיְנַשֵּׁק

There seem to be two different בנינים used. Is there a difference in meaning between the two or any reasoning behind why one would be used more than the other?

In תולדות we had:
  בראשית כ"ז:כ"ו גְּשָׁה נָּא וּשְׁקָה לִּי בְּנִי
Is that yet a third בנין or simply a conjugation of the first one above?
See comments below.

4 comments:

elie said...

במקרה כזה אומרים שאחד קל ואחד כבד
אבל בלי הבדל של ממש

esriel said...

עיין באבן עזרא בראשית כז כז שמחלק בין נשיקה עם למד (ביד או בכתף או בצואר) ובין נשיקה בלי למד (בפה

Anonymous said...

Regarding these two words, the word with the nun is binyan piel, and without the nun is binyan kal. My hebrew professor in YU claimed that piel is not really a "kaved" version of the kal, but has two functions. If the verb is transitive (poal yotze-takes a direct object) in the kal, then the piel version of the verb denotes continuous action. If the verb is intransitive (poal omed-does not take direct object)in the kal, then the verb in piel is causative (ex-gadal becomes giddel). So tjis means that the word "vayishak" means to kiss once, while the word vayinashek means to continuously kiss. As a side note, I don't know what his source was for this, and I am not familiar with what the rishonim say about binyan piel (though - believe I have seen rashi al hatorah call is binyan kaved).

ba said...

See Rashi 45:15.