Beth (Hebrew letter)

Beth is one of the six letters ( Hebrew בג"ד כפ"ת ) that receive dagesh kal at the beginning of a word or after the шva nah ’is pronounced . (For more, see the rule of running kefet ). This means that at the beginning of the word and in some other cases, this letter denotes the sound [b] , and in all other cases it reads [v] .

The letter ב is one of the four letters of the Hebrew alphabet meaning a labial consonant .

The letter bet is traced from the word bait ( Heb. בית ), which means "home" ^[1] . Inscription - pictogram , schematic illustration of a house with a foundation , a wall, an entrance (on the other hand) and a roof.

Tanah Use

The letter ב is the first letter in the Tanakh , which, according to the theologians of Judaism , gives it a special, mystical meaning :

• The first letter in the Book of Books is the second letter, and not the first, because no one knows what happened at the very beginning, before the events described in the Tanakh.
• Just as the letter bet is open on one side and closed on the other, history can only be studied from the events described in the Tanakh (that is, from the creation of the universe and no further). One cannot ask “where did the Creator come from” and “why did he decide to create the universe.”

Preposition

Beth is a preposition , roughly corresponding to the preposition "in" in the Russian language . Prepositions in Hebrew are written together with the words following them; being, therefore, at the beginning of a word, the letter ב receives dagesh and forms a sound [b]; therefore, the preposition sounds like be- , bi- or by- .

For example, the title of the first book of Tanakh ( Hebrew בראשית ) is read as "protects" and means "will decide" - "at the beginning".

Another example: the idiomatic expression “in general” is translated as בכלל and “bichlal” is read. This is a literal translation: "klal" means "general, whole." An explanation of the alternation of sounds KX is given in the article.

An exception to this rule are cases when the word has more than one preposition. Then the letter bet becomes not the first, and dagesh kal does not receive. Example: the phrase “and yet”, “and yet” - Hebrew. ובכל זאת . Before the word כל (“everything”) there are two pretexts, so the phrase is correctly read as “we have a lot of things.” The sound generated by the letter bet is shown in bold.

Numeral

The numerical value of the letter ב is the number "two". Thus, this letter is often used to write numbers in the Hebrew notation for a deuce. This is reflected in many words and phrases, such as:

• Sug Bet - Hebrew. ' סוג ב - "second grade".
• Yom Bet - Hebrew. יום ב - the second day of the week, that is, Monday (in the Jewish calendar, the week starts from Sunday ).
• China bet - hebrew. ' כיתה ב - second class.

If the letter ב in the record of a number is written before the letter with a larger numerical value, then its value is 2000. Thus, the year בתנ"ג is the year 2453 in the Hebrew record (it refers to about the XIV century BC).

Beth in Set Theory

In set theory, the symbol${\displaystyle {\mathrm{<span\; class="mwe-math-element"><span\; class="mwe-math-mathml-inline\; mwe-math-mathml-a11y"\; style="display:\; none;">\beth </span></span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="mwe-math-element"><span\; class="mwe-math-mathml-inline\; mwe-math-mathml-a11y"\; style="display:\; none;">one</span></span>}}}$ {\ displaystyle \ beth _ {1}}   (read "bet one") denotes the power of a set equal to${\displaystyle {\mathrm{<span\; class="mwe-math-element"><span\; class="mwe-math-mathml-inline\; mwe-math-mathml-a11y"\; style="display:\; none;">2</span></span>}}^{{\mathrm{<span\; class="mwe-math-element"><span\; class="mwe-math-mathml-inline\; mwe-math-mathml-a11y"\; style="display:\; none;">\aleph </span></span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="mwe-math-element"><span\; class="mwe-math-mathml-inline\; mwe-math-mathml-a11y"\; style="display:\; none;">0</span></span>}}}}$ {\ displaystyle 2 ^ {\ aleph _ {0}}}   . Accordingly, there are symbols${\displaystyle {\mathrm{<span\; class="mwe-math-element"><span\; class="mwe-math-mathml-inline\; mwe-math-mathml-a11y"\; style="display:\; none;">\beth </span></span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="mwe-math-element"><span\; class="mwe-math-mathml-inline\; mwe-math-mathml-a11y"\; style="display:\; none;">2</span></span>}}}$ {\ displaystyle \ beth _ {2}}   ,${\displaystyle {\mathrm{<span\; class="mwe-math-element"><span\; class="mwe-math-mathml-inline\; mwe-math-mathml-a11y"\; style="display:\; none;">\beth </span></span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="mwe-math-element"><span\; class="mwe-math-mathml-inline\; mwe-math-mathml-a11y"\; style="display:\; none;">3</span></span>}}}$ {\ displaystyle \ beth _ {3}}   and so on. For more information see articles on the letter Aleph and on the power of the set .

Bet language

A simple code used by children, in which each word is encrypted by adding after each vowel a syllable containing the sound "B" or "C" with the same vowel. Thus, the word אני (from Hebrew - “I”, reads “ani”) becomes אבניבי (reads “abanibi”). You can compose a language using any letter — say, Gimel or Nun — but the beta is the most popular.

The song "Abanibi" performed by Israeli singer Ishar Cohen and the group "Alpha Beta" won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1978 .

Abbreviations

The letter ב may be an abbreviation of the word בלתי (from Hebrew - “not”, read “bilti”). For example, linearly independent vectors forming the basis for linear space are called ווקטורים בלתי תלויים לינארית in abbreviation - ווקטורים ב ת"ל. (The letter ב is abbreviated in bold and is an abbreviation for בלתי).

Army Abbreviations and Abbreviations

• בכ"ת - an abbreviation for בלתי כשיר תמידי, "permanently incapable" - a person whose health condition does not allow him to serve in the army. It has been discontinued after switching to a profile system.
• ביתים - read "Betim" - days of partial rest for a soldier assigned to him as a restorative measure by medical personnel based on the results of the examination. The medical personnel indicate in the certificate issued to the soldier what specific actions the soldier should be released from, and then the soldier presents it to the commanders upon request. The days of “betim” are an intermediate measure between “Alefim” (a soldier is recognized as fit for any occupation without restrictions, see Alef ) and “Gimelim” (a soldier is assigned complete rest, given exemption from any work, see Gimel ). It comes from the designation of a soldier's suitability for military service, encoded by the letters Aleph , Bet, and Gimel, respectively.

• In the national version of the ASCII encoding for Hebrew, the letter ב is indicated by the code 0xE1.
• In Unicode, the letter ב is included under the code U + 05D1, UTF-16 - 0x5D1.
• In Morse code, the letter ב corresponds to the signal - • • • (dashes dot dot dot dot).
• In braille, the letter ב ,
  • denoting the sound "B" corresponds to a combination of points ⠃ (   ),
  • denoting the sound "B", corresponds to a combination of points ⠧ (   )
• In broadcasts, if a word needs to be spelled, the letter ב corresponds to the word “boaz” ( Hebrew בועז , a widespread name).

• Beth, the letter of the Hebrew alphabet // Jewish Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron . - SPb. , 1908-1913.