Ilustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
If you have ever sung in a choir or played a musical instrument, you might know about rests. Rests are marks that tell you to just hold on for a minute and pause singing or playing.
Sometimes, when making music, it is just as important to be quiet as to make a sound! Well, Torah trop has a rest too, and it is called a pesik (or sometimes a pasek). It is just a line that divides between two words, telling you to take a short break. Here’s a place in our parashah where two of them appear very close to each other:
שַׁקֵּ֧ץ ׀ תְּשַׁקְּצֶ֛נּוּ וְתַעֵ֥ב ׀ תְּֽתַעֲבֶ֖נּוּ
you must reject it as abominable and disgusting
Do you see anything interesting about the words before and after each pesik? That’s right, they are very similar to each other, sharing the same שֹׁרֶשׁ (shoresh, root). This is a case where a pesik is used to divide between words that are similar, in order to make sure we hear each of them clearly.
A pesik might also be used to keep God’s name separate from what follows, so that we don’t blend that special name in with other ordinary words. A pesik only follows notes that don’t end a musical phrase—you would otherwise run right into the next word, and the pesik is there to tell you: “Hold up there just a minute!” Don’t forget to take a brief rest whenever you see one of these!
How many other times can you find a pesik in our parashah?
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