Ilustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
Segol is a special note. It looks like a little triangle of dots and it sounds like that too: it starts low, goes high, and comes back down.
It always comes after a זַרְקָא (zarka), our note from last week—these two are always, always a pair. Here is an example from our parashah:
מַהֲרוּ֮ וַעֲל֣וּ אֶל־אָבִי֒
Quick! Go up to my father
Yosef is very excited to bring his father, Yaakov, down to מִצְרַיִם (Mitzrayim, Egypt) to be with him after so many years apart. This phrase, “Quick! Go up to my father!” captures Yosef’s feelings, and the zarka-segol note combination makes us feel how special this moment is. Like zarka, segol is printed at the end of the word, no matter where the accent is.
How many of these notes can you find in this week’s parashah?
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