Snippets — what does mamash mean
Mamash. The reality of Jewish art.
definition of mamash in hebrew hebrica jewish art jewish papercut art kim phillips mamash in talmud what does mamash mean
On my first trip to Israel, to study at Pardes, I kept hearing this word mamash. My street Hebrew being pretty limited, I couldn't quite figure out what mamash means. Turns out that, like most Hebrew words, mamash can mean a lot of things. In the Talmud, it means "literally," as in the Gemara to Bava Kamma 83b, which asks why not take literally (mamash) the Torah's eye-for-an-eye rule? In modern Hebrew, mamash can also mean literally, actually, or very, depending on the context. Mamash also has the sense of reality in a tangible way. For me, as a Jewish artist,...