Parashat Hayyei Sarah: Torah Reading - Trop
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ShareWhy is there a small letter in this week's parashah?
Ilustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
Can you spot what looks different about this word?
That’s right, the kaf is smaller than the other letters! There are eight letters like this in the Torah, written smaller than all the others. It is a very old tradition, and there is no agreement on the reason for this, but each place where it happens leads people to wonder why. Look at the larger phrase here:
וְלִבְכֹּתָֽהּ׃
Avraham came to mourn Sarah and cry for her.
The word וְלִבְכֹּתָהּ (ve-livkotah, to cry for her) is the one with the small kaf. One tradition says that the kaf is small because Avraham did not cry that much when Sarah died because she was already very old. She had lived a full life, had a child, and had helped to start the Jewish people.
- What do you think of that? Does it make sense to you that Sarah’s death would have been easier for Avraham because he knew she ended up having a good and meaningful life? Or would you expect him to cry even more because his partner of so many years, with whom he shared so much, was now gone?
- What else could this small letter mean here? Do you have other ideas?
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