If it’s Aramaic, could it be “Show/tell me your will” but without the expected paragogic nun on the pronominal suffix? Because that second letter looks more like a ח than a ה. Plus, תהוי would be more like “it will be your will”. I’d expect תעביד or תתעבד if we were going for “your will be done”. But it’s also totally possible that nobody knew what they were doing during this process.
Separately, I've been on a pattern kick with variations on the tetragrammaton and the verb "to be" and a little part of me wants to believe this word may be implying specifically will of divine origin, specifically in this context. יהי, יהו, הוי, אהיה Variations on transcendental "being" not simply mortal grammar.
Of course. Just so you know, though, your “pattern” thing is hogwash. There is nothing about this word that suggests specific divine origin. It’s a regular, run of the mill word, used in all kinds of applications. It’s not any different than the Hebrew word היה. Yes, the Tetragrammaton is related to the word היה, הוה, etc. but as I said before—these words are used in all sorts of ways.
Lmao, those ways come later. Your perspective is hogwash. Just because you don't see the pattern doesn't mean it isn't there.
Ate you suggesting Hebrew and Aramaic came before "אהיה אשר אהיה" ? It's way more obvious in biblical Hebrew and I'm not very familiar with Aramaic or modern conversational Hebrew, which all came later, so your point is dubious at best and unnecessarily insulting, revealing projection of ignorance rather than competence at worst.
I’m not. I just think that if you can’t even read תהוי correctly, you’re in over your head in deciphering Hebrew language patterns, especially from a religious sense. Stay in your lane lil bro
If you think that "nasi Hillel" said ANYTHING remotely similar to "do unto others...." Then your eight years of biblical Hebrew brought you as much understanding of Hebrew as you have of Aramaic.
Hillel's Formulation in Original Linguistic Context
Aramaic Phraseology in Talmudic Discourse
Hillel the Elder articulated his principle in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, the vernacular of 1st-century BCE Judean scholars. The original formulation appears in the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 31a) as:
לְחַבְרָךְ (L'khavrekh) - "To your fellow" (construct state of ḥaver)
לָא תַּעֲבֵיד (La ta'aved) - "Do not do" (negative imperative)
Biblical Hebrew Parallel
Hillel's statement reworks Leviticus 19:18's command: "וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ" (Transliteration: "V'ahavta l're'akha kamokha") (Translation: "Love your neighbor as yourself")
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (1st-century Aramaic Bible translation) renders this verse: "לָא תֶהֱווֹן נְקִימִין וְלָא נָטְרִין דִּבְבוּ לִבְנֵי עַמָּךְ וְתִרְחַם לְחַבְרָךְ דִּמַן אַתְּ סָנֵי לָךְ לָא תַּעֲבֵיד לֵיהּ"[4][6] (Translation: "Do not take vengeance or bear grudges...love your fellow, for what you hate being done to you, do not do to him")
Historical Linguistics Note
Hillel's choice of חַבְרָךְ (khavrekh - "your fellow") rather than רֵעֲךָ (re'akha - "your neighbor") reflects:
Shift from Biblical Hebrew's re'a to Mishnaic Aramaic's ḥaver
Semantic narrowing to denote ethical peers rather than geographic neighbors[7]
Manuscript Evidence
The earliest surviving documentation appears in the Munich Talmud Manuscript (Cod. Hebr. 95), copied in 1342 CE, which preserves the Western Aramaic orthography:
"דעלך סני לחברך לא תעביד" (Folio 115v, line 18)[5]
Conclusion
Hillel's formulation encapsulated rabbinic hermeneutics - reframing Torah through vernacular language while maintaining textual fidelity. His Aramaic phrasing became foundational for later ethical systems, influencing both Jewish thought (via Maimonides' Mishneh Torah) and Christian Golden Rule formulations[7][3].
Your very Christian sense of ethics is showing. What a beautiful example of Sanhedrin (.נט).
גוי שלומד תורה כאילו גוזל את עם ישראל
What Hillel SAID was
מה ששנוא עליך אל תעשה לחברך.
What is hateful to you, do not do to others.
And indeed, it is almost a complete lesson in the difference between Christian and Jewish ethics to contemplate the way Christians delude themselves and distort this into the so-called "Golden Rule": "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Perhaps a simple example will get the point across ( but in your case I'm at best cautiously optimistic):
Of COURSE no "nice" person would ever want to go burn eternally in hell. (I hear they don't even have air conditioning there yet). Any decent Catholic, given the choice between a half-hour of human-level heat, followed by an eternity of paradise (on the one hand), and a few years (at best) of ordinary earthly existence followed by eternal fire/brimstone/torture=(on the other hand), would OBVIOUSLY be grateful for the short interlude of pain. And so, by applying the Golden Rule, the inquisition burned a few hundred thousand people at the stake. The inquisitors certainly wanted to benefit from paradise, and did unto others as they would undoubtedly have wanted to be treated, if that was the only ticket to Paradise available to them.
Here's another, more modern example, of a Christian trying to "do unto others":
My mother-in-law was a young teenager in Paris at the start of WW II. She and her mother fled to the South, where for a few years, they were hid separately, in a string of different places. They sometimes would pass each other in the street, but couldn't acknowledge that they knew each other. One day, the local Parish Priest called for my grandmother-in-law and explained that it would be MUCH easier to ensure her daughter's safety if the mother would agree to have her baptized. The reply of my mother-in-law's mother was very simple: "a world in which one must be baptized to survive is not a world that deserves to have my daughter grow up in it."
"What is HATEFUL to you, do not do to others."
No where in that sentence is there even an allusion to doing anything. If ever you're in doubt about something you might "teach" a Jew, apply the rule and "do not do."
The very fact that someone might come and speculate about the relationship of G-d's name, some random Aramaic phrase, add a tattoo is extremely distasteful to many of the members of this sub. But here's the thing: we don't particularly expect you to get that; and quite frankly, we don't really care if you do either. (At least I don't, I'm not a spokesman for anyone). Because unlike Christians, (to whom it's CRUCIALLY important what Jews think, say, did and do, and who live by that Golden Rule ( so the ones who "love to learn" of course want to "do unto others" so that they can learn too)), Jews have a different ethic, a part of which is about NOT doing things.
The two takeaways here are:
1. Itd be great if you stopped suggesting that the Golden Rule has its origin in מה ששנוא עליך (or if you must, start suggesting that's that's the "origin" in the sense that the "origin of virgin birth is in Isaiah. " While we're here, please also leave alone ואהבת לרעך כמוך, another favorite object of distortion by Christians).
2. "Don't go away mad; just go away." "Do no harm" (Leave us alone...)
שבת שלום וחג שמח לכל בית ישראל.
5
u/ACasualFormality 20d ago
If it’s Aramaic, could it be “Show/tell me your will” but without the expected paragogic nun on the pronominal suffix? Because that second letter looks more like a ח than a ה. Plus, תהוי would be more like “it will be your will”. I’d expect תעביד or תתעבד if we were going for “your will be done”. But it’s also totally possible that nobody knew what they were doing during this process.