Hebrew uses a lot of words which build on themselves. A commonly shown example are three words I chose for this poem. דם (dam) means blood, adding a letter to the beginning (remember Hebrew reads right to left) makes אדם (adam) which means human, and adding yet one more letter to the end makes אדמה (adamha)(the M looks different when not at the end of the word) which means soil. In Jewish scripture man is made from soil, so these three words are related and their relationship a reminder of our mortality. |