A Brand New Base Hasefer!

בס"ד

יום ראשון, כ"ה ניסן, תשפ"ו

The latest version of basehasefer.com has been released with dramatic new features!

 

בע"ה, a new version of BHS was recently released with a slew of new enhancements.

 

The primary goal of these changes is to increase user ability to easily launch flexible and intuitive Tanach searches over a broad range of needs

 

These further our ongoing goal of making Tanach search more powerful, intuitive, and accessible. The latest enhancements are focused on expanding the ability to launch flexible, precise, and meaningful searches.  These will help to trace subtle patterns, analyze structure, or to simply seek deeper insight into the Torah.

 

Certain of these changes might not seem dramatic in and of themselves, but their cumulative effect unlocks new search capabilities that greatly impact Base Hasefer to be a power-tool for Torah search and analysis. With improved accuracy, richer search options, and more intuitive visual feedback, these updates open the door to a broader and more refined search experience than ever before.

 

Here are the highlights of the changes:

·         Added capability to search for repeating terms

·         Added capability to search for overlapping wildcard terms

·         New wildcard "." (period) search character (for main search and Lexicon) to indicate a placeholder for an optional 0 or 1 characters within a word

·         The Search Detail box now displays colors per search term found to visually aid identification of matches within pasuk results

·         Added "Masoretic" option on top of search bar to enable searching for precise word patterns found in Masora lists

·         Full vs. Fast option added to search settings panel to let user choose between speed vs. accuracy in complicated searches

·         Drastically improved accuracy of searching on nekudos.

·         Entering even a small part of a word's nekudos will now find matches in nekuda-based searches

·         Added ability to search for pesukim with exact same taamim and added search filter to search by number of pesukim with recurring taamim

·         Improved handling of Regular Expression (regex) search terms

·         Improved capability to search on negated search terms to find pesukim lacking certain characteristics

·         Improved accuracy of case-sensitive searches (sofit vs. non-sofit)

 

Now let’s examine many of these in detail.

 

 

Added capability to search for repeating terms

 

This new capability unlocks the door to some powerful searches.  Among them are the following two examples of Masoretic searches.

 

Masoretic pattern 1: ואת את

Those familiar with older editions ofמקראות גדולות  will be aware of the cryptic Masoretic notes that appear inside margins and also in the form of long lists that appear at the very end of certain volumes.  These are shorthand for tests that were established to guarantee an accurate transmission כתבי קודש (see Masora URL for more info).

 

Among the long lists are sequences of similar words such as את, that can appear a very specific number of times in a pasuk – some with a vav prefix and some without. In this version of Base Hasefer, we have a new search option on the top of the screen. Regular Flow vs Masoretic – the latter choice will enforce that the search terms appear once and only once in matching pesukim.

 

Let’s try this out with the sequence: ואת את ואת ואת ואת ואת – six search terms where the second term is את and all others are ואת. 

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1) select a letter-only based search in the search options on the right

2) make sure in-sequence is selected from the search options on the top

3) enter the search terms ואת את ואת ואת ואת ואת

4) click the search button on the left of the search bar

5) You will now see two things emerge: a Search Detail popup on the left breaking down the search parameters you entered.  Search Detail box now displays colors per search term found to visually aid identification of matches within pasuk results……

6) …..and the search results – this will include three pesukim.

 

ספר סורת סייג לתורה by the רמ"ה has such a list which matches against only one pasuk – why? That sefer is only focused on Torah and not all of Tanach.  Additionally, to meet the criteria of a Masora list the pasuk must contain one and only one instance of each matching term.  So for יהושע יג:כא that would get excluded since it’s not in the Torah even though all other criteria match.  For במדבר לא:ח, that would get excluded since there’s an extra ואת.  In order to search Tanach the way this sefer is “searching” Tanach, we must alter our search in the following ways:

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7) in the search panel on the right, make sure only Torah is checked

8) in the search options on the top, make sure the new option Masoretic is selected

9) click the search button

10) see that now only one pasuk matches your search

 

 

Masoretic pattern 2: Five consecutive two-letter words

Here's another thing which I believe will elude most if not all Tanach search programs. There is a Masoretic listing for the six times in Tanach where there are five consecutive two-letter words.  One is the famous כי יד על כס קה.

 

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(this assumes letter-only based search - the default search option at startup)

1) enter “?? ?? ?? ?? ??” into the search bar surrounded by double quotes – this enforces a search for five consecutive terms containing any two letters of the א"ב

2) click the search button

3) the six cases of this in Tanach will appear

 

See the original Masoretic notes below where the listings of five pesukim appear in מלכים א ג:כו and נחמיה ב:ב.  Interestingly enough, people have noticed that the מלכים list leaves out שמות יז:טז and the נחמיה list leaves out מלכים א ג:כו.

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 click on the following image to enlarge

                                                                               

Contiguous Streams of Taamei HaMikra (Trop)

Another area where the new capability to search repeating patterns creates impact is to unlock the ability to search for full contiguous streams of trop.

 

Purim now seems like a distant memory but as long as we’re still in Nisan, permit me to sneak in this bit of Adar in the vein of סמיכות גאולה לגאולה!

 

When I was in fifth grade, we were introduced to trop (taamei hamikra) by our rebbe, Rabbi Abe Lieberman z”l, playfully setting the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty" to the following trop:

 

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I got to wonder – did my my rebbe model this trop pattern on an existing pasuk?

 

Sadly, there is nowhere in Tanach with a full pasuk match – but we get the two halves at two ends

 

2^nd half – in truth there was one with a מהפך in דניאל

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1) select a taamim-only search from the Search Settings panel on the right

2) enter "א֤ א֙ א֣ א֔ א֥ א֖ א֣ א֑ א֤ א֙" into the search bar (the alefs aren’t required but I used them as placeholders to make the trop symbols more visible – I use the site’s virtual Hebrew keyboard to enter the trop near each letter).  The double quotes enforce that the taamim appear consecutively.

3) select the Advanced Search option from the slider to the right of the search bar

4) click the first search term in the vertically stacked list of search terms that appear

5) select the Distances tab from the Advanced Search options

6) set the distance of the first term (already selected for editing in step #4) to zero words from the beginning of the pasuk. This ensures that the sequence will appear at the beginning of a pasuk

7) click the search button

8) view the six results found in Tanach

 

Now for the second half of the trop sequence.

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1) (from a simple search) select a taamim-only search from the Search Settings panel on the right

2) enter "א֙ א֣ א֔ א֧ א֛ א֥ א֖ א֥ אֽ" into the search bar

3) click the search button

4) view the one result found in Tanach

 

Consecutive repeating gematria

 

The capability to search repeated terms makes itself impactful in searching sequences of gematria.

 

What about finding three or more consecutive unique words that share the same gematria? There is only one and the gematria is 50.

 

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To accomplish this using Base Hasefer:

1) select Regular Gemaria in the Search Settings panel on the right

2) in the search bar, enter three 50s surrounded by quotes to enforce that they appear consecutively

3) click the Search button

4) see that there is only one instance of this pattern in all of Tanach! בראשית:לג:ח מִ֥י לְךָ֛ כׇּל

 

There are no other gematrios in Tanach that appear in greater than three consecutive words and this is the only three-in-a-row example where each word is a different word!

 

בראשית:לג:ח וַיֹּ֕אמֶר מִ֥י לְךָ֛ כׇּל הַמַּחֲנֶ֥ה הַזֶּ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר פָּגָ֑שְׁתִּי וַיֹּ֕אמֶר לִמְצֹא חֵ֖ן בְּעֵינֵ֥י אֲדֹנִֽי

 

When I first noticed this using my internal database several years ago, I wondered whether anyone else had ever noticed this.  I found that this was noted in ספר מנחת כהן that was authored by רב שמואל כהן צדק מצפת in 1598.  חלק ב of that sefer which is called תורה אור mentions on דף רמא עמ' ב (in פרשת וישלח) that the 50-50-50 successive gematria alludes to 50 שערי בינה that were opened up at the time.

 

See here for the full excerpt from that sefer.

 

ראשי\סופי תיבות with repeating letters

Here too, searching repeated terms is a difference maker since letters can repeat within the same word.  The irony is that when I was looking up names of biblical characters starting from ספר בראשית, I noticed a dearth of people having a name containing repeating letters – the ones that did tended to either not have ראשי\סופי תיבות at all or at least not have anything of significance. 

 

Then I noticed that there is a six-word pasuk in whose first five words end in the letters ב,נ,י,מ,ן which is a commonly found חסר form of בנימין.

 

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1) (with a letter-only based search selected) enter “*ב *נ *י *מ *ן” – each single letter following the multi-letter wildcard asterisk represents a סוף-תיבה – double quotes ensure that the סוף-תיבה words occur consecutively

2) click the Search button

3) see that there is a single pasuk with the סופי תיבות "בנימן" in all of Tanach – at תהלים קז:מא

 

Is there any significance to this?

 

I found the following article dedicated to this in ספר נפלאות מתורתך (ירושלים תשנ"ו) by רב מרדכי ארונובסקי starting there on עמ' קלח

 

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This is also quoted on עמ' שפט of תורת בניה (תשפ"ד) by רב בניה נבנצל ז"ל who adds some further insight:

 

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There are other pesukim in Tanach that show great similarities to the pasuk in Tehillim in questions.  The first one is the actual naming of בנימין in בראשית לה:יח

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1) select Unordered from the search settings at the top

2) (with a letter-only based search selected) enter *צא* *שמ* *וני *אביו* – each with multi-letter wildcard asterisks to add flexibility

3) click the Search button

4) view the two pesukim in the results – our סופי תיבות pasuk and the pasuk of the naming of בנימין

 

The commonality these pesukim share is unique in Tanach. The relation is strengthened by the association of Rashi on the word אוני to a meaning of צער (close to עוני - affliction).

 

The next instance is the ultimate pasuk in the פילגש בגבעה story

 

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1) select Unordered from the search settings at the top

2) (with a letter-only based search selected) enter *משפח.ת* *צא* *שם – each with multi-letter wildcard asterisks to add flexibility – the dot in משפח.ת is the new wildcard "." (period) search character (for main search and Lexicon) to indicate a placeholder for an optional 0 or 1 characters within a word – this is great for allowing מלא\חסר flexibility

3) click the Search button

4) view the three pesukim in the results – our סופי תיבות pasuk and the ultimate pasuk in the פילגש בגבעה story – plus a bonus pasuk also very much a בנימין pasuk with the mention of שמעי בן גרא from בית שאול

 

Additionally, the מדרש אגדה במדבר כו:לח relates the following to connect the naming of בנימין with the story of פילגש בגבעה:

בני בנימין למשפחותם. והלא עשרה בנים היו לבנימין כשירד למצרים, שנאמר ובני בנימין בלע ובכר וגו' (בראשית מו כא), ולמה חסרו מחצה, לפי שאתה מוצא כשנתקשית אמו בלידתה אותו וחשבה שהוא ימות, שלא יהיה בן של קיימא, וקראה אותו בן אוני, כלומר שהיה מתאונן והולך, אבל אביו קרא לו בנימין בן מיומן, ועמד לו שמו ששם לו אביו, שלא יחסרו בניו עד מלחמת הלוים, והיכן עמד לו שם אמו במעשה פלגש בגבעה, שלא נשאר מכלם אלא שש מאות, אבל במיתת אהרן מתו החמשה בשביל דברי אביו שקראו בנימין:

 

Chiasms (atbash structure)

By definition, searching for chiastic/atbash structures require repeated terms on each end of the mirror image.

 

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1) select Shoresh from the Search Settings panel on the right

2) select In-Sequence from the search settings on top of the screen

3) enter the exact Shoresh sequence (surrounded by double quotes) "שפך דם אדם אדם דם שפך"

4) click the Search button

5) see the poetic results for this pasuk in the aftermath of the מבול in פרשת נח

 

 

As can be seen above, the ability to search on repeating terms has unlocked the ability to search on lengthy sequences of terms to capture pattern flow matching segments of pesukim and even entire pesukim.

 

 

Added capability to search for overlapping wildcard terms

 

Full vs. Fast option added to search settings panel to let user choose between speed vs. accuracy in complicated searches

 

In וי* *אמ* *רו אשר אל

Fast has 36

Full has 27 eg leaves out perek 35 since red and blue converge in ויאמר and don’t exist separately

Overlapping terms displayed in multi-color font

 

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1) select a letter-only search from the Search Settings panel on the right

2) select the Unordered option from the search settings above to allow for out-of-sequence search terms

3) enter וי* *אמ* *רו אשר אל into the search bar – note the potential of all the first three terms to match the word ויאמרו

4) click the Search button

5) note that there are 36 pasuk results for Fast mode (but note the presence of בראשית לה:ב even though the word ויאמר contains a convergence of the search terms וי* *אמ* and is the only match for each)

(by default, searches are set to Fast even if lacking 100% accuracy in some cases of overlapping wildcard terms)

 

בראשית לה:ב will be included in the search results even though the two terms וי* *אמ* collide on the word ויאמר but the pasuk should truly be a match since there’s no separate word for each to match ALL the search terms supplied.

 

examine the appearance of ויאמרו in בראשית יט:ה since the word matches the search terms וי* *אמ* *רו it will appear with three fonts going right to left.

 

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6) select “Full” from the Fast vs. Full selector in the Search Settings panel on the right

7) click the Search button

8) note that there are 27 pasuk results for Full mode and note that now בראשית לה:ב and some other previous matches are now omitted since the five search terms didn’t match to five distinct and separate words in the pasuk

 

Drastically improved accuracy of searching on nekudos. Entering even a small part of a word's nekudos will now find matches in nekuda-based searches

 

In the past, had to resort to advanced search to flexibly search for partial nekudos.  Now the assumption will be made to treat any nekudos left out as a sort of wildcard placeholder for 0 to many nekudos per letter.

 

Let’s demonstrate this with a famous simple example.  The instances of “משה” in the Torah which do not refer to משה רבינו.

 

By default, search results will include pesukim that match ALL the search terms entered.  Here we select the Partial Match option at the top which will match pesukim against ANY of the search terms:

 

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1) select a letter-nekuda search from the Search Settings panel on the right

2) select Partial Match from the search settings on top of the screen

3) enter מִשה מַשה into the search bar (the first term with aחיריק  under the mem and the second term with a פתח under the mem)

4) click the search button

5) searching will yield מִשֶּׂה and מַשֵּׁה  the two instances in the Torah of a non-Moshe משה!

 

Perhaps an even more convenient way of searching without knowing the two exceptions in advance.  We have a sense that if the middle letter is a shin and there’s a segol underneath then it will be Moshe. With that knowledge, we approach the search the following way (which also introduces the much-improved negation feature):

 

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1) select a letter-nekuda search from the Search Settings panel on the right

2) enter משה משֶׁה into the search bar (the first term without nekudos, the second term with a segol under a shin)

3) select the Advanced Search option from the slider to the right of the search bar

4) in the vertical list of search terms on the right select the bottom one (the one with the vowels)

5) check the negation checkbox

6) click the search button

7) two results will appear – one with מִשֶּׂה and one with מַשֵּׁה

 

 

 

Added ability to search for pesukim with exact same taamim and added search filter to search by number of pesukim with recurring taamim

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Let’s say you have already done a search and you were curious as to whether any other pesukim contain the same exact sequence of taamim as one of the pesukim in your result list. You can now look for those pesukim by doing the following (assuming you have already searched for בראשית ברא):

 

make sure the new Pesukim:Same Taam column is already selected in the Statistics Columns selector – if the number in the column is greater than one, this means the pasauk has a stream of taamim that can be found in other pesukim

 

1) right-click on the pasuk of your choice and select Search for similar pesukim from the context menu

2) select Pesukim:Same Taamim from the context menu

3) click the Search button at the top of the context menu

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4) in the search results for our example you will see 16 pesukim.  This is very interesting and yields a cross-section of disparate pesukim that have a need for these trop.  You might notice a connected idea in דברים לב:יב in the pasuk “ה' בדד ינחנו ואין עמו אל נכר” since at the point of בראשית ברא, הקב"ה was “alone” in the world

 

Less than 30% of pesukim in Tanach (over 6,500) share a trop sequence with at least one other pasuk.  The highest tendency for this to occur is for very short pesukim such as in ספרי אמ"ת and in short lists of generational names. Since there are so few trop, there is a higher probability of recurrence.  On the opposite side, when trop streams in larger pesukim recur (eg. > 20 words), without exception any such pasuk will match just one other pasuk in Tanach.  The likelihood in these cases is that each of the two pesukim will have the same or very similar wording and will basically represent the same pasuk mentioned in two different places in Tanach. Examples of this are frequent in parallel sections in מלכים:דברי הימים, מלכים:ישעיה, פרשת תרומה:פרשת ויקהל.

 

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An alternate way you can look for pesukim with recurring taamim is the following:

 

1) from a brand new search, click on the Advanced Search button to the right of the search bar

2) select Pasuk Definitions from the Advanced Search options

3) in the Pesukim:Same Taam setting, select a minimum value of 2 instead of 1 – this will reveal all pesukim with at least one other pasuk sharing the same sequence of taamim

4) click the Search button

5) view the results

 

Improved handling of Regular Expression (regex) search terms

 

Here’s an example of how regular expressions can be used to turn a search term allowing a match on many optional patterns as opposed to just a single pattern.

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1) Select Shoresh from the search options on the right

2) Surrounded by quotes “ (the enforce adjacent terms), enter the three search terms:

·         (צעק|פלל|עתר|זעק|קרא) – regex indicating a match against any of these similar terms

·         אל

·         (ה'|אל.ים) – regex indicating a match against either of two of G-d’s names

3) Select the Advanced Search option from the switch to the right of the search bar

4) for each of the two complex regex terms select the relevant term from the search term list on the right…..

5) …..an select Regex from the Transformations drop down list

6) click the search button

7) view the results with matches against the various regex options

 

 

 

PS. 1: Warning – some of the searches appearing above are intricate and can take time so be patient.

PS. 2: Many thanks to Rabbis Zvi Simon, Reuven Chaim Klein and Yaakov Moshe Shurkin (among others)….. for their helpful discussions along the way!

 

PS. 3: I have also added a new “Support Us” button on the upper right of the screen.  If basehasefer.com has benefited you in a significant way, please follow that link to make a (non tax-deductible) donation. This will help to help defray our costs and spur the continual creation of impactful features. The link is also available here.