How can we break down the word le’alter? Some commentators, including Rabbi Yishaya Pick-Berlin (1725-1799) and Rabbi Yaakov Emden (1697-1776), explain that le’alter is portmanteau of the phrase al atar (“on the spot”). Most famously, some Jews have a custom to greet others on the first night of Rosh Hashana with the words, le’shanah tova tei’katev ve’tei’chatem le’alter le’chaim tovim u’le’shalom (meaning, “For a good year, shall you be written and inscribed, immediately ( le’alter), for a good life and peace”). The third Hebrew word which denotes the concept of immediately post haste is le’alter. (I once thought that the English expression “off-hand” might be related to the Hebrew word mi’yad, such that when one says, “I don’t remember off-hand…”, he means “I don’t immediately remember…”) This is conceptually similar to the time-related concept of immediacy, which denotes the speedy flow of chronology from one event to the next one immediately afterwards. This word also suggests a correlation between time and space, for the most readily transferable object is that which sits in one’s hand so it can be directly transferred to someone else’s hand. If translated hyper-literally, the word mi’yad means “from hand”. So, teikef means “immediately after”, but it also means “spaced closely together.”Īnother Hebrew word that means immediately, or forthwith, is mi’yad. In other words, two objects which are spaced close to one another, and two events which transpire close in time, share the word teikef. This demonstrates the interconnection between the spatial and the temporal in the Hebrew language. On the one hand, it means “closely pressed together”, yet, on the other hand, it also means “rapidly succeeding each other”. Although none of these words appear in the Bible, they are all definitely used in Rabbinic Hebrew. This idea may help shed light on some of the four Hebrew words for “immediately after”: teikef, mi’yad, le’alter, and otyom. The Hebrew words lifnei and acharei (“before” and “after”, respectively) can also be used in terms of space (“I stood before the Lincoln Memorial.”) and in terms of time (“I came home before my mother did”). For example, the word olam refers to infinity or at least vastness, both in a spatial sense (the entire world) and a temporal sense (forever). Amazingly, some words in Hebrew (and even in English!) share both a temporal and spatial meaning, illustrating the interconnectivity between time and space. While this notion has only entered the study of physics and metaphysics in the last hundred years, the idea has already been expressed by the Maharal of Prague (1525-1609) and is even reflected in the Hebrew language. Under this template, time itself is the fourth dimension. The concept of a space-time continuum presumes that the three dimensions of space can be joined with the dimension of time to create a 4D mathematical model.
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