Bəfanai Nechtav. The Person and the Page in the Jewish Link. Gittin 2a

As I write this, we approach Shavuot, celebrating the giving of the Torah from Hashem to Israel. Midrashim consider Mattan Torah to function conceptually as a marriage between Hashem and Kelal Yisrael, with Moshe functioning as an agent. We also begin masechet Gittin, and my thoughts are on agency, the trustworthy transmission of the masorah from Moshe on Sinai, and adaptations over the years within this trustworthy transmission.

The Mishnah (Gittin 2a) sets out how an agent from an overseas country must declare בְּפָנַי נכתּב וּבְפָנַי נחתּם, “it was written before me and it was signed before me”. A quick question to discuss with your family and friends before proceeding. How would you personally pronounce נכתּב and נחתּם in this utterance?

The grammatically correct pronunciation would be נִכְתַּב, with a chirik under the nun, and נֶחְתַּם, with a segol under the nun. For nichtav, it is because it is the nif’al, passive, “it was written”, and the regular pattern for this is to place a chirik. For נֶחְתַּם, the chirik is changed to a segol under the influence of the guttural ḥet.

However, there’s a strong likelihood that you pronounced both with a segol, nechtav and nechtam, despite nechtav being (strictly speaking) ungrammatical. Not only that, but we are beginning Gittin just as Yeshiva University is finishing Gittin, so there are many recent and relevant gemara shiurim on YUTorah.org. Here’s a fun exercise.