#BlogElul 28: Give
September 03, 2013
To make a present of:
I give my son a toy.
To place in the hands of:
please give me the challah.
Give in. Give away.
Give off. Give back.
To accord or yield
something to someone else.
From the Old Norse.
From proto-Germanic.
From Proto-Indo-European:
"to take, hold, have..."
I give you my word.
I give all I have to give.
Accord, allow, hand over,
provide, present, vouchsafe.
Antonyms: deny, refuse,
take, withhold, keep,
neglect, receive.
That last seems wrong.
God gives; we receive.
These aren't opposites:
they're a two-sided coin.
Giving and receiving
we open up our hands.
We give to each other
blessing and forgiveness
now and forever.
The lines "Giving and receiving, we open up our hands" come from Rabbi Hanna Tiferet's beautiful Grace After Meals, V'achalta v'savata u-verachta. The various definitions of "give" come from assorted thesauri.