maybe

Distinctions

ulai (אולי)

Rabbi Shlomo of Urbino, a sixteenth-century Italian scholar, writes in Ohel Moed, his lexicon of Hebrew synonyms, that ulai carries a neutral charge, like English "maybe" and like Aramaic dilma/shema. Two other Italian grammarians of the same generation disagree: Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (1469-1549) in Sefer HaTishbi and Rabbi Immanuel Benevento in Livyat Chen hold that Biblical Hebrew has no neutral word for "maybe" at all, and that ulai introduces a possibility the speaker desires. Malbim writes similarly: ulai implies either a certain desire for that outcome or the recognition that it is the likelier of the two to materialize.

The column's illustration: "I bought a lottery ticket because maybe I will win" takes ulai; "I wear a seatbelt because maybe I will get in an accident" takes pen.

The distinction, the column notes, is also somewhat supported by linguists. Some experts explain ulai as a portmanteau of oh lo ("or not"), or relate it to Hebrew lu or Aramaic levai ("if only").

pen (פן)

HaBachur and Benevento: pen introduces a possibility the speaker raises in order to guard against it, hoping it will not come about. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg ties pen to panah, "turned away," since the speaker hopes his listener will turn away from the possibility he has just named.

the test case: Bereishis 24:39 and 27:12

The Vilna Gaon made the idea famous by applying it to exegesis, and to Rashi in particular. Eliezer says ulai lo seilech ha'ishah acharai, "maybe the woman will not follow me" (Bereishis 24:39); Rashi reads a hidden hope there, that Eliezer wanted his own daughter for Yitzchak. The Gaon locates Rashi's proof in the word: had Eliezer genuinely wanted the mission to succeed he would have said pen.

Yaakov's ulai yemusheini avi, "maybe my father will feel me" (Bereishis 27:12), is what the column calls a significant problem with the way HaBachur, Benevento and the Vilna Gaon explain ulai, since Yaakov plainly did not want to be caught. A bevy of commentators, among them Rabbi Yehuda Leib Edel (1760-1828), Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Chayes (1805-1855), Rabbi Seligman Baer (Yitzchok Dov) Bamberger of Würzburg (1807-1878), Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer (1866-1935) and Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin (1881-1966), answer that Yaakov is the one most associated with commitment to truth, the navi Michah (7:20) associating him with emes as he associates Avraham with chesed, and that he therefore really did want his father to feel him and put an end to the deception; he was so bound to truth that passing a lie to his father made him uncomfortable even where it was justified. Mecklenburg too holds that Yaakov wanted his father to feel him, but not so as to expose the ploy: he wanted his father's hands laid on his head for the berachah. Alternatively, the column suggests, on Malbim's view no answer is needed, since ulai need not mean Yaakov wanted it, only that he felt it most likely to happen; Rabbi Wertheimer uses a similar argument for the ulai of Bereishis 18:28.

Rendering guidance

• אולי: "perhaps" or "maybe." Where a derashah turns on the word, add the leaning in a bracket: "perhaps [as he hoped] the woman will not follow me."
• פן: "lest," or "in case," never a bare "maybe." "Lest he stretch out his hand" preserves what "maybe he will stretch out his hand" destroys.
• Trap: English "maybe" absorbs both, and a translation that uses it twice in one passage erases the whole distinction. If ulai and pen stand near each other, render them with different English words on purpose.
• Aramaic שמא / דלמא in a Gemara passage: "perhaps," neutral. Do not import the ulai leaning into them.
• Pronunciation of שמא: shema, with a kamatz under the mem, is the traditional form; Rabbi Meir Mazuz, a contemporary Sephardic grammarian in Bnei Brak, claims on the basis of HaBachur's vowelization and other sources that the correct pronunciation is sheme, with a segol; and the Kaufmann Manuscript, the oldest vowelized manuscript of the Mishnah, consistently vowelizes shemay, with a tzeirei.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Maybe Yes, Maybe No," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 11 November 2017 (22 Cheshvan 5778): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/maybe-yes-maybe-no; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7483-maybe-yes-maybe-no.md. Primary loci: Rabbi Shlomo of Urbino, Ohel Moed; Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur, Sefer HaTishbi; Rabbi Immanuel Benevento, Livyat Chen; Rashi to Bereishis 24:39; Bereishis 18:28, 24:39, 27:12; Michah 7:20. The linguists the column cites for a derivation of ulai from oh lo, or from lu / levai, are unnamed there ("some experts"), and are reported here as the column reports them.