January 28, 2021

THE JEWISH ORIGIN OF THE EXPRESSION ABRACADABRA

What about that magical Abracadabra ? Here's a mind-blowing etymological explanation for one of our most popular magic words.

But also, in that stream that flows from the dawn of time to our contemporary use of the language, we can find some other surprising sources.

Raw Silk Tallit with Jerusalem decoration - with Kippah

That is how some Hebrew words, which we use frequently –if not daily- have found their way into our everyday Spanish. For example, "camel" is a direct derivation of the Hebrew "gamal", "sábado" is obviously an hispanicization of the Hebrew "shabat", "alphabet" is equivalent to the Hebrew "alef bet" and even our "olives" come from the Hebrew " zeit”.

But what about that magical Abracadabra ? Here's a mind-blowing etymological explanation for one of our most popular magic words.

Abra Cadabra / אָבְּרָכָּדַבְּרָה is the final result of the combination of two Aramaic phrases (Aramaic being a language based on the Hebrew spoken by the Jews 2000 years ago, in which the Talmud is written): “A'bra” and “K' dabra”: “A'bra” means “I will create out of nothing” (as in our very Latin creatio ex nihilo ), and “K'dabra”, “while I am speaking”, or “when speaking”, as the blog reads Jerusalem U. It is an explicit reference to the creative act of the Word of God, as narrated in the book of Genesis... or at least that is a popular etymology.

In Hebrew it could be abarja dibra which means (more or less) "I will bless his words/commandments"