QUESTION: My daily Gemara shiur is studying Seder Kodshim and we have finally reached the second masechta. But what is the name of the masechta—is it pronounced Menachos or Minchos?
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yehoshua steinberg
Feb 22, 2021
ANSWER: The true is that the plural form of the word מנחהdoes not appear anywhere in Tanakh, so we don’t have a clear-cut precedent for your question. Nonetheless, we do have the wordsמִנְחֹתֵיכֶם(which appears in Num. 29:39 and Amos 5:22) and מִנְחֹתֶךָ(Ps. 20:4), which suggests that the name of the masechta in question should Minchos.
However, if we look for the same vowelization scheme as it applies to other roots, we will find that both ways are accurate. For example, if we replace the מנחofמנחהwithברכforברכה, then we find the following conjugations: בְּרָכָה(which parallels מנחה),בִּרְכַּת(in Prov. 10:22, which parallels מנחת),בְרָכוֹת(in Ps. 21:7, which parallels מנחותand suggests it should be vowelized as מְנָחוֹת), and בִּרְכוֹת(in Ps. 21:4, which also parallels מנחותand suggests it should be vowelized as מִנְחוֹת). So basically, both seem like valid ways of uttering the name of themasechta.
ANSWER: The true is that the plural form of the word מנחהdoes not appear anywhere in Tanakh, so we don’t have a clear-cut precedent for your question. Nonetheless, we do have the wordsמִנְחֹתֵיכֶם(which appears in Num. 29:39 and Amos 5:22) and מִנְחֹתֶךָ(Ps. 20:4), which suggests that the name of the masechta in question should Minchos.
However, if we look for the same vowelization scheme as it applies to other roots, we will find that both ways are accurate. For example, if we replace the מנחofמנחהwithברכforברכה, then we find the following conjugations: בְּרָכָה(which parallels מנחה),בִּרְכַּת(in Prov. 10:22, which parallels מנחת),בְרָכוֹת(in Ps. 21:7, which parallels מנחותand suggests it should be vowelized as מְנָחוֹת), and בִּרְכוֹת(in Ps. 21:4, which also parallels מנחותand suggests it should be vowelized as מִנְחוֹת). So basically, both seem like valid ways of uttering the name of themasechta.