P3: Winners Of And Solutions To Last Week's P3 Games

About half of the P3 (parsha punning puzzles) were solved, and where the solutions were not dead-on, they were still creative. What follows are the puzzles again, followed by a solution, followed by, where appropriate, a link to the winner's blog.

Each picture represents a phrase from parshat Emor. Each one is a bit more difficult, and arcane, than the previous one.

1)


was solved by yaak of Yeranen Yaakov. The answer is ayin tachat ayin = mammon. The pun in this is in the weird w-shaped symbol.
:)

An interesting recent post at Yeranen Yaakov is an essay question, in which he details all the times the phrase 40 years occurs in Tanach and asks which from this list the last 40 years where we have sovereignty over Yerushalayim is most like.

The fact that this number 40 appears over and over might be a hint that it is a canonical number connoting "a lot."

2) You might need to click this image to see it in more detail.



This one was solved by ADDeRabbi. The solution is שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים, תֵּעָשֶׂה מְלָאכָה
marbles + seas = female angel.
Because marble is shayish, yamim are seas, and this produces a female angel, where an angel is a mal'ach.
He is running his own series of punning puzzles, with a focus on Harry Potter.

3) The third one was more arcane:


Steg suggested, based on the ivory soap, ונתת על המערכת לבנה זכה, presumably because ivory soap is white and it is 99.44% pure.

Ephraim arrived at the solution. In Hebrew, Ivory is shen. The cowboy on the bottom is Shane. And Shane's picture is underneath. Thus, it is "Shane tachat shen."

4)
It might help to review Rashi or Bereishit Rabba on parshat Miketz for a hint on this one.

Yaak had a brilliant suggestion of sefirat haOmer for this one, the top image being a sapphire and the bottom being grain.

ADDeRabbi correctly identified this as being the Hope diamond.

The solution is shever tachat sever. Why? From Miketz {Bereishit 42:1}:

א וַיַּרְא יַעֲקֹב, כִּי יֶשׁ-שֶׁבֶר בְּמִצְרָיִם; וַיֹּאמֶר יַעֲקֹב לְבָנָיו, לָמָּה תִּתְרָאוּ.

1 Now Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, and Jacob said unto his sons: 'Why do ye look one upon another?'

Corn means grain here. Rashi, citing Midrash Rabbi, midrashically changes the shin to a sin. He saw that there was hope in Egypt. The top picture is Hope. The bottom is grain. Thus, shever tachat sever.

5)

I didn't expect anyone to get this one, except perhaps by virtue of it being similar to the other puzzles.
It is supposed to represent nefesh tachat nefesh.

That fish is actually a yellow sole, a pun on "soul," nefesh.
The next picture is of two nuzzling and kissing unicorns. Some translate tachash as unicorn. And in Akkadian (and I claim in Biblical Hebrew as well), napishtu (=H nefesh) means neck.
Thus, a picture of necking unicorns is tachash nefesh.

Perhaps new puzzle(s) soon. If you have one to contribute, send it to me and I just might include it!