At 29:27 Lavan says to Yaakov after Leah became married that Yaakov should complete the sh'vua.

I am bothered by the way sh'vua is translated, as week, when perhaps it is literally just seven, and whether it is 7 days, a particular 7 day period from Sunday through Shabbos, or 7 other things, I believe it is not quite so simple, even among those of us who regularly wish Shavua Tov to each other.

For example when Lavan and Yaakov had last discussed 7, they were discussing 7 years.

To be fair, the word malei is being translated as complete, was last used by Yaakov to Lavan saying that his term - his days - were full / complete.

Taking my approach that the literal translation is simply 7, and that week is an interpretation, given that Rashi seeks to provide the most straight forward explanation of pshat, I am not sure why I am wrong to see literally 7, when Rashi apparently addresses the two possible explanations of 7 day weeks.

If I were right to see 7, I would say that pshat should be:

Consider this seven year period of work to be completely paid by this marriage to Leah... AND... for the same amount of work marry Rachel, but receive payment in advance this time...

Hence without a future-perfect verb tense the Torah would want to say both an "additional" seven years, and "after", which I do see, and which Rashi comments on in verse 30.

Rashi says that these second set of 7 years were like the first set of 7 years in that Yaakov worked honestly.

I would again prefer to say that the 7 years were the same but the prominent similarity is in a different way, that specifically in the passuk in verse 20 which says that they seemed like a few days to him due to his love for Rachel, that since it was work to "pay" for his marriage to Rachel, that it seemed to again be just a few days work.

Part of Rashi's explanation for his understanding of sh'vua meaning 7 days includes a mention of 7 weeks of Shavuos - "shiva shavuos".

Is there a plural form of the number 7, or any number (ignoring the plural form appearance for 2)? If I wanted to say in English that I wanted to break a $20 bill into 10 $2 bills, or four $5 bills, or even 20 $1 bills, I might say four five's or twenty one's. I might also ask someone about even numbers and ask them to cout by two's. Apparently there is no way to say this in Hebrew.

There is a term for Yom Kippur, that it is Shabbos Shabbosim.

Apparently the root words for week and Shabbos share the same first 2 letters - shin and beis - but differ in the 3rd letter -- ayin vs saf. Are the words related?

I think conceptually part of what is meant by Shabbos is a 7 day week ending with Shabbos, and that a Shabbos of all Shabboses is in a different dimension than just 7 weeks is to 1 week, but at least its related to week and does have a plural form as used in this expression.

quote:

Apparently the root words for week and Shabbos share the same first 2 letters - shin and beis - but differ in the 3rd letter -- ayin vs saf. Are the words related?

Well, sure. They share two letters. And they differ in two letters. Two by two.

shin-beit-ayin -> a promise (oath)
shin-beit-tav -> sealed into reality

and between them, from nothing, something (yesh me-ayin)

ayin-tav -> time is made