In Hebrew, a root is like a key: once you have it, you can unlock the meaning of words you’ve never seen before and suddenly understand how they’re all connected.
Take the root ש.ב.ר, for example. The verb לשבור (leesh-bohr) means to break. A glass, a silence, a habit.
From the same root comes משבר (mahsh-behr), a crisis. Which makes sense, when you think about it: a crisis is a moment when something has cracked, when reality itself seems to have split in two.
And then there are שברים (shvah-reem), fragments, the pieces left behind. Also, interestingly, the Hebrew word for fractions in math. Because a fraction, too, is just something that was once whole.
So next time you come across a verb, pay close attention to its root. You never know where it will show up next, and when it does, you’ll have a head start understanding what the new word means.
