As I sit here in my campus office I am excited beyond words to be back in the classroom this week after more than 7 weeks off. In my "spare" time I'm also working through my Greek grammar in Modern Hebrew.
What a joy! It's a great way to learn a foreign language. Here's a sample paradigm from chapter 3:
But notice this:
The present tense of the verb "to be" has no equivalent in Hebrew! Unlike many verbs in Hebrew, the verb haya lacks a Qal participle and present-tense forms. Instead, the present is either implied or expressed with particles and suffixes. However, the past and future tenses are fully functional.
So there is a verb "to be" in Hebrew. It's just omitted in the present tense, where pronouns serve to replace it. That said, Hebrew does have the infinitive of haya. Thus "To be or not to be" looks like this:
Discovering this has been the highlight of my day so far!