Illustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
נָסוֹג אָחוֹר—A retreating note
All words have accents—some part of them that we say a little more strongly than the rest.
For example, the word “table” is pronounced TA-ble, with the accent on the first sound. Usually, a word’s accent is constant. We always pronounce it CHILD-ren, and never child-REN.
We have seen a lot of musical notes for Torah reading that are placed on the accented syllable of the word. Sometimes, though, accents and notes shift to make things easier to pronounce. Look at this example from our parashah:
וְכִחֵ֨שׁ בַּעֲמִית֜וֹ בְּפִקָּד֗וֹן
And denies that their friend gave them something to watch
וְכִ֥חֶשׁ בָּ֖הּ
And denies it
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