Add common prefixes ( ד ב כ ל מ ש ה ו) to the search terms to allow for variations of the search terms within the context of the text. Click the "add prefixes" button before performing your search. This adds a “+” in front of any word(s) in the search query. You can type the + symbol yourself, which will give you even greater flexibility over which words should be prefixed.
For example: Searching for מליחה +הדחה+ will result in "מליחה והדחה" and "למליחה ולהדחה".
Search for phrases without words separating between the search terms, and in the exact order entered in the Search text box. Type the search terms with hyphens between the word or words that you do not want juxtaposed or changed in the search query. You can also click the "Exact Wording" button after typing the sequence of words.
For example: A search for שלמה-המלך will not include "המלך שלמה" or "שלמה בן דוד המלך".
For ktiv male and ktiv haser and other spelling variations, insert the extra letter in square brackets.
For example: Enter ק[י]דוש הח[ו]דש. The result set includes the following variations:
Take your searches to an even greater level of precision by using this feature to search for word or phrase variations, as well.
For Example:Search for (עקיב(א/ה. The result set includes the following variations:
For Example: Search for נטילת/רחיצת/טבילת) ידים). The result set includes the following possibilities:
This is also helpful for dealing with possible plural/gender conjugation differences.
By default, the search allows for spacing of up to 30 words between each word in the search query, which is defined by the 30 to the right of the search text box. To change the word spacing setting, change the 30 to the maximum number of words you wish to separate between search terms within the query .
For example, the search term פרחים טלטול שבת will include results that have these words within a space of 30 words from each other. If we change the 30 in the word spacing box to 5, then our search results will contain these words no more than 5 words apart from each other.
To change the word spacing between search terms, use the following notation:
פרחים{5}טלטול{20}שבת
This search query will include search results that have the words פרחים and טלטול separated by a maximum of 5 words, and the word שבת separated from the word before it with a maximum of 20 words.
It is sometimes difficult to predict ahead of time the correct spelling of the search terms. Using the wildcard * symbol will allow for any number of any characters in that position in that word.
For Example:
There are different early sources that use different variations of the word אפוטרופוס: as “אפטרופה”, or “אפטרופין”, as well as other versions. So in this case we will use a combination of the * and [ ] symbols to search for all of the different possible variations of the word : אפ[ו]טרו*
The asterisk can be placed at the beginning, middle, or end of the word.
Please note that searches such as these take a long time. The wider the options covered by the use of the asterisk, the longer the search will run.
Since Otzar HaHochma’s search engine is based on automatic letter recognition from scanned images, it is sometimes common (especially with old books) that the decoding is inaccurate and interchanges letters for others that are similar, such us ד for ר or ת for ח, among others. When this happens, the search engine cannot find the word that was searched for. For this reason we have added the option to search for interchangeable letters.
For Example: If we search for the word ירושלים and add the # before it, we will get results of text that was mistakenly decoded as ידושלים.