Shelah is a Latin transcription of several separate Hebrew names.
In Biblical Hebrew, it may represent
שֵׁלָה ("Shelah" or "Shela") or
שֶׁלַח ("Salah", "Shelah" or "Shela").. A later Hebrew name that has been rendered as "Shela" is שילא, as exemplified by the early Third Century Babylonian Rabbi
Rav Shela
Shela ( he, רבי שילא) was a Babylonian teacher of the latter part of the tannaitic and the beginning of the amoraic period, and head of the school ("sidra") at Nehardea. When Rav visited Babylonia, he once officiated as an expounder (amo ...
,
[In English transliteration of Hebrew, "]Rav
''Rav'' (or ''Rab,'' Modern Hebrew: ) is the Hebrew generic term for a person who teaches Torah; a Jewish spiritual guide; or a rabbi. For example, Pirkei Avot (1:6) states that:
The term ''rav'' is also Hebrew for ''rabbi''. (For a more nuan ...
" means "Rabbi". which may be identical with שֵׁלָה.
"Shelah" has also served as a pseudonym in the form of "Shelah haKadosh", referring to
Isaiah Horowitz
Isaiah or Yeshayahu ben Avraham Ha-Levi Horowitz ( he, ישעיה בן אברהם הלוי הורוויץ), (c. 1555 – March 24, 1630), also known as the ''Shelah HaKaddosh'' ( "the holy ''Shelah''") after the title of his best-known work, was ...
, a 16th-century
Jewish mystic
Academic study of Jewish mysticism, especially since Gershom Scholem's ''Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'' (1941), distinguishes between different forms of mysticism across different eras of Jewish history. Of these, Kabbalah, which emerged i ...
. In this case, the given name "Shelah" (של"ה) is an acronym created from the initial letters of the Hebrew title of Horowitz' most influential work, ''Shenei Luhot HaBerit'' (שני לוחות הברית).
In modern times, "Shelah" (שֶׁלַח) has become a
surname, as exemplified by
Saharon Shelah (b. 1945 Jerusalem).
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shelah (Name)
Hebrew-language names