Geresh ( he, , with variant English spellings) is a
cantillation
Cantillation is the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. It often specifically refers to Jewish Hebrew cantillation. Cantillation sometimes refers to diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy.
Cantillation includes:
* Chant
...
mark found in the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
,
Haftarah
The ''haftara'' or (in Ashkenazic pronunciation) ''haftorah'' (alt. ''haftarah, haphtara'', he, הפטרה) "parting," "taking leave", (plural form: ''haftarot'' or ''haftoros'') is a series of selections from the books of ''Nevi'im'' ("Pro ...
, and other books of the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" '' Kadma, in which case the pair is known as ''Kadma-V'Azla'', but it can also be found independently, in which case it is referred to as ''Azla Geresh'' or simply as ''Geresh''.
The Geresh occurs 1733 times in the Torah in the ''Kadma-V'Azla'' pair, and 1112 times separately.
The Hebrew word translates into English as ''driving out''.