What Is the Telisha Gedola Trope?
Telisha Gedola is a disjunctive (pausal) Torah cantillation mark that signals a separation between words as the reader chants. It belongs to the fourth and lowest tier of disjunctive accents — the "Counts" group — and its Hebrew name means "detached" or "torn off," reflecting that it is never musically linked to the note that follows.
תְּלִישָׁא גְדוֹלָה
Disjunctive (pausal) accentWhat it does in the verse
As a disjunctive (mafsik) accent, Telisha Gedola creates a pause that breaks the flow of words rather than connecting them. It sits in the fourth/lowest level of the disjunctive hierarchy — the "Counts," alongside pazer, geresh, gershayim, munach legarmeh, and karne farah — so its break is one of the lighter pauses in the verse. These fourth-level disjunctives tend to cluster near the beginning of a half-verse in longer verses, and Telisha Gedola can follow a pazer. Its name, "detached," captures its role: it is never chanted as one continuous musical phrase with the word that comes next.
What the symbol looks like
The symbol is a small stroke topped by a small circle (Unicode U+05A0, HEBREW ACCENT TELISHA GEDOLA). It is prepositive: the mark is placed above the FIRST (rightmost) letter of the word, at the upper-right corner, regardless of where the word's stressed syllable actually falls. This is the opposite of its sibling Telisha Ketana, which is postpositive — placed above the last (leftmost) letter. TropeTrainer displays the glyph so you can see exactly where it sits on the word.
Good to know
Telisha Gedola appears 266 times across the five books of the Torah, with Deuteronomy showing the highest frequency (67) and Genesis the next-highest (51); the remaining counts are Exodus 42, Leviticus 56, and Numbers 50, which sum exactly to 266 (figures per Wikipedia). It is considerably rarer than its conjunctive counterpart, Telisha Ketana, which appears roughly 451 times in the Torah. The two Telisha marks fall on opposite sides of the disjunctive/conjunctive divide: Telisha Gedola is disjunctive (a pause) while Telisha Ketana is conjunctive (a connector that must be followed by a Kadma). "Gedola" means "great," and the mark carries a longer, more elaborate melody than the shorter "ketana" ("little") version. The German spelling Telischa Gedola also appears in some sources.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Telisha Gedola trope?
Telisha Gedola is a disjunctive (pausal) Torah cantillation mark — one of the ta'amim that guide how the text is chanted. It belongs to the fourth and lowest level of disjunctive accents, the "Counts" group, and signals a separation between words rather than a connection.
What does Telisha Gedola mean?
The Hebrew name תְּלִישָׁא means "detached" or "torn off," and "Gedola" means "great." The name reflects that the mark is never linked to the following note as a single musical phrase, and "great" distinguishes it from Telisha Ketana ("little"), which has a shorter melody.
Is Telisha Gedola a pause?
Yes. Telisha Gedola is a disjunctive (mafsik) accent, meaning it marks a break in the flow of the verse. It is one of the lighter disjunctive pauses, sitting in the fourth/lowest tier of the disjunctive hierarchy.
How is Telisha Gedola different from Telisha Ketana?
They are opposites in both placement and function. Telisha Gedola is prepositive (above the first, rightmost letter) and disjunctive (a pause), with a longer melody. Telisha Ketana is postpositive (above the last, leftmost letter) and conjunctive (a connector) that must be followed by a Kadma, with a shorter melody.
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