Quote Originally Posted by Valda View Post
I think the Hebrew word "לפשל" (лефашель, lefashel) comes from it. It means to screw up, to mess up, to make a mistake, etc.
I'm not an expert, but that is highly unlikely. I think the origins could probably be Arabic as "fashal" means "failure" in Arabic:

Arabic Today: A Student, Business and Professional Course in Spoken and ... - John Mace - Google Books

I think the reason the origin for "lefashel" could not come from Russian is that in Semitic languages the root is comprised most of the time from three letters. In case of "lefashel" that would be "F-Sh-L" and Russian "плошай" would yield a hypothetical 'root' of "F-L-Sh'" which is different.