What was going on when I was born?

A picture caption on Nov. 24 with an article about rabbis' use of computers to interpret the Talmud misidentified some symbols shown below Hebrew characters on a screen. They included both vowels and cantillation signs, which denote tones for chanting.

The old toy department, with half an acre of toys and the kids lined up to see Santa, is becoming the ghost of Christmas past at department stores across the land. With the Christmas selling season moving into its most hectic, most profitable final two weeks, the traditional toy department is continuing a long slide in its share of sales. Instead, the hottest segment of the $12.5 billion retail toy business is the ''toy supermarkets'' such as Toys ''R'' Us and Child World. They are challenging the discount stores such as K Mart as the leading outlets in selling toys.

In the Gloucester harbor north of here, where fishermen have brought their catch to dock for more than 350 years, the curved hulls and rigging of the fishing trawlers make a pretty sight. But some of the oldest boats, and some of the newest, are not at dock, nor will they be again. Thirty-seven trawlers, almost a quarter of the Gloucester fleet, have sunk in the last four years, and most lie in deep waters off the coast, in silent monument to a troubled trade. Across the continent, dozens of boats used to fish for Alaskan king crabs have gone down in the Bering Sea. From Alaska to California, from Maine south and around into the Gulf of Mexico, the commercial fishing fleet is embattled by changing times. Faced here and there with diminished fish stocks and increased foreign competition, the industry has been rocked in recent years by an increased number of sinkings in both high seas and calm, prompting suspicion among fishermen and insurers that some boats have been sent under intentionally.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1984 International A key OPEC panel has agreed on pricing changes, according to Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Sheik Yamani. The changes would realign the prices of heavy grades of crude oil in relation to light grades, but he said Saudi benchmark price of $29 a barrel for Arabian Light would be defended. (Page D1.)

At E. F. Hutton & Company, salesmen are rewarded for brisk business with tickets to the Super Bowl, employees are buoyed by motivational lectures from the Knicks' coach, and investment bankers cozy up to clients by chronicling their progress on the tennis court or the ski slopes. ''There's a common denominator in our business between what many of us are doing and our interest and participation in sports,'' said Jerry Lichtstein, one of E. F. Hutton's executive vice presidents, who hired Hubie Brown to address his salesmen and managers. The brokerage house does not promote its services by sponsoring sporting events, and its advertisements are not populated with athletes. Still, when staff members and customers talk, E. F. Hutton listens, recognizing - along with myriad other companies - that sports have become a central part of American culture, a metaphor for achievement and a tool of business. ''Sports are pervasive,'' said Charles McCabe, a senior vice president at Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company who has supervised the bank's involvement in a wide-ranging program of athletic sponsorships that includes the New York City Marathon. ''You can't go through a day without someone talking about it.''

Iranian security men stormed the hijacked Kuwaiti airliner at the Teheran airport shortly before midnight Sunday and freed the last nine hostages, the Iranian press agency reported. The four Arabic-speaking hijackers surrendered, the agency said. The hijackers had planted explosives near the fuel tanks and appeared ready to blow up the plane, destroying themselves and their hostages, according to a group of seven passengers freed about three hours earlier. (In Washington, State Department officials said they were receiving some diplomatic reports that tended to confirm the account made public by the Iranian press agency.)

A 56-year-old police sergeant was arrested last night and charged with the shooting death of a woman in Queens early yesterday morning in a dispute over an auto accident, the police said. The woman was shot in the back as she fled from the sergeant after he struck her repeatedly, the police said. The sergeant, who was off-duty and in civilian clothes, also fired three shots at a man who came to the aid of the woman and then the sergeant chased the man in his car, the police said. The sergeant - Rudolph Hays, of 175-10 111th Avenue in Jamaica, Queens - was charged with second-degree murder and attempted murder. He is assigned to the Auxiliary Services Division in Queens, which supervises auxiliary police officers, and is a 33-year veteran of the force.

The Cabbage Patch Kids, America's popular pudgy playmates, are a hit again this Christmas. This year, however, there's a whole patch full of Cabbage Patch goods, including children's clothes, diapers, sleeping bags, sewing machines and playhouses. This year the Kids have younger siblings, called Preemies, and pets, called Koosas. Next year, twins will arrive to the Cabbage Patch family. The rush to market items with the Cabbage Patch name is so strong this year that toy executives are calling this Christmas Cabbage Patch II. ''Don't stand around quietly or you'll get stenciled with Cabbage Patch,'' said Doug Thomson, president of Toy Manufacturers of America Inc., a trade organization.

The education sales manager for Apple Computer Inc. has a word he sometimes uses to describe the seemingly endless demand for microcomputers in the nation's public schools: mania. ''There is a mania out there right now among schools and among parents,'' said the Apple official, Michael Mount. ''Some of them say that if you're not teaching using computing, you're not teaching.'' Sales figures bear him out, and they show no hint of an easing of sales of computers to grade schools and high schools. Schools that have them plan to buy more; schools that do not have them plan to buy them soon.

Florida?'' said Nat Abramowitz, waving his cigar. ''We've got everything Florida has but the weather.'' Mr. Abramowitz's endorsement was for Starrett City, the middle-income development in Brooklyn, where he is one of 20,000 tenants. Starrett City is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Mr. Abramowitz, who is retired from the garment industry, delivered his pronouncement while lounging with friends around Starrett's indoor pool. The friends, other gentlemen in the fullness of years, nodded agreement.

MOUSSORO, Chad, Dec. 6 - At the edge of the grid of squat and square mud houses in this market town in western Chad, a second town has sprung up, about as populous. Some 11,000 people trying to escape hunger have pitched crudely woven mats over wooden sticks and sit or lie before their low huts, waiting for food. For about a month, they say, they have received nothing, either from the Government of President Hissen Habre or from the many international relief organizations that work in Chad. A Regional Feeding Center What brought them to Moussoro, 140 miles northeast of Ndjamena, Chad's capital, was a relief program called Operation Wall. Five feeding centers were set up in October at considerable distances from Ndjamena to deter the hungry from heading for the capital.

The United Technologies Corporation said yesterday that its outside board members had cleared Harry J. Gray, the conglomerate's chairman, and other officers of illegal or improper conduct. ''The matter is over, closed, finished,'' said Tom Drohan, a spokesman at the company's Hartford headquarters. ''The board has spoken and the investigation committee has been discharged.''