Tag Archives: Hebrew

The Evolution of Hebrew and the Death of “Jewish” Languages

‘Joseph Makes Himself Known to His Brethren’ by Gustav Doré

In this week’s parasha, Vayigash, we read how Joseph finally reveals himself to the sons of Israel in Egypt, and they are shocked and stupefied to behold their long-lost brother. How exactly it is that Joseph reveals himself is not clear. Was he wearing a mask or Egyptian headdress that he took off? Was it simply his declaration “I am Joseph, is my father still alive?” (Genesis 45:3) Did he have to show them his brit milah to prove it, as Rashi comments on the next verse? Or was it the fact that he now switched to speak Hebrew? Previously, he had spoken in Egyptian and there was a “translator” between them (42:23)—identified as Joseph’s son Menashe. Now Joseph revealed that he himself speaks Hebrew—a language only spoken by Jacob’s household and a select few. Rashi says this, too, later on 45:12, when the brothers are still stunned after Joseph’s speech. Joseph tells his brothers to see “the mouth that is speaking to you”. This is what ultimately convinces them that it is really Joseph. Such is the power of Hebrew in that it is a central identifying marker of a true son of Israel.

In fact, Hebrew was our language from the very beginning—Abraham himself spoke Hebrew and passed it down to Isaac, and then to Jacob and his family. The ancient Book of Jubilees describes how the divine language was lost following the Tower of Babel, when God confounded the tongues of the people, and He only restored it by teaching it directly to Abraham (Jubilees 12:25, or 12:31 in other versions). It goes on to say that Hashem even provided Abraham with ancient mystical Hebrew scrolls for him to learn from. The family continued to speak Hebrew, even throughout their servitude in Egypt. The Midrash (Lekach Tov on Ki Tavo) states that Israel was redeemed from Egypt in the merit of three things: “they did not change their clothing, their diet, or their language”, while a parallel Midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 32:5) says it was in the merit of four things: “they did not change their names, nor their language, and they did not speak lashon hara or engage in licentiousness”. The one thing common to both lists is that the Israelites preserved the Hebrew tongue. Such is the power of Hebrew in that its use hastens the Redemption!

That said, in our day and age, when we are so close to the Final Redemption, we must do everything we can to revert to using the divine Hebrew language as much as possible. Thankfully, this has already been greatly accelerated in the last two centuries by the Zionist push to revive Hebrew as the vernacular of the Jewish people, and making Hebrew the official language of the State of Israel. It is important to note that, contrary to popular belief, Hebrew was never a “dead” language, and Jews have always used it throughout history. Sephardic Jews in particular devoted a lot of time to studying the Hebrew language and writing Hebrew grammar books, as well as Hebrew poetry and piyyutim.

Statues of Ibn Gabirol in his hometown of Malaga, Spain, and in Caesarea, Israel

One such Sephardic Jew was Solomon ibn Gabirol (c. 1021-1070), who wrote a 400-verse book on the rules of Hebrew grammar when he was just 19 years old. He went on to write multiple renowned books of poetry, proverbs, and philosophy (in both Hebrew and Arabic). Today, there is a major busy street in Tel-Aviv called Ibn Gvirol named after him (where I was once lived as a child). Another key figure was the Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, 1707-1746), who put together a textbook on Hebrew language and grammar called Leshon Limmudim. He also wrote many poems and psalms in Hebrew, and even a Hebrew opera! The Ramchal was an inspiration not just to countless rabbis and mystics, but even to secular Jewish scholars and Haskalah writers, who often referred to him as “the father of modern Hebrew literature”.

Nonetheless, for much of the past 2500 years (until recently), Jews typically retained Hebrew as a religious language for prayers and holy texts, to be used in the beit knesset and beit midrash, and for correspondence between rabbis and merchants who came from different lands and needed a common language. The day-to-day vernacular was usually from whatever locale the Jews lived in. Two thousand years ago it was Aramaic and Greek; today it might be English, Russian, Spanish, or French. Along the way, Jews also developed their own dialects by fusing together local languages and adding in some Hebrew. The two most well-known are Ladino (among Sephardic Jews) and Yiddish (among Ashkenazi Jews). There are others, including my own community’s Bukharian, or the Juhuri of Kavkazi Jews.

Today, people often lament the decline of these “Jewish” languages. While it is true that it’s never a bad thing to know another language (and my knowledge of Bukharian is really helpful when I’m around Iranians or Afghans), the truth is that Jews have no need for these foreign tongues. Our language is Hebrew, and always has been, and we have to use Hebrew first and foremost. The focus should be on mastery of Hebrew, not any other language. If a Jew does not yet know Hebrew, he has no business learning another tongue! Only when a Jew can speak God’s language fluently should he move on to learn others. Considering how important the use of Hebrew is in ushering in the Redemption (as we see from ancient Egypt), the still-common Hasidic practice to raise children in Yiddish is counter-productive. At its core, Yiddish is just a blend of German and Russian (two peoples who have never treated us particularly well), so it makes little sense to insist on using it. Like other “Jewish” languages, it is a tongue of exile and oppression, of punishing galut. There is no doubt that every Jew should switch to Hebrew, the language of God, Torah, and geulah.

The prophet Zephaniah told us this long ago: “For then I will make the peoples pure of speech, so that they all invoke Hashem by name and render service with one accord… The remnant of Israel shall do no wrong and speak no falsehood; a false tongue shall not be in their mouths…” (3:9-13) If we are truly one nation, we should have one language, and any two Jews in the world should be able to converse freely in Hebrew. (Reminds me of a conversation I once had with a Hasidic Jew who only spoke Yiddish. He was born and raised in Israel, but his Hebrew was so poor and so accented I could barely understand him!) We all know well that if we want to see geulah, we need to have ahavat hinam and unite as the singular people we are meant to be. This is not possible if we can’t even speak the same language or understand each other.

It is worth noting here the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, that the language we use directly influences the way we think, and how we see the world. A classic example is that Russian children tend to be better at recognizing different shades of blue compared to English children because the Russian language actually has two distinct words for shades of “blue” (sini and goluboy). Inuit peoples have many more words for different types of “snow”, making them better at understanding this weather phenomenon and its many variations. Based on the same line of reasoning, one could argue that since Hebrew has many different words for “God”, a Hebrew-speaker who knows these nuances would be much better at understanding God, too. Although there are scholars who reject the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, one could make a strong case that children who are raised with a galut language will have a galut mindset, while those who are raised in Hebrew will have a more liberating, more Torah-true geulah mindset.

Finally, it is vital to dispel two common myths and counter-arguments to the common use of Hebrew. First, that Hebrew is “too holy” to use as a vernacular language, and should not be used for mundane conversations. This is silly, first because Hebrew was the common language of the Israelites for centuries. The Tanakh records the conversations of our forefathers and Biblical figures in Hebrew, whether for holy matters or mundane ones, during the performance of mitzvot or transgressions, for blessings and for curses, in political intrigue, adulterous affairs, military conquest, or even in describing idolatrous practices. King Solomon wrote Shir haShirim which doesn’t seem to speak of religious things at all and, at least on the surface, graphically depicts the deeply passionate love of a young couple.

Shir HaShirim would pave the way for later rabbis to write Hebrew love poetry, including the great Rabbi Yehuda haLevi (c. 1075-1141, most famous for his philosophical Kuzari). In addition to religious poetry, many others wrote secular Hebrew poetry, too, including Dunash ibn Labrat (c. 920-990) and both Moshe ibn Ezra (1055-1138) and Avraham ibn Ezra (1092-1167). Meanwhile, the great Kabbalah master Rabbi Itzchak Luria (1534-1572, “Arizal”) tried to always speak Hebrew, being especially careful with this on Shabbat, and only using the vernacular if necessary to explain something to others (See Sefer Toldot haAri). One could well argue that not only is Hebrew okay to use for day-to-day speech, it is actually a very good thing that will infuse some holiness into even the most mundane conversations!

The second myth to dispel is the argument that no one speaks “proper” Biblical Hebrew today, and Modern Hebrew is an “illegitimate” offshoot. In the Ultra-Orthodox world, it is common to hear that Hebrew and Lashon haKodesh are not the same thing. The main reason for this is, supposedly, that Modern Hebrew devised many new, non-Biblical words, and often used Aramaic, Arabic, or others as the foundation for these new terms. While this is true, it does not present a problem at all. Hebrew has always been a living and evolving language that borrowed from others. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 4b) goes so far as to say that even a mysterious Torah word like totafot, used to describe Tefillin in Exodus 13:16 and Deuteronomy 6:8, comes from two ancient “African” languages that mean “two and two”, to teach that Tefillin should have four sections.

The Torah names Aharon and Pinchas seem to mean nothing in Hebrew, but in ancient Egyptian aha-rw meant a “warrior lion” while Panahesy was a common Egyptian name meaning something like “bronze-skinned” or “Nubian”. The Talmud itself is in Aramaic, and is peppered with Greek words. Sanhedrin is the word for a Jewish supreme court, but comes from the Greek synedrion, “sitting together”. The Talmud explains that the now-Hebrew prosbul comes from the Greek pros bulei u’butei, “for the benefit of rich and poor” (Gittin 36b-37a). It uses the word pardes to refer to “the Heavens” in its account of four rabbis who ascended to the upper worlds (Chagigah 14b), giving rise to the English word “paradise”. Its earliest origin, though, is the ancient Persian-Avestan word for a park, paraideza, which made its way into one place in Tanakh (in Shir haShirim 4:13) as pardes, now the common Hebrew word for an “orchard”.

Another amazing example of the evolution of Hebrew is given by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh (see Breath of Life, pg. 72): the Talmud uses the Greek word androgynous to refer to a person with biologically indistinct gender—when it is not clear whether the person is a zakhar or nekevah, male or female, based on their anatomy. Rav Ginsburgh points out that, incredibly, the Hebrew gematria of “androgynous” (אנדרוגינוס) is 390, exactly equal to zakhar v’nekevah (זכר ונקבה). Of course, the word gematria itself, referring to Hebrew numerology, is of Greek origin!

So, the fact that Modern Hebrew has devised new words along the way, as necessary, even if based on other languages, is not problematic at all. This has always existed throughout the history of Israel, all the way back to the Torah itself. The reality is that society evolves, things change, and new words need to be coined. This happened in Biblical times, and in Talmudic times, and is continuing to happen today. Besides, many “Modern Hebrew” words are actually based on Biblical roots, including rakevet (רכבת) for a “train”, based on the Biblical rekhev (רכב) or merkava (מרכבה) for “chariot”; and chashmal (חשמל) for “electricity”, based on the lightning-like chashmal “electrum” described by the prophet Ezekiel in his opening chapter. (The modern chashmal was coined by Yehuda Leib Gordon [1830-1892], a child prodigy who reportedly knew the whole Tanakh and Talmud by heart. For more on the fascinating world of chashmal, see here.)

To conclude, Hebrew is the language of Hashem and the language of Creation, inseparable from Torah, from Judaism, and from the Jewish people. Hebrew has been our tongue for thousands of years, for both holy and secular purposes, and we need it now more than ever. It was the use of Hebrew that confirmed for the sons of Israel that the mysterious person in front of them was truly Joseph, teaching us that Hebrew speech is the mark of a true Israelite. It was the use of Hebrew that brought the people of Israel in Egypt the merit to be redeemed and saved. So too now, when we are awaiting the Final Redemption, it is in the merit of Hebrew, Hashem’s divine language, that we will get there.

Shabbat Shalom!

Secrets of the Jewish Calendar

Today we welcome the new month of Kislev. It is well-known that the months of the Hebrew year parallel the Tribes of Israel and the zodiacal constellations. According to Sefer Yetzirah, each month also embodies one of twelve fundamental aspects of humanity and life: sight, sound, smell, speech, taste, touch, action, motion, temper, joy, thought, and sleep (ראיה, שמיעה, ריחה, שיחה, לעיטה, תשמיש, מעשה, הלוך, רוגז, שחוק, הרהור, שינה). Each of these further corresponds to twelve main parts and organs of the human body, and actually emerges at their core from the twelve “elemental” letters of the Hebrew alphabet, as well as the twelve permutations of God’s Ineffable Name. Recall that Sefer Yetzirah divides up the alphabet into three categories: “mother” letters, “doubled” letters, and “elemental” or “simple” letters (for more on these, see here). Continue reading →

The Mystical Significance of Bones

In this week’s parashah, Beshalach, the Israelites finally leave Egypt. We read how Moses made sure to take with him ‘atzamot Yosef, the “bones of Joseph” (Exodus 13:19). It is interesting that a bone is called an ‘etzem (עצם), which literally means an “essence”. As an adjective, ‘atzum (עצום) means “strong”, as well as “shut” or “closed up”. This is fitting since bones are the strongest components of the body, and “closed up” within muscles and other tissues. (For those who like numbers, the gematria of עצום is 206, which is the total number of bones in the human body!) There is something especially significant about bones. God made Eve from Adam’s bone, and Adam later declared that Eve is “bone of my bone” (‘etzem mi’atzamai), implying that her essence is like his essence, and now he would finally be happy and no longer feel alone. What is so special about bones that they hold the very essence of a person?

One of the amazing wonders of biology is that each and every cell of our bodies contains our entire genome (except, of course, the reproductive cells). So, the DNA inside the nucleus of eye cells contains the genes that also program toenails, and the toes have the DNA of the retinal proteins in our eyes! It remains one of the great mysteries of biology how cells are able to control exactly which genes are turned “on” or “off” in every cell, and how they make sure that eyes don’t have nails, and nails don’t grow eyes. In our adult bodies, most cells have already been differentiated into something specific (like eyes or toes), but there is one place where cells remain undifferentiated, and could become anything. These are called stem cells, and they exist mainly within our bones. Here in the bone marrow, we do indeed find our ‘etzem, the core essence of who we are, still undifferentiated and full of potential to become anything.

This explains why God made Eve from Adam’s bone specifically, as if He took some of Adam’s undifferentiated stem cells to create Eve! This is precisely how a modern-day scientist experimenting with genetic engineering or organ printing would do it. Better yet, when scientists and surgeons need to extract bone marrow for stem cell transplants today, the rib bone is actually a great place to get them, since they are near the surface and easily accessible, with little meat around them. (I know that some people will quote a different opinion from our Sages, as in Berakhot 61a, that Eve was “split” from a two-faced Adam, or that she was made from his “tail”, but the rib opinion makes a great deal of sense from a scientific perspective.) In any case, when we remember that our bones contain our undifferentiated cells and our untampered DNA, we appreciate the beauty of divine Hebrew in calling a bone an “essence”.

Scientifically speaking, the human body has four main types of tissues: bones are a type of connective tissue, and then there is muscle tissue, nervous tissue, and epithelial tissue. The Torah, too, speaks of four types of tissues: bones, plus bassar (meat), gidim (nerves), and ‘or (skin), neatly paralleling the four biological categories. We know that all fours in the Torah—such as the four mystical universes, the four Pardes aspects of Torah study, and the four letters of God’s Ineffable Name—match up and correspond to each other. We can link these up yet again with the four tissue types, to see once more the divine anatomy with which we were created:

Skin represents the surface level of Torah study, pshat (פשט), corresponding to the lowest realm, the physical and superficial Asiyah (as well as the lowest level of soul, the nefesh). Interestingly, the word in Hebrew to undress, ie. to remove one’s surface garments and reveal the skin, is lehitpashet (להתפשט)!

Beneath the skin is muscle, the bulkiest and heaviest part of the body, representing the sub-surface level of Torah study, remez, and the angelic realm of Yetzirah, as well as the next level of soul, ruach. The ruach is typically associated with the heart, also a muscle. With this we can understand why bassar (בשר), “flesh” or “meat”, shares a root with revealing news, levasser (לבשר)—for what is levasser but to reveal something currently hidden and as yet unknown? Levasser is to give more information beyond the obvious surface pshat that is already known! Moreover, we can now better understand why the Torah specifically uses the term yetzirah to describe the creation of Adam’s body (Genesis 2:7), and the command later for him to specifically become one bassar with his wife (2:24).

Going onwards, the muscles are innervated and controlled by nerves, paralleling drash, the metaphorical and allegorical level of Torah study, and the higher realm of Beriah, along with the neshamah level of soul. The neshamah is seated in the brain, the largest bundle of nerves in our body.

Finally, the inner-most part of the body is the bone, representing sod, the deepest part of Torah and its very essence. This is the level of soul called chayah, fitting because our Sages taught that Eve (made from Adam’s bone) was originally called Chayah, and only after the consumption of the Fruit did she become Chavah (see Kli Yakar on Genesis 3:20). The bone-sod level corresponds to the highest realm of God’s pure emanation, Atzilut. (The pure white colour of bone symbolically adds to this, along with the alliteration between Atzilut and ‘atzamot!) Atzilut is the place of pure, unadulterated light. Light is אור, with a value of 206, again like the total number of bones in the human body. We see a beautiful phonetic relationship between the surface level of skin, ‘or, spelled עור, and the deepest-most level of bone, corresponding to secret light, or, אור. (A word for an even more profound secret is raz, רז, with a value of 207, going one step further.) Without bones, the body would fall apart into a shapeless mass, just as would Torah without sod. (The Chida, Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai [1724-1806] pointed out that if you take the sod out of Pardes [פרדס], you are left with pered [פרד], a mule!)

And what of the hidden-most “fifth” part—the “crown” atop the Yud of God’s Name and the yechidah soul, paralleling the most mysterious and mystical Adam Kadmon? Perhaps it’s the DNA itself, the very code that gives rise to all four tissue types of our bodies.

To summarize:

A final thought: Damage to the skin often heals back to the way it was before. Muscle and nerve damage is much harder to reverse, and sometimes irreparable. Bones, however, tend to heal back even stronger than they were. There is a wonderful lesson here for each of us, both individually and collectively as a nation: If something hurts us deeply and damages our very essence, we should bounce right back and recover, growing even stronger than we were before, so that our inner essence shines brighter than ever.

Shavua Tov and Happy Tu b’Shevat!

For more on ‘The Divine Anatomy of the Human Body’, see here.