I confess to being in retirement for the past month. Now Deuteronomy 4:4 is back, after its eponymous verse was read in synagogues across the world last Saturday. But why the long break to begin with?
For a period of seven weeks, I was studying and working at the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. The Steiner Summer Internship ensured a full experience of Jewish Eastern Europe in both its language and culture classes, as well as in its music nights and movie screenings.
Concerning this column, up until this point I have largely ignored cultural religion, instead choosing to focus primarily on theological grounds. Did this internship enlighten me so that I realize that culture bound to a religion is as important as belief in a Higher Power?
Most certainly. There is an imbalance in choosing to focus entirely on a religious component. Having been in an Orthodox Jewish sphere myself, I should say that a purely culture-less religion, especially a variation of one like Judaism or Islam that focuses on precepts, ensures that you are constantly telling yourself “You’re not doing enough” or “Other people are better observers of the law than you are”
But a secular culture and a secular language bound to a religion—and Yiddish fulfilled both—ensures that all of us within that culture can share it equally. Anyone who speaks even a little Yiddish feels Jewish.
Ecclesiastes teaches that a threefold cord is not easily broken (4:12). Religious subcultures enable add one more cord to the twofold cord of religious dogma and religious community life, and anything that can strengthen, even marginally, religious belief is a good thing. I admit that I have underestimated this good of cultural Judaism in the past.
Cultural religious manifestations also allow for everyone within the society to be understood as holy and part of a godly society. Reading “The Thousand and One Nights” gives an Arab and Persian culture picture that is heavily Islamic but also worldly. Characters from all walks of life get a turn in the stories, and the way in which religion is balanced with functioning and admirable people is something that many fundamentalist regimes of all colors could do well to emulate.
Yiddish Culture for me, in particular, has ensured that I have felt a communion (excuse my word choice) with everyone who has spoken the language. The songs we sung and the stories we learned reflected a world in which peasants can become holy and rabbis debauched. Everything could be upside down from the way we expect it to be, and despite the fact that literature generally portrays worlds that never were, the sentiments equalizing the many Jews of Eastern Europe as equally Jewish I wish were more present in our own day.
It is no surprise that institutions that wanted to carve out separate and sectarianism have targeted and seclude Yiddish Culture. Without it, the threefold cord becomes a twofold cord, which endows an advantage to some, while the whole of religious should be a blessing onto all. To paraphrase the Prophet Haggai, cultures like these are a gift, we should not turn away from them.
4 Comments
Ron Medley, `73
How do you feel about non-Jews using Yiddish words and phrases? I readily confess to it (though, to be perfectly honest, I don’t always know the difference between Yiddish and modern Hebrew.) And though, I haven’t until now considered how much it might actually make me feel “Jewish” every time I do so, I guess one way of looking at it is, once you use a word, you do in a sense become naturalized to its meaning.
Jared Gimbel
There are two ways to use a Yiddish word in your context:
(1) To use an English word of Yiddish origin (chutzpah) or
(2) To use a Yiddish word not commonly accepted to be English (e.g. I am “mekabl-ponim” someone)
It certainly isn’t a sin. You might offend some Yiddish purists, but Yinglish is what it is, and Yiddish’ influence on English is a commonly accepted fact.
(Examples:
“Would you be so good as to…”
“Okay by me”
“Don’t wise me up”
This list can go on forever)
How do I feel about it? I accept language in all of its forms, as long as it is grammatically correct. I, as one person, am no one to attempt to swerve the evolution of any language.
The primary differences between Yiddish and Modern Hebrew:
(1) Yiddish is a southern Germanic language of Slavic origin with three primary dialects (Litvak, Galitz, and Ukrainian).
Modern Hebrew is a Semitic language that has no dialects, or at least that’s what Israelis nowadays try to convince me of. Most speakers of Modern Hebrew retain accents from the languages of their ancestors, from what I have heard.
(2) Yiddish has no centralized academy and probably never will. My teacher called it “a politically incorrect language” (He’s a native speaker from Latvia). People will ultimately need to invent words and internationalisms, and that has happened.
Modern Hebrew: everything in the previous paragraph does not hold. Except for the internationalisms part.
Yiddish is an older language and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda borrowed not only Slavic and Germanic words (including Yiddish ones), but also deliberately spliced Yiddish idioms into Hebrew.
Hope this answers at least something.
Ron Medley, `73
A groissen dahnk!
Jared Gimbel
Nishto far vos!