Defining the Spiritual
May, 2019
English is the Los Angeles of languages.
Like that warm city by the Pacific where so many of its citizens began life in another part of the country (or world), much of the English language is made up by words that arrived from other places, most notably French, Latin, Germanic languages, Greek, etc.
This makes for uneven and seemingly capricious rules for spelling.
Growing up in Canada, I spelled ‘color’ as ‘colour’. In fact, I spelled ‘spelled’ as ‘spelt’, making learning about the chamishes minei dagein confusing!
After learning the proper spelling for American English, I had another challenge –transliterations.
As bizarre as English spelling can be, try spelling a Hebrew or Yiddish term!
For example, how does one write the Hebrew name for the middle forefather, the son of Avraham?
Artscroll finds a happy balance in-between the sefardi and ashkanazi pronunciations –‘Yitzchak’–while others spell it Yitzchok, the way most enunciate it.
Virtually every Jewish publishing house has their own rules for transliterations, including Ami. I once published an article for an English Halacha journal. It was close to fifty pages in length with close to one-hundred footnotes. As much time went it to writing the piece, an almost equal time was given to another task. Weeks before publication, I received the article back together with pages describing their specific and exacting rules for how to spell Hebrew names and words, it took me hours to reformat each entry to their liking, e.g. Igros Moshe became Iggerot Moshe.
It was with this in mind that I read a piece of news.
Every year, believe it or not, one of the most followed sporting events in the country is the Scripps Spelling Bee, where kids from around the country compete.
These are not your 7th Grade spelling bee words.
Words like auslaut, erysipelas, bougainvillea, aiguillette, pendeloque, palama, cernuous and odylic need to be spelled (spelt?) correctly, and in a certain time frame. In fact, those were the very words in this year’s final round.
What made news this year was that there was no single winner. Each of the above eight words were spelled correctly by each of the eight finalists making it an eight-way tie.
Because of the above-described complexity of the English language, after a word is given a competitor may ask the judges for certain information.
“Can you use it in a sentence?” is always popular, and allowed. “What is the language of origin?” can be very helpful to figure out how it may be transliterated.
For example, over Shavous we read the chazal relating to Rus and Naomi’s dialogue of gerus. “Where you go, I will go” (Rus 1:16). The Midrash (Rus Rabbah 2:22) explains that Rus was replying to something Naomi had said. “Ti be Jewish means not going to theaters and circuses”.
Leaving aside the halachic implications of this statement, as well as why -in the entire pantheon of halacha – this was the crucial message to give a potential convert –we notice something else.
The Roman/Latin word ‘circus’ in chazal is spelled beginning with a chuf, not a samech or sin. In other words, it is pronounced kirkus.
This may help explain the ‘soft’ letter C with which it is spelled in English as well.
So why am I writing about the Scripps Spelling Bee? Because, while the news focused on the eight-way tie, we notice something else.
It was the first morning of the first day of the Spelling Bee.
There was electricity in the air. Nervous kids who have been studying for months wiped their sweaty palms on their pants as they anxiously awaited the first words.
Finally, it was time. The first judge spoke, offering the first word of the 2019 competition.
The first word?
Yiddeshkeit.
When a congregant sent me this information, I had a flurry of thoughts.
First of all, I do not even know how to spell that word! As pointed out above, no two frum publications houses could agree as to its spelling –so how can there possibly be a designated national spelling?!
Then I read on and saw that more borrowed terms were a part of the contest. For instance the word ‘keriah’.
My next consideration was if this was a good thing or a dangerous thing.
On the one hand, perhaps that these terms have entered the language shows our influence, but, on the other hand, perhaps they have become just that, words, devoid of their weight, meaning and private significance.
But then I had two final thoughts.
In fact I shared these next thoughts over Shavous, in my yizkar derasha. In my shul, during any yizkar, the room is crammed with Jews of all stripes, levels and backgrounds. Filled with mostly regulars, there are also those who come to shul only for special events or days such as these when they can recall their loved ones.
I explained how I began to fantasize about what it would be like being that contestant; an eleven-year-old kid born in India and raised in Iowa.
The judge says, “Yiddeshkeit”.
The child simply can’t make sense out of the phonetic medley he just heard. He must have kindly asked, “Yiddeshkeit. Can I have the definition, please?”
How many times have I as a rabbi been asked to define my faith, to define Yiddeshkeit?
Can a judge do so in a few words?
How does one define it?!
Then I began to imagine the kid asking the second, most popular of contestants’ questions:
“Yiddeshkeit, Can you please use it in a sentence?”
“Yiddeshkeit, Can you please use it in a sentence?”
“Let us assume” I began “That you are a judge on this panel. How would you use it in a sentence? How do you use it in a sentence in front of family and children?”
We once wrote here how Rav Moshe Feinstein would often warn parents to be careful how they talk about Yiddeshkeit in front of their children. By saying such things as ‘es iz shver tzu zein a yid’ one can destroy their love for Yiddeshkeit.
“Yiddeshkeit. Yiddeshkeit if my raison d’être, my reason for being. Yiddeshkeit” one judge may say.
Another judge, “Yiddehskeit. I feel stifled by Yiddeshkeit. Yiddeshkeit”
Finally, the last judge. “Yiddeshkeit. Yiddeshkeit is a part of, but not the center, of my life. Yiddeshkeit.”
Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend Shabbos in Camp Romimu together with TAG High School for their annual Shabbaton. TAG is the Beis Yaakov of the Five Towns.
Every year they have such a Shabbos at the end of the year, and bring in a rav to speak to them. Among the many shiurim I was asked to give was one Q and A, a question and answer session.
I have done these before, and expected a slew of hashkafic and philosophical questions relating to mesora and the amito shel torah.
However, I was pleasantly surprised.
“May I still say birchas krias shma if it is after zman krias shma?” was the first question.
What followed was an untold number of questions relating to halacha, teffila and hands-on Yiddeshkeit.
I told the girls, and I shall repeat here, how impressive this was.
They were not looking at Yiddeshkeit from without, but it was their lifeblood, the center of their lives.
The old rabbinical story goes of how a maggid once came to a town.
“What will you be speaking about?” asked the rav.
“Chinuch habanim” replied the maggid.
“No, no!” said the rav, explaining, “There is breakaway school. Due to politics, you need to stay away from that topic “.
“Ok. Then I shall speak about talmud torah”
“No, No!” replied the rabbi again, “There is a big fight in the shul as to what type of shiur I should give. Please, do not go near that topic”
“I see” says the maggid. “Alright, I will speak about the importance of kashrus”
“No, no!” exclaims the rabbi, lnce again, “You see, a new, competing vaad opened up in the city. It is too touchy a topic”
Exacerbated, the maggid exclaims, “I cant speak about Torah, you do not want me touching chinuch, and you wish I stay away from kashrus… what should I speak about?!”
The rabbi innocently responds, “Just speak about Yiddeshkeit!”
Yiddeshkeit never needs redefining –we know its essence –it does need re-marketing or a PR rep to bring it to a new generation, chalila. Rather it us that need to redefine our relationship with it.
To re-define Yiddeshkeit for ourselves; as the center of our universe, our very lifeblood.
Yiddeshkeit –We may not be sure how to spell it, but we know what it means!re-define Yiddeshkeit for ourselves; as the center of our universe, our very lifeblood.
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