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Is it true that
A. There is no word for fun in Lashon Hakodesh,
therefore
B. Fun is not a Jewish concept?
category: “things my seminary teachers told me that I wasn’t sure about”
No, in fact, people feel that it is ok to tell a girl to just not socialize with other people and stay home all day and then she ends up getting depressed to the point where she feels desperate… Its not a jewish concept at all.
i heard this too but my teacher explained it well.
She said of course you can do things you enjoy- amusement parks, sleepovers… but make sure u r enjoying yourself and recharging your batteries. Just to do it to waste time then its not a healthy kosher way to pass time. But of course u can have a great time and even call it fun!
Torah
Yes I heard this in more than one shiur from Rabbi Tatz and others. He also says that theres no word for nature. Teva is a word made up by the Rabbanan in the Talmudic times. Anyways, the way he explains it if I recall correctly is that Judaism is purpose driven there no such thing as purposeless things. Fun in and of itself is empty a waste of time and a way to distract ourselves from reality. That’s not to say one shouldn’t have a good time but when one has a good time it should be for Hashem so that he or she will be refreshed and relaxed and able to serve Hashem better. America is obsessed with fun and we think we need to waste hours a day on fun. Its American brainwashing. Ask your grandparents if they are alive how they spent their time as kids (pre ww2) you will see that it was never normal for kids and teens and certainly not adults to waste as much time as we do. I include myself in this rebuke. We have too many distractions today and it costs us in many ways.
Sheyihyu Kol Kavanosav L’sheim Shamayim. To quote a Rabbi of mine, “Relaxation is Assur; recreation is a Mitzvah”. If the purpose is to recharge, great. If it’s to waste time, bad.
What’s the German word for fun? Why is there no Lashon Kodesh word for Fahrgin?
What’s the German word for fun?
And what if you can only recharge by having fun? That is, if you only do things you enjoy while thinking that you are recharging, it ruins it and it doesn’t work and you don’t recharge?
Sam2: i think you quoted your rebbi the wrong way round
Torah: Recharging is supposed to be fun. But you still have to properly understand why you’re having fun. You don’t need to be thinking of it every instant. Just when you start the game or whatever you’re doing realize why you’re doing it.
otb: He defined relaxing as just Stam wasting time. Recreational activities meant you gained something out of it. But I could hear how you could reverse the words.
Torah613Torah
“In conclusion, my seminary teachers were wrong, and fun is a Jewish concept.”
I think they were right that technically since there is no word for fun, fun is not a Torah concept. Enjoyment is a Torah concept however all enjoyment and pleasure should be for a higher cause. We certainly don’t “need” to have fun the way we do today. We waste a lot of time and look for ways to have fun because we are bored not because we need some relaxation to go back to our avodas Hashem. Ill leave it at that. Lets put it this way, many things that are fun and that people do for fun may have not mutar aspects to them and they often dont lead a person to more avodas Hashem. When was the last time someone you knew came back from a day of fun at an amusement park and had “more” cheishek for a daf gemara or davening or other mitzvos?
they define fun as an end unto itself. like getting hammered ig its not friday night. as long as its so you can continue serving hashem and wont miss shabbos morning davening, its a mitzvah.
Toi
Getting hammered is a mitzvah?? Why didn’t anyone tell me?!
There are 48 prerequisites for acquiring Torah. One of them is Simcha (joy of life).
On the day in which joy is removed, 9th of Av normal learning ceases.
Also, most people need some down time to re-energize themselves for future accomplishment.
I am going to dispute the statement that there is no word in Loshon Hakodesh for “fun.”
English being a different languages with different origins, is often not going to have words that perfectly translate to and from Hebrew. But words are merely constructs for concepts. The Hebrew word “l’sachek” is used to refer to acting for “play” or “fun.” I think that it is definitely close enough that is incorrect to claim that there is no word for “fun” in Loshon HaKodesh.
If this is true, then where did the word “kef” come from?
Developing multiple words to describe similar things is hardly unique to Hebrew.
benignuman
Schok means laughter not fun (az yimalei schok pinu). There is no word for fun and there is a big difference between fun and laughter so dont make it like its the same thing. Another thing to keep in mind when dealing with the words of the Torah is that Loshon Kodesh is precise. It is the Language of Hashem that He used to create reality to create everything. A thing is intrinsically its word in loshon Kodesh so Loshon Kodesh will be exact always exact.
No, sorry- I mean, I’ve always learned that kef means fun in Hebrew. If what everyone is saying is that there is no such word as fun in Hebrew (or rather Lashon HaKodesh), then where did kef come from? Is it a derivative of another language incorporated into Modern Ivrit?
There are, however, more than one Hebrew word for pleasure. If you call it pleasure instead of fun does that make it holier?
Rav Avigdor Miller was against vacations. The american style kind where you go on a cruise or a tour or something.
ItcheSrulik
There are no 2 words in Loshon Kodesh that mean the same thing.
WIY,
In Hebrew each word has a shoresh. The shorashim have a conceptual meaning that morphs into specific meaning depending on the context of the word’s use and prefixes and suffixes. So while “schok” can mean “laughter” it can also mean “play” (As in Shmuel II 2:14).
Maybe I am just out in left field here, but to me a word that can mean play and laughter can mean “fun” as well.
Writersoul,
I believe “kef” comes arabic.
“There are no 2 words in Loshon Kodesh that mean the same thing.”
I am going to dispute that too. There are many. We often build drashos around explaining why different words are used, but pashut pshat there are 2 words that mean the same thing.
E.g., “dror” and “cheirus”
benignuman: Thanks! I’ve wondered about that, because I’ve heard this one too.
There is also apparently no word for “sharing” and no word for “fair.” My Ivrit teacher has a whole dvar Torah about that, but I digress.
Torah613Torah
“I’m really enjoying the back and forth on this topic. Thanks everyone. :)”
Are you having fun? If yes say it in Loshon Kodesh 🙂
WIY: It is one thing to say that every word in Lashon Hakodesh has a mystical meaning and represents some specific aspect of this universe. Unfortunately for the vast majority of us (and certainly those who are not complete experts in Kaballah), we don’t have the precise dictionary that tells us what each word means and how it relates to creation as a whole. Thus, of our practical intents and purposes, some words in Lashon Hakodesh can have multiple meanings and sometimes two words can mean the same thing. The word S’chok or Tz’chok (or one of the forms of L’tzachek, whether that precise word appears in Chumash or not) could definitely and easily be correctly translated as, “fun”.
I will repeat there are no 2 words that mean the same exact thing every word has a translation although translating it into another language poses difficulties. Yes sometimes there are 2 words that have similar meanings in certain contexts. Lets take your example. Cheirus means fresdom. However dror does not actually mean freedom even though artscroll and others may translate it that way because at the end of the day ws are referring to liberty. The word Dror means return or revert (see Rav Hirsch chumash in depth) . He says dror here means “Persons and property revert to where they naturally belong (man to his family and property to original owner).
Sam2
Actually Kabbalah aside even for pshat if you will look at meforshim like the Malbim and Rav Hirsch its apparent that to get correct pshat you need the correct translation of each word. Neither of them are kabbalah perushim. Rather pashut pshat according to their understanding of dikduk.
WIY: The point is that as languages develop and nuances change in both Hebrew and English, providing a direct word-for-word translation for every single possible permutation of every single Lashon Hakodesh Shoresh is impossible. Thus, I can’t definitively say that a word means fun in Lashon Hakodesh, but it’s very Mistaber that a nounal Kal form of the Shoresh Tzaddi Ches Kuf would be very close.
There is no word in Lashon Kodesh for nail-clippers. This is because a nail-clipper is not a Jewish concept. Really you are supposed to bite them.
What if a Navi, while putting down his nail-clippers, suddenly got a Nevua but declined to mention that he just put it down? We would never know the word for that!
The closest I can come to with a translation in Hebrew for “fahrgin” is “marsheh” (to “allow” to oneself or to another).
I always thought “l’sacheik” meant to “play” e.g. and i.e., to have fun
So, as it turns out, there is a word in Lashon Kodesh for fun but not for Fahrgin. That must mean that Fahrginning is not a Torah concept but having fun is, of course.
HaLeiVi
There still is no word for fun.
From Google translate:
????? — fun, good time
?????? — laughter, laugh, fun, mockery, jest, merriment
??????????? — amusement, fun, entertainment, game, sport, pastime
?????????? — fun, facetiousness, joy
?????? — fun, prank, jesting, mockery, scorn, ridicule
????????? — gaiety, cheerfulness, joy, playfulness, mirth, fun
??????? — distraction, entertainment, fun, recreation, amusement
Haleivi
These are all hebrew. ????? is fun but its not a Biblical word. The rest don’t mean fun some mean laughter some mean jest or scorn or plaything but ????? is the only hebrew word for fun and it isnt Biblical.
You saw what Benign wrote and you asked him from Az Yimalei S’chok Pinu, while Yiladim Misachakim didn’t bother you. That was actually his very point. We see that this Shoresh is not narrowed to laughter, rather to engulfing yourself with enjoyment. In fact, funny probably means of the fun type, which is very similar to what happened with S’chok and Mesachek.
But actually, it is silly to parallel languages. Every language has words that other languages will have to express with many words — which is my point with Fahrgin. In English we can say everyone and anyone. In Lashon Hakodesh, and Hebrew as well — I think — we say Kol Echad. We would have to emphasize what we mean by Kulanu, or Mishehu.
In Nedarim the Ran explained at length the difference between the two meanings. Being an English speaker, I was able to sum it up into two words, any and every.
Fun is passive. We say, I had fun, but not, I did fun. In Hebrew, it is a verb. This type of Derush is very poor, and should definately not be basis for an idea.
I wonder if Jewish people even made the Hebrew- English version of google translate.
Two funs is ????.
One of the reasons we have more leisure time is electricity.
Most of us have never really been to a place with no lights, Its really dark and even a lantern doesnt really help much.
today we can do anymost anything a night as we can do during the day so you can do things at night that you didnt have to wait until the next day to continue
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