Home › Forums › Bais Medrash › Is Yiddish Holy?
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February 1, 2009 1:26 am at 1:26 am #589269amesParticipant
yiddish is basicly a mix of old german, polish, and hebrew (I guess now you can add english to the list), and I can’t think of any reason it should have any kedushah.
April 15, 2017 10:26 pm at 10:26 pm #1254432zaltzvasserParticipantbump.
April 16, 2017 12:04 am at 12:04 am #1254467Moshe1994ParticipantThe only holy languages are Lashon Kodesh (Hebrew) and Aramaic.
April 16, 2017 10:14 am at 10:14 am #1254521zahavasdadParticipantActually Greek is holier than Aramaic. Greek is the only language where you are allowed to read the tprah from
April 16, 2017 10:18 am at 10:18 am #1254554smerelParticipantIt doesn’t have kedusah per se but the idioms, colloquialisms and euphemisms are so based on Torah, chazal and Torah haskafa that Yiddish has enormous value in that sense.
To give a random example. (I can think of many, many others)Someone who was picking up Rav Moshe Feinstein to drive him somewhere told him “In Europe (Yiddish) we said the ba’al agalah is here. In America(English) we say the car is here” Rav Moshe commented that this is a very sad difference. In Europe (Yiddish)the focus was on the person (the ba’al agalah) who is waiting outside.In America(English)the focus is on the car and your ability to get a ride.
Ba’al Agolah is Hebrew so this idiom definitely wasn’t picked up from non-Jewsih society.
April 16, 2017 10:50 am at 10:50 am #1254568zahavasdadParticipantYiddish is one of the few languages where the Nivel Peh made it into american english
April 16, 2017 1:41 pm at 1:41 pm #1254590mw13ParticipantSome groups have a tendencey to consider anything that (in their minds) symbolises Jewish culture to be holy. This can include anything from shtreimels to IDF uniforms.
Personally, I think their being מניח את העיקר ותופס את התפל
April 16, 2017 3:15 pm at 3:15 pm #1254719JosephParticipantWADR, Why should what you personally feel/think have any bearing on what the reality is?
April 16, 2017 5:42 pm at 5:42 pm #1254744mw13Participant?
That’s what I think the reality is.
April 20, 2017 11:41 am at 11:41 am #1258182mw13Participant…but thanks for the due respect 😉
April 20, 2017 6:49 pm at 6:49 pm #1258416JosephParticipantAlways a pleasure to make my point while being respectful. 😎 (Really my point was that, depending on the issue, they could be correct in that it symbolizes Jewish culture and contains elements of kedusha.)
April 21, 2017 1:25 am at 1:25 am #1258570hujuParticipantYiddish is moly, not holy. Same for Aramaic. Hebrew is holy because Hashem spoke it to create the world. He never spoke Yiddish or Aramaic or used either language.
April 21, 2017 7:41 am at 7:41 am #1258604zahavasdadParticipantGreek is holy because the emperor Ptolemy wanted a copy of the torah in Greek for his library in Alexandria. He then asked 70 Rabbanim to translate the torah into greek. He put the 70 Rabbanim in seperate rooms unable to communicate with other. They each made the exact same translation of the torah into Greek including I belive 5 changes. Like during creation, The torah says “Let us make man” they all translated it as “I shall make man” and the Emperor’s wife’s name sounded like the hebrew word for Rabbit and the torah says something not nice about a rabbit, so they changed that as well.
Since all 70 translations came out exactly the same inclduing the changes. It was seen as a miracle (and a bad thing to some as they thought now the non-jews could read the torah) from Hashem, so you can read the Torah in Greek.
April 21, 2017 7:41 am at 7:41 am #1258605lesschumrasParticipantAt least there are tefilos in Aramaic, I.e.the kaddish. There are none in Yiddish. However, Yiddish has a lot of curse words; I don’t know of any in Aramaic
April 21, 2017 8:42 am at 8:42 am #1258629nishtdayngesheftParticipant“At least there are tefilos in Aramaic, I.e.the kaddish. There are none in Yiddish. However, Yiddish has a lot of curse words; I don’t know of any in Aramaic”
There are many tefillos in Yiddish.
And that you do not know of something is far from being conclusive proof.
Vdal
April 21, 2017 8:43 am at 8:43 am #1258624zahavasdadParticipantAll languages have nivel peh, Its just the nature of the life and if it doesnt, they will borrow them from another language. Hebrew borrowed them from Arabic.
Aramaic probably has those words too, however Aramaic today is only spoken by assyrian christians in Syria and there were not many of them before. Now with the Syrian civil war those people are probably someplace else .
April 21, 2017 8:43 am at 8:43 am #1258627ChortkovParticipantGreek is holy because the emperor Ptolemy wanted a copy of the torah in Greek for his library in Alexandria.
I thought the Gemara learns it from a posuk יפת אלקים ליפת וישכון באהלי שם. Do you know of any valid source that connects the translation to Greek to the fact that you may read a Greek Torah scroll?
April 21, 2017 9:24 am at 9:24 am #1258634lesschumrasParticipantNisht, educate me. Name one prayer we say everyday, in a siddur that’s written in Yiddish. I’ve never seen one. A different, I’m talking about a regular siddur, not Tserena
April 21, 2017 9:55 am at 9:55 am #1258652JosephParticipantGut funn Avraham
April 27, 2017 12:39 pm at 12:39 pm #1264212YonasonRParticipantYiddish, in my opinion has some Kedusha, because of the fact that so many Gedolei Yisrael and Talmidei Chachamim used it to discuss fantasic chiddushei Torah
April 27, 2017 1:11 pm at 1:11 pm #1264234ChaverParticipantTorah and other holy talk were spoken in many other languages, does that make all the languages holy?
April 27, 2017 2:15 pm at 2:15 pm #1264323mw13ParticipantYeah, how about Arabic? That’s what the Chovos HaLevavos and the Rambam’s Pirush Mishnayos were written in.
April 27, 2017 3:03 pm at 3:03 pm #1264401zahavasdadParticipantYiddish, in my opinion has some Kedusha, because of the fact that so many Gedolei Yisrael and Talmidei Chachamim used it to discuss fantasic chiddushei Torah
There is probably today more Chidushei Torah in English , than there is in Yiddish, certainly more seforim today are written in english than yiddish
April 27, 2017 3:04 pm at 3:04 pm #1264402ChaverParticipantIf Yiddish is holy because its a “jewish” language then Ladino should also be a holy language.
April 27, 2017 4:19 pm at 4:19 pm #1264441JosephParticipantTrue. Ladino also contains elements of kedusha.
June 12, 2018 5:28 pm at 5:28 pm #1538298MasmidInTrainingParticipantWhat’s the צד that it is holy?
June 13, 2018 1:05 am at 1:05 am #1538420RSoParticipantSee Shulchan Oruch, Even Ho’ezer 126:1 where the Remo writes that Hebrew and Aramaic “were both given at Sinai, they were linguistically related, and they are like one language”.
June 13, 2018 1:05 am at 1:05 am #1538424yrechnitzParticipantייִדיש איז טאַקע בעסער פֿון העברעיִש, ווייַל ייִדיש האָט געמאַכט אַן אומריינע שפראַכן אין אַ הייליק שפּראַך, און העברעיש האָט געביטן אַ הייליקסטע שפּראַך צו אַן אומריינער שפּראַך.
June 13, 2018 1:05 am at 1:05 am #1538418cherrybimParticipantLet’s start from the very beginning for a thorough discussion:
theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/the-importance-of-yiddish/page/1
June 13, 2018 8:13 am at 8:13 am #1538487lesschumrasParticipantAramaic is holy. The Torah is written using Aramaic letyers. The original Hebrew/Lashon Kadosh was written uding proto-Hebrew letters. When Ezra came back , aming the revisions he instituted ( i.e. laining on Monday and Thursday ) was switching to Aramaic block letters.
June 14, 2018 7:52 am at 7:52 am #1539205RSoParticipantlesschumras, that happens to be a matter of dispute in Gemoro Sanhedrin 22a.
June 14, 2018 8:18 am at 8:18 am #1539216lesschumrasParticipanttechnically it’s PaleoHebrew and it actually coexisted in a limited role until Bar Cochba. Hasmonean and Bar Cochba coins have inscriptions in PaleoHebrew .
June 14, 2018 6:16 pm at 6:16 pm #1539981WinnieThePoohParticipantAs pointed out above, the argument that Yiddish is holy because it was the language used to learn Torah is flawed because there are many languages used to learn Torah, and no one is going to claim that they are holy.
I have a different take, inspired by ChabadShlucha’s thread on holiness:
If we define kodesh as something set aside, separate, then one can argue that Yiddish is Kadosh because it separated the Jewish people from others- although similar to German, it was the language of the Jews, it made them distinct from their non-Jewish neighbors for many years, and also bonded Jews from different regions- at least those hailing from European countries. Same with Ladino in its time. (My father once taught Russian immigrants recently arrived in the US in the 1990s. He was able to communicate with them by speaking Yiddish with some of the old timers, who then translated to the younger ones). One can also argue that as Yiddish loses this function, it loses its status as Kadosh.June 15, 2018 3:56 pm at 3:56 pm #1540649It is Time for TruthParticipant” many Lithuanian Jews also pronounced the word ‘Shibboleth’ as ‘Sibboleth’. As a result of their enunciation, other Yiddish speakers .. referred to the Lithuanian dialect of Yiddish as ‘Sabesdiker Losn’.”
June 17, 2018 1:08 pm at 1:08 pm #1540799It is Time for TruthParticipantIn the Sefer B’Tuv Yerushalayim it relates that the Maharil Diskin refused to speak to a certain Talmid Chacham of Jerusalem because he used to spek only Loshon HaKodesh. Said the Maharil Diskin, “For generations we are accustomed to speaking Yiddish, not Loshon HaKodesh.”
p.s. However it seems that R’ Sonnenfeld later regretted this position.He even answered the Mandate language replying he spoke hebrew
June 17, 2018 1:09 pm at 1:09 pm #1540800It is Time for TruthParticipanttypo Mandate Language census
June 17, 2018 1:10 pm at 1:10 pm #1540802It is Time for TruthParticipantthe Debreciner Rav ZL was asked about about english and he replied that our “Yeshivishizing” english suffices to fulfill what the Chasam Sofer wanted. We borrow many expressions from Yiddish, Aramaic (as in l’chorah, memaileh etc) and Hebrew (like mamsh), as well as changing the usage and syntax (The usage of the word “by” in “I was by so-and-so for Shabbos” does not happen in the English language).
Rav Reuven Grozovsky in “Bayos HaZeman”, regarding making Modern Hebrew our “national language.”brings a responsa of Rav Yaakov Sasportes, a great combatant in the fought against the Shabse Tzvi He relates that Shabse Tzvi actually intorduced some positive, even obligatory practices into Judaism. [Performing Birkas Kohanim daily, even in Chutz La’aretz, was foremost among them. But, says the Ohel Yaakov, even though this is a good and positive practice, and perhaps even obligatory according to Halacha, since its origins came through Shabse Tzvi, we should not do it.
June 17, 2018 1:12 pm at 1:12 pm #1540806It is Time for TruthParticipantRav Reuven in his epochal 1948 speech castigated all in isms of the era including
Zionism ,hebrewism and yiddishm
He declared that the yiddisher heart and holiness were seeped into the language
and Yiddish was thoroughly redolent of them.
However for some it could be turned into a religion and a foreign Ends in of itselfJune 17, 2018 1:12 pm at 1:12 pm #1540807TalmidchochomParticipantNot at all. The Bundists, Jewish communists and reformers were the biggest proponents of Yiddish as a cultural medium. No holiness whatsoever in Yiddish. Moshe Rabbeinu did not speak Yiddish.
June 17, 2018 1:13 pm at 1:13 pm #1540912RedlegParticipantRMF’s position was that Ashkenazi Jews should learn Yiddish as a Minhag Kadosh
June 17, 2018 1:14 pm at 1:14 pm #1540934Avi KParticipantWinnie, many non-Jews have been fluent in Yiddish. James Cagney picked it up as a boy on the Lower East Side – and used it in two of his movies. Colin Powell learned it working for Jews. An immigrant from Russia once told me that when her mother was sitting in a park the Arab caretaker addressed her in Yiddish. He had worked for Jews as a boy in the Old city of Jerusalem.
Tie, kol hasoneh halachot kol yom. BTW, some Sephardic groups also had this pronunciation. Apparently it was widespread in ancient times as it passed into Ancient Greek (sabbaton), Latin (sabbatum), English (sabbath and sabbatical), Spanish and Italian (sabato) and Russian (subbota).
June 17, 2018 1:36 pm at 1:36 pm #1540989TalmidchochomParticipantIf that is really true, show me and others the letter or tshuvah where RMF said that.
June 17, 2018 1:36 pm at 1:36 pm #1540992TalmidchochomParticipantDon’t be putting words into RMF ‘s mouth when he is not here to clarify. Prove your statement, RedLeg
June 17, 2018 1:57 pm at 1:57 pm #1540999WinnieThePoohParticipantAviK- just because some individual non-Jews learned Yiddish from their Jewish neighbors does not take away from the fact that they were speaking the language associated with Jews and spoken mostly by this community.
If your primary language was Yiddish and your neighbor’s Polish, and you spoke YIddish at home, even if both you and your neighbor knew enough of each other’s language to sell each other eggs or whatever, still, the difference in language kept you apart.June 17, 2018 2:04 pm at 2:04 pm #1541007Avi KParticipantTime, when Rav Charlap first came to Rav Kook’s yeshiva he addressed him in creole German. Rav Kook said “Being that you are new here I will not hold it against you. However, you should know that one does not address me in Jargon”. “Is there a mitzva to speak Hebrew ” by Rabbi ephraim Sprecher (online) where he quotes various sources, including RMF, as saying that there is such a mitzva. The Sheeta Mekubatzet even quotes the Raavad as saying that one might not fulfill the mitzva of talmud Torah in another language.
As for Rav Reuven’s alleged speech, it would certainly surprise Sephardic and Yemenite Jews (as would being called “Yidden”).
Shabbatai Tzvi did not institute saying Birkat Cohanim in Chul. This is the position of the Mechaber. The Gra and Rav Chaim of Volozhin also wanted to institute it but were unsuccessful.June 17, 2018 4:37 pm at 4:37 pm #1541083It is Time for TruthParticipantTalmudC and Avi,
It was one of the most impactful orations of the time
with reverberationsPurchase a copy of Bayos/t Hazeman
It should be in there.
Or ask any Williamsburg , East Side, or similar oldtimerJune 17, 2018 4:39 pm at 4:39 pm #1541088It is Time for TruthParticipant” Moshe Rabbeinu did not speak Yiddish.”
Moshe Rabbeinu didn’t do much of what we do having developed over the eons. One who however diverts from them[ not out of ignorance but out of contempt]
Poretz geder yin’shache’hu nachash
AND
minhag yisroel Kodesh!?2/Chavtzeles HaSharon (I:OH:10) Loshon HaKodesh is only Kodesh if its used exclusively for holy things. That is once you start using it to speak mundane things, its not holy anymore.
The Rambam writes that a love song in Hebrew is more repulsive to G-d than the same song in Arabic, for instance, because the pollution of the Holy language is an additional crime3/Though there were Yiddishistin who spoke Yiddish, they took it from us, not vice-versa (as is the case of Modern Hebrew), and as we do not live in a society dominated by Yiddish-speaking frei, there is no benefit of Lo shinu es leshonam by not speaking Yiddish.
June 17, 2018 4:39 pm at 4:39 pm #1541090It is Time for TruthParticipantChasam Sofer on SHulchan Aruch, OH #65 – reason we do not speak Loshon HaKodesh is to prevent undesirable people from speaking it, and to prevent its being used in impure places.
June 17, 2018 7:58 pm at 7:58 pm #1541178Jersey JewParticipanthuju,
I believe the Gemora says Adom HaRishon spoke Aramaic.
June 18, 2018 7:16 am at 7:16 am #1541315zahavasdadParticipantThe Chasam sofer also Poskened that Droshot should only be given in Yiddish, which made perfect sense in polygot Pressberg (Bratislava) where jews spoke all sorts of language as part of the Austrian Empire and Yiddish was the only common language
It makes no sense in either Modern Day America or Israel where the common language is English or Hebrew (Depending on the country) and most of the people probably dont even speak or understand Yiddish (And probably in Many cases, the Rabbi doesnt speak Yiddish either)
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