Is Yiddish Holy?

Does Rav Dovid Cohen stipulate why yiddish is holy?

Ubiq
And if there is a value to holding on to an old language simply because that’s how we conversed for say a thousand years, why did we stop Aramaic?
Ladino?
(Spanish?)

May 29, 2019 2:56 pm at 2:56 pm#1735500REPLY
ubiquitinParticipant
Joseph

IS YIDDISH HOLY?

“Wasn’t the haskalah conducted in Yiddish? …Yiddish theater?”

Those aren’t Avoda zara. A practice taken up for Avoda zara like riasing hands during davening, korban on bama becomes assur that is why trees were stopped .

“why did we stop Aramaic?”

We didn’t stop it , it is still used for much of davening . with time it fell into disuse I don’t think there was an effort to stop it.

The above is your post
You were responding to my question as to why we stopped using Aramaic.
You wrote
“We didn’t stop it , it is still used for much of davening . with time it fell into disuse I don’t think there was an effort to stop it.”
Not sure why you would deny it

As to more gathering
The question is
Is Yiddish holy

Not is tefillah holy
Sure tefillah is holy but that proves nothing about the holiness of Yiddish
The discussion is about Yiddish in general
Same answer to your other question, sure nobody would change the language of a tefillah from a.k.h. but that doesn’t make Aramaic holy. Again it is the tefillah that is holy.

I didnt mention the Maharil Diskin, but because your asking no why would I think that?
True you didn’t mention him but I was “gathering “more information about your position.
Being as the story claims he wouldn’t talk, at least not to an important person, (and hashem is certainly as important) in the foul language of Hebrew, and being as you In your line of questioning seem to equate casual conversation with tefillah, it should follow that he would not talk to hashem using that foul language called Hebrew

(I don’t believe the story,
I believe all parts of tefillah are holy independently of which language they are in,
So I am not bothered by this question.)

The Debretziner Rav ztz’l was asked, are you allowed to take to the bathroom the פארווערטס, Forward, a yiddish newspaper? He answered, the question is if you are allowed to take it out?

Ubiq
I don’t understand your last post
But we can still be friends

Sorry Klugeryid,
Does not pass the logic test.

KY
Poe’s law is already established law it doesn’t need any more proof.
“I don’t understand your last post”
Thats ok, your a bit late to this party and clearly havent read through the wwhole thing (not that I blame you) as you are repeating a lot of silly points that have been addressed already.
I will repost the main point from my last post, which points you in the direction of, what I think out point of disagreement is. :

“but that doesn’t make Aramaic holy”
So that is where we differ, we may be defining “holy” differently . See joseph’s excellent concise explanation at the top of page 6, and my wordier one linked to right after his.

TC
see Jacobs, Neil G. (2005). Yiddish: a Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge University Press. p. 2. who says it is 900-1100 years old
It certainly was in use in the 13th century (not quite 1000 years ago but close) as the oldest yiddish inscription appears in the Worm’s Machzor : ““Gut taq im betage se vaer dis mahsor in beith hakenseth trage,””

(As an aside 13th century Yiddish similar to today’s Yiddish, and the above sentence is quite intelligible if you speak yiddish, compare to 13th century English (ie middle English) eg here is a line from “The Owl and the nightingale” “Þe bloſtme. gynneþ ſpringe & ſpred Boþe in treo & ek in mede. which apparently translates to The blossoms quickly spring and swellon every tree and in the dell:)

This continuing back and forth about holiness of Yiddish is insulting and degrading to the concept of Kedusha (holiness) . We forgot how the Torah and Shas define what it means to be holy. Pause from this ridiculous discussion, grab a Sefer or two, see what Kedusha represents and then return here and see if you don’t have a more intelligent insight as to whether Yiddish is holy.

TC

I took your advice, Bereishis Rabbah 74:14
וַיִּקְרָא לוֹ לָבָן יְגַר שָׂהֲדוּתָא , אָמַר רַבִּי שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר נַחְמָן אַל יְהֵא לָשׁוֹן פַּרְסִי הַזֶּה קַל בְּעֵינֶיךָ, שֶׁבַּתּוֹרָה בַּנְּבִיאִים בַּכְּתוּבִים מָצִינוּ שֶׁהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא חוֹלֵק לוֹ כָּבוֹד

A poster here said ” but that doesn’t make Aramaic holy”
Aramaic is in fact holy (again, as mentioned several times in this thread, I am not clear as to what “holy ” means, but clearly There is something special? sacred? important? holy? about Aramaic.) As the medrash warns, don’t take it lightly .

“This continuing back and forth about holiness of Yiddish is insulting and degrading to the concept of Kedusha (holiness) ”

I agree, it is also insulting and degrading to the holiness of Yiddish,
And this discussion is getting repetitive. with absolutely nothing constructive being added at this point,

This is pretty clear, josph put it very succinctly, I elaborated perhaps to a fault,
At this point, Kol hamosif goreah, if there is any particular point you have trouble with I’d be happy to try to clarify
but repeating “Done It is holy” “no its not” “Yes it is” Is not my style

The Lubavitcher Rebbe said that although Yiddish originally was spoken to refrain from speaking Lashon Kodesh, since it was used for Torah study and mitzvah observance for over a thousand years it gave it a measure of sanctity beyond other non-Hebrew languages,9 similar to the holiness conferred to a physical object used for a mitzvah.10

9. This is similar to what we find in the Talmud as well as in halachah, that certain languages such as Aramaic and ancient Greek have a certain level of holiness above the average language. See Jerusalem Talmud, Megillah 1:9, and Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 8b.

10. Additionally, by using the language of Yiddish for Torah and spiritual purposes, the rabbis were able to spiritually elevate the language. See Likkutei Sichot, vol. 21, p. 448; Sefer ha-Sichot 5748, vol. 2, Vayeishev, sec. 5.

as a true chassid the only holy language is probably loshon hakodesh (not Hebrew)
and every language has curse words even loshon hakodesh even G-D curses sometimes
yours truelly
belgianbull

Ubiq
No it doesn’t surprise me at all.
I didn’t say adults should learn שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום.
Your response is not really responding to my point.
I said instead of teaching five or six year olds their Chumash into Yiddish, why don’t we use אונקלוס and teach it in Aramaic.
As you so eloquently showed, it has the benefit of having some kind of chashivus.
(BTW the medrash doesn’t say it’s inclusion in the Torah makes it holy, it says the fact that it is there proves that it is)

“I said instead of teaching five or six year olds their Chumash into Yiddish, why don’t we use אונקלוס and teach it in Aramaic.”

Ah, so this question (unlike your other one) I DO know the answer to: ווייל אזוי האט מען געפירט אין די היים

Talmidchochom, Klugeryid, About Rashi see SA O’CH 285,2

It’s not an anomaly
It’s just the first time something real was brought up
It’s hard to find serious m. M. For something completely made up. Like the holiness of a man made language.
Before ubiq jumps on me from Aramaic
The gemora says that תרגום אונקלוס was given at Sinai.
So it’s not man made

Yabia,

As you travel through all 2700+ blatt Gemara, do we in 2019 follow everything stated in Shas?

Talmidchochom, Look at the benefit of it, gaining long life Brochos 8:2. You can speed up rhe process by doing a parsha (peh or samech) at a time.

Ubiq
Perhaps
Or maybe I just meant
The supposed holiness of Yiddish which is Man made and would need some sort of mechanism to infuse it with holiness
As opposed to something created by hashem which can be intrinsically holy