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To speak at least
Yes. It’s an injustice that boys yeshivas don’t teach Hebrew. Yiddish isn’t the mama loshen anymore.
Loshon kakodesh or modern day ivrit?
Of course they should know Loshon Kodesh (not Ivrit.). But they should not speak Loshon Kodesh (and certainly not Ivrit.)
Both.
YO, are you saying that speaking about passing the salt at a table is more important than being able to read seforim on your own, and write chidushei torah?
We find it’s a mitzvah to learn lashon kodesh, but we do not find a mitzvah to speak it. Aderabah, we find that jewish communities across the world never spoke hebrew, but rather judaicized non-Jewish languages. This phenomenon cannot be coincidental – ashkenazim, sefardim, yemenites, far-flung communities, and during the time of chazal, and even in our time…the way yeshiva people speak is not standard english.
Loshon Hakodesh was historically used exclusively for Kodesh. Mamne loshon was Aramaic.
If you can daven and managed to get a Jewish education through elementary school (meaning Humash and some Mishna, siddur and some halacha), you can communicate in Heberw if you really try. Remember that most immigrants to Eretz Yisrael had only their “cheder” Lashon Kodesh to communicate in. Sefarim such as Kitzur and Ben Ish Hai were very popular, and not as translation, meaning the average reader could read them. The same goes for Pirkei Avos and Humash.
Yabia – the chazon ish paskened that we shouldn’t fight ivrit in eretz yisroel, because we already lost that war, and if we insist on it, we’ll lose sight of bigger problems. It would also alienate the sefardi immigrants who at the time, were not as educated as their ashkenazi brethren (now that is no longer the case)
When Artscroll is available why should they learn lashon hakodash? Many alternative mussar and sometimes funny interpretations of expressions in Torah and gemora cannot be appreciated. The Kol Aryeh interprets the expression of אל תסתכל בקן קן אלא מה שיש בו, only value what is in the vessel and not its beauty. The Midrash Shmuel explains that in ונקה לא ינקה we find the letters קן קן and the letters Hashem (י-ה-ו-ה) so we should realize that Hashem is the one who revenges our enemies. So we say מנותר קנקנים נעשה נס לשושנים what is left over from removing kan kanim as above, Hashem through Whom the neis for eight days came about.
[1] In Tanach, Nehemiah (chapter 13, verses 23 to 24)
bemoaned the fact that after 70 years of exile,
many Jews of his generation had forgotten
how to speak Hebrew:[2] Tosefta, tractate Chagigah, chapter 1, paragraph 3:
…[A Jewish child who is old enough] to know
how to speak, his father [must] teach him:
Shema, and Torah, and the Hebrew language
[Lashon HaKodesh].
And if he does not, [then] it would be better
if he never would have been born.[3] Sifri, Parshat HaAzinu, near end of Piska 28:
Rabbi Meir taught: Whoever lives in the Land of Israel
and recites Shema morning and night and speaks Hebrew
[Lashon HaKodesh] he is worthy of Olam HaBa.For more quick Torah quotes like these, go to:
https:// groups. io/g/DerechEmet/Square; you know any of the baalei mesorah in rishonim or achronim who said to speak lashon kodesh in our daily lives?
Chazal are referring to kodesh matters.
Ivrit is also not very holy. Do you think Hashem likes zonos speaking something similar to lashon kodesh in theit ‘profession’? Apikorsim who rail against Torah…in that language?
Yosef identified himself to the brothers by כי פי המדבר עליכם – בלשון הקודש where the Chasam Sofer says that the language has a holiness that others don’t. There are pretty much no bad words in it.
@reb e, modern hebrew is full of bad words
Sefardim didn’t have a yeshiva system like there were in Europe. Porat Yosef was revolutionary for the sefardi world
Lake, YO – they weren’t educated in learning. They read chok lyisroel if they weren’t complete am haaratzim, but many were unable to learn on their own. They would have been easy prey for the frei to shmad them.
The chazon ish knew that, and that’s why he said to allow speaking Hebrew. He lived there with them, so I’ll take his word for it
Of course there were sefardi talmidei chachamim, but the masses were not bnei torah at the time.
Sephardim did not have the Ashkenazi system because they did not (yet) encounter haskala and threat of assimilation. They lives, like Ashkenazim lived before haskala, in communities that consisted of both learned and not-so-learned Jews, without separating in different groups (in the same place). They benefited from what Ashkenazim built when they came to Israel and to US, but you should not use this as a sign of inferiority. It is like a handicapped person who got crutches thinking that he is superior to the guy who walks with his own feet.
Aaa, yo – argue with the chazon ish.
Yemenites didn’t have yeshivos either, but they all were learned. Most sefardi immigrants were not, and were in spiritual danger, as attested to by the gadol hador.
In the times of the rishonim, this was the opposite; sefardim wete, by and large, more into learning than ashkenazim.
Having to deal with the haskalah only made litvishe yidden learn less – before it, the baalei batim would learn for hours and hours a day, as I’ve seen in town records from my grandfather’s yeshiva town.
Drop the narrative about what caused what and just look at what the chazon ish saw – he saw better than you and me.
You can make a thousand kugels with all the lokshon in this thread
One should note that in Eretz Yisrael, notices against speaking Ivrit are posted in Hebrew.
Frum Yidden always spoke and read Hebrew. Aramaic was “mama loshen” only for a relatively small area. Jews in Egypt and eastern Europe spoke Greek, Jews in western Europe spoke a Latin (from whence we get such Yiddish words as “bentsch”). When Jews went from one region to another, they always spoke Hebrew even in modern times (e.g., you don’t find accounts of Ladino classes in Warsaw, or Yiddish classes in Salonika – when Warsaw and Salonika Jews got together they would communicate in Hebrew).
Yo – who should i believe, the chazon ish, or you?
All frum Jews should be able to read, write and speak in Hebrew.
In the 1950s , the two Gdolim were vacationing in Tzfat. The Gerrer rebbe בית ישראל and the Vizhnitzer אמרי חיים. They were friends.
A Zionist personality passed by, hearing, the two Rebbes spoke in Yiddish, he began chastising them and preaching about LoshonHaKodesh…
The Gerrer asked the Viznitzer to reply, because, he explained, if I will answer, there will be “fire,” meaning it will come out too strong…fireworks..
So the Viznitzer אמרי חיים spoke, to the affect:
What is “Lashon HaKodesh”? Hebrew? You have tons of Nivul-Peh, etc. Printed daily I (secular) newspapers? Is this Kodesh?
However, a CLEAN Yiddish is Loshon ha Kodesh, holy tongue…
—
Moral of the story, of course, Hebrew spoken as a Frum yid does, is Kodesh.
__BTW, there are certain errors Ben Yehuda made in Hebrew. In additional, there are sometimes confusions for those seeking true meaning of words, when self-taught not-in-a-Yeshiva by Hebrew speakers
Rav Asher Weiss approved of it
Avira, I am not arguing w/ Chazon Ish – when sephardim got exposed to modernity quite suddenly when moving out of their countries, they needed to use the tools that, lucky for them, ashkenazim developed over last several centuries.
Ashkenazim did not learn in yeshivos until modernity. They learned locally and yehidim would travel to teachers in other places. Vilno was a place of a lot of learning, of course. Would be interested to hear what you are reading in the pinkasim.
They may have had education (some of them), but they did not live in the western world, surrounded by opportunities that required leaving Judaism.
Aaq, i should have been a little clearer; i read testimonials from Holocaust survivors who lived in my grandfather’s town, in a documentary put out by project yizkor. That project isn’t frum, but they have some good sources. The town was Meretch(merkine, in Lithuanian), and was not far from Grodno. The town’s story was a prime example of pre war Europe. The older generation, my grandfather’s parents, learned and learned all day, and opened their shops for 3 hours to do business. They davened in a beis medrash. The younger ones davened in a Young Israel type shul with lots of singing (no mention of the American problems of dancing etc) but weren’t into learning. And the youngest generation were ALL in shomer hatzair.
*almost all in shomer hatzair
@Yabia Omer aka non sefardi troll
I’m still trying to figure out why an ashkenazi wants so badly to be a sefardi.
Yo, why is there a hava amina that there’s something wrong with being sefardi? Why is that such a raw nerve? If people observe a group – any group – and notice that they are lacking education, why is that so offensive? Dav ovadia restored the pride of the Sefardim, who had lost it, due to disruptions and other things. Why do you think the flagship school of sefardi children in Brooklyn was co ed until recently? They had PLENTY of money in the community to build separate schools. They didn’t. They also had to make the edict because the men were intermarrying. Is that something people with Torah knowledge do?
AAQ did you ever hear of the Spice Route? Sefardi merchants. They’ve been merchants going back decades which requires them to venture out of their shtetlach.
Avirah it’s not clear if this was as rampant among all sefardim. The French occupied Syria in the early 20th Century and that had an influence on them becoming more westernized and less Arabicized. Co-ed schools help Jews who are weak in their Judaism not intermarry.
Yo – it’s a very fair question to ask why ashkenazim had a Holocaust and sefardim (mostly) didn’t. The answer is that Hashem doesn’t bring a Holocaust because of ignorance. Ashkenazim, who learned more and knew better, went off and fought against Hashem. Sefardim never did. It doesn’t mean that it’s ok to be ignorant.
1 – I never said that some communities don’t need co ed schools, but as you said, they’re for people who are at risk of intermarriage. The Syrian community was in danger of (and was actually) intermarrying; they were not knowledgeable and were not very observant. Boruch Hashem that changed, and now they have a robust Torah community, no different than the ashkenazi yeshivos.
” It’s a harsh but legitimate question.”
Its a foolish question
These kind of things lend themselves to supporting whatever you already held
IF you like Zionism then it was because Yidden were to slow in embracing Zinomism
If you don’t like Zionism then it is becasue many DID embrace zinosim
talking in shul, tznius, assmilation whatever you wantSo if yone wanted to argue that “Ashkenazim were so advanced in torah and mitzvos”
Then the answer to your question would be because “b’krovei ekodesh” Hashem is sanctified by those closest to him – AshkenazimThat’s why the question is foolish
Avira, nice town. Might be your great-grandparents were in wood business, sending it by the river.
This is close to an area where some of the Vilno Rabonim, like R Grozdinski will go for the summer, so they might have stopped by them.
Wiki and others list 3 shuls, schools of multiple derachim, including Zionist, all for 2000 Yidden. So, it was indeed a heterogeneous community. several photos shows one picture of girls in berets, the rest look like not-so-observant
“I’m still trying to figure out why an ashkenazi wants so badly to be a sefardi.”
“I don’t. But I grew up with them so I had exposure. That’s all. And is there something wrong with being Sefardi?”I grew with Italians so I had exposure, does that mean I pretend to be a Italian?
PS everyone here know you have at least two other user names, why the need for that?Ashkenazim used to speak only Loshon Hakodesh on Shabbos – as evidenced by the 18th Century Song of R Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, on Motzai Shabbos they would move back to “Loshon Ashkenaz” (it was only called Yiddish by secular nationalists at the end of 19th Century).
@YO, one starts with a U
Cheylev, it’s not “ashkenazim” but rather some tzadikim who would only speak lashon kodesh on shabbos.
But i think it’s obvious that rav levi yitzchak didn’t discuss divrei chol on shabbos.
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