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It’s interesting that the word bothers black people (but if it does, I would never use it.) It comes from Negro, which literally comes from the root word which means “black,” and in the South, where the black slaves were working the plantations, the Southerners’ pronunciation of “Negro” came out to be what we euphemistacally call “the N word.” It came into pejorative and exploitive use, I guess, but it is a benign word in and of itself. Nevertheless, we learn even in the Torah that we should not use nicknames for people (especially when they may cause pain to that person). Why they think “black” is any better, I do not know.
Oomis, you want to change “yell” for “judge” — fine. But again there is a clear boundary as to where it applies. When you say:”he is not judgemental”, that goes with the Christian understanding of it.
If someone goes and commits a brutal murder or rape, you would also not judge him?
oomis: That’s pretty much the case with 99% of harmful words (I think I touched on this in a different thread with LAB)- they may, in themselves, have no intrinsically insulting or harmful meaning, but the meaning given to them by the majority becomes pervasive and sticks. After all, it’s the majority of consumers who define what you say, not the writer. Which I think is one of the coolest things about language, but that’s not the point.
Think about curse words- actually, don’t think about curse words, but if you WERE to, half of them are just things from the Bible that we mention whenever we want in Hebrew because to us, what’s the problem? When something like that becomes a curse word in another context, the original meaning may as well just curl up and die, because it’s irrelevant. Context is king.
It’s like the whole thing “sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me”- um, words themselves are just combinations of letters, but if you know the context, the meanings behind them and how they were meant to be understood in the current setting, they can be painful. There are plenty of pejoratives for Jews- half of them don’t mean anything that offensive when you just pick apart the etymology. Would you get insulted if someone called you by one of them? At the last vote, that is an insult, so unless you want to reframe the word in the minds of every English speaker, that’s what it is right now.
And that’s why, IMO, using “yeneh machalah” is harmful. It’s not just a way of getting around saying the C word- it’s a new word, by common consensus, that sounds really creepy and threatening, a word that just inflates the thing it was meant to obscure until it’s now twice as terrifying.
ubiquitin: You obviously don’t know the boy at my relative’s dialysis center who has been on dialysis since he was three and will be for the rest of his life. The point, though, is that while obviously a global look at the situation is helpful, as it helps establish needed organizations like RCCS, on a case by case basis, which is what, quite honestly, scares me, there are plenty of diseases as harmful. I AM NOT DIMINISHING THE SUFFERING OF PEOPLE WITH CANCER. Cancer does NOT need to be the biggest, worst thing (I’m sure cancer sufferers agree with me) and there are other terrible diseases as well.
Which is a moot point, as why would ANY disease NEED a euphemism?
Writer soulit doesnt need one. The question was whetehr it was warrented or if cancer just another disease like pneumoina or depression.
To that end I pointed out that cancer (actusally a collection of different diseases) is worse than other diseases for two reasons discussed earlier. ESRD is not among the leading causes of death in children while the boy you know is obviously a very sad case it has no relevance to the two points i mentioned earlier
ubiquitin: Of course cancer is devastating- but I think we’re both right. You’re looking at it in the aggregate, where cancer- the group of illnesses- is everything you say it is. I’m looking at it from the point of view of someone who has cancer or someone who has kidney disease. You can’t necessarily say, sight unseen, which one is suffering more.
And because this subject is weirding me out (which horrible, devastating disease is worse?), I think that I’ll cut this short. If you have anything else to say, feel free to have the last word.
Im glad we can agree. I’d end with the following:
This isnt about which is worse, neither to society and certainly not to the indiviudal (even sight seen I’d feel uncomfortbale saying who was suffering more). The discussion is about which is more terrifying and to that end I’d say cancer is both because it’s prevelance (proably incidence is what is really terrifying) as well as how it affects all age groups. This is part of why the mere mention of the disease sends fear into anybody’s heart probably more so than other diseases and why some in our community wont even mention it.
Oomis, you want to change “yell” for “judge” — fine. But again there is a clear boundary as to where it applies. When you say:”he is not judgemental”, that goes with the Christian understanding of it. If someone goes and commits a brutal murder or rape, you would also not judge him? “
I am not the one who wants to change “yell” for judge. YOU want to change the word for “judge” to mean YELL. Yell is “L’tzok,” Judge is “ladoon.” If you know Hebrew, you know those words, and they sound nothing alike. Din, is the word for judgment,and we are not supposed to judge someone harshly without cause. OBVIOUSLY if someone is caught stealing, killing, raping, chas v’sholom, we have courts set up to JUDGE the person for his misdeeds, and they should first be judged, and THEN “yelled” at (punished). Those judgments are completely different, because they are judgments against a paradigm of good behavior that Hashem has already Given us in the Torah.
Judging someone harshly because they are wearing the “wrong” type of kippah, clothing, or eating food with a hechsher you do not accept, is the wrong type of judging. When we as Jews say not to be judgmental, we mean not to make a negative decision about someone else without a) having all the facts and b) facing similar circumstances ourselves, ebcause we never know how we will react in a situation until we face it. And that most assuredly IS A JEWISH CONCEPT that the non-Jews stole from us, and carried further (to a wrong conclusion) by saying one should turn the other cheek. Now THAT is not a Jewish concept. I am surprised at your insistence.
Oomis, I am surprised at your insistence. I agree with what you wrote in substance. That is called “judging favorably(le’kaf zechus)”. Using the term “not judgmental” though invokes the Christian concept of not judging anyone for anything.
WOW!That was really something to read!
Are there really people so rude?
I, too, have a problem with “yenne maachleh”. Hey, cardiovascular disease kills more people than cancer. Why don’t we call it “yenne maachleh”?
Ah, MDD, MDD. What are we going to do with you? It is certainly possible to be mekayim hating resayim and still avoid judging. Let’s see if you can grasp this concept. All of us, me included, hate reshayim conceptually, but to say that particular person is a rasha? that’s pushing it. The idea of a virtually impossible mitzvah is not so strange. We have a mitzvah to deal with a ben sorer u’moreh. The maskana is that there never was one (although there is a das yachid that there was one). We see that that mitzvah is virtually impossible to be mekayaim, the purpose of which is pedagogical, it isn’t a far stretch to say that hating reshayim without judging any particular individual a rashah serve a similar pedagogical function in teach us to hat rishus.
Now, y’all will probably disagree with the above. That’s okay. When you and I appear before the Beis Din shel Ma’alah, as we both certainly will, I guess we’el find out if I’m right.
Art of Moi: That is a HORRIBLE conversation. To say that person was closed minded is a mild statement!
I do not find anything wrong with the wording of Yenna Machaleh instead of cancer and I have had very close people to me fighting the disease. The wording is not meant to demean anyone suffering at all! Its meant to protect the sick.I once heard a speech from a medical referral person. He was asked to speak at asifa on chinuch. So he asked them , why do you want me here? I know nothing about chinuch. I deal with medical referrals. So they asked him tell us what your office is like? He answered years ago we all knew if someone was diagnosed with ” yenna machaleh”. It was the neighbor who lived around the corner on the top floor.There were isolated cases. Today he gets in hundreds of new cases a month, RACHMONEI LITZLAN!He said years ago no one dared use the word “cancer”. Today you can have many minyonim is Sloan Kettering, RACHMONEI LITZLAN.
No one here is trying to be judgmental, chas veshalom. There’s a sensitivity, which unfortunately hardly exists today!
Wishing all cholei Yisroel, a complete REFUAH SHELEIMA!
Saying yene machla is to avoid an ayin hora. If someone chas vshalom had HIV, would they be cavalier and open about sharing that info? Very doubtful. Theyd find some other euphemism in describing having some form of illness.
While there may be people who think that way, I don’t believe that conversation ever happened.
This Tzippy Caton is real and amazing and someone to look up to and learn from. This conversation she had is real. Read her book and you will learn who she is and what she is about. Many people being challenged with the disease choose not to speak about it and B”H go on with their lives just as they would if they had a bad cold, strep or minor surgery. Attitude is very important and not telling people is a personal choice. Today the cure rate is B”H very high. Illnesses such as pnemonia and polio were looked upon just the same till a cure was sent by Hashem. Al Tadin Es Chaveiro Ad Shetagi L’Mkomo!!!
Syag, I’m also skeptical.
Syag Lchochma and DaasYochid- she writes for Mishpacha Junior currently, so you’d probably be able to contact her through them and find out exactly what the true story was.
Is everyone here serious? WE DON’T SAY CANCER BECAUSE IT’S THE SAME NAME AS A HOROSCOPE SIGN and we don’t ‘do’ horoscopes. THAT’S IT!
Be well…
Rav Ezriel Auerbach (in the Yated a few weeks ago) said something similar to what Machshiv Torah wrote (sans caps lock). It therefore applies to cancer specifically & not other illnesses.
I just wonder if the Ford Taurus should be called Yeneh Car.
Chazal use names of constellations. We just can’t because it’s the Greek (Latin?) word instead of Hebrew? That’s silly. Especially because I’m guessing the Yated article was referring to the word “Sartan” anyway.
And saying we don’t do horoscopes is silly. Mazalos play a key role in a lot of Jewish tradition, even if they have fallen out of disuse. Chazal thought they were important.
Besides which, like I said, cancer is just the Greek word for “crab”. Or should we start calling them “yenne crustaceans”?
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