#762 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Friday September 29)
Good morning,
A potpourri today…
HEBREW AND YIDDISH
I grew up in a home where my parents would speak in Yiddish when they wanted to chat privately. Eventually, after hearing them speak enough, Gale and I picked up a lot.
Yiddish has become a language honored and studied more historically than conversationally. On the other hand, Hebrew is a modern language and has become the language of the Israeli state. A couple of ruminations about Hebrew:
Hebrew school is the bane of many young Jewish children. My experience was no exception. This singularly painful experience was a twice-a-week affair. Following a busy day at school (from, as I recall, fifth grade through eighth grade), I was committed to an hour and a half of additional school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. By that time of day, most kids are fidgety, some become downright unruly and others, like me, have so much pent-up adrenaline and so many wise-cracks to share with our friends, that they are incapable of sitting still and avoid being sent to the Principal (SIDEBAR: Does anyone else remember a teacher pointing out how to remember the spelling of principle and principal? The principal is your “pal”?). My mother dropped me off dutifully each day of Hebrew School. One day stands out like it was yesterday. I got out of the car, where the Principal, stately Mr. Nissan, stood waiting for each kid’s arrival. He greeted me with “Hi, Glenn. Will I be seeing you later in my office?” I replied “Of course”—that he could count on it.
Hebrew wasn’t predestined to be the modern language that it is. After all, in the late-19th century, Yiddish was the common language of a vast number of Jews throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Hebrew, by contrast, was a language largely restricted to the Torah and commentaries. There was little in the way of conversational Hebrew. Its emergence from the ancient biblical language to a language for the modern world was encouraged and nurtured by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda in the late 19th century. Revitalizing an ancient language wasn’t just an exercise in resurrection—it required coming up with words for things that existed in the modern world but were unknown the last time Hebrew was spoken conversationally. This was a time of great political involvement and turmoil. Zionism and the pursuit of a Jewish state was a topic concerning many in the Jewish world (and opinion on this topic was mixed). Ben-Yehuda clearly was a zealot. How much so? Well, he forced his son (and later his next child) to learn Hebrew from birth not only as an additional language and not as his primary language (still able to communicate with other language speakers). Ben-Yehuda taught his child Hebrew—a language spoken by few people—as his only language. The kid was excluded from communication with others in a weird upbringing of speaking a language in which he could communicate verbally with precious few people, becoming the first native speaker of the modern incarnation of the language. While an admirable testament to Ben-Yehuda’s commitment and dedication, I always have felt there is no small measure of child-abuse associated with precluding a child from communication with all but a tiny fragment of the world.
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union is a great novel by Michael Chabon. In this alternative history, after World War II, European Jewish refugees are granted settlement after World War II in Sitka, Alaska, while Israel was destroyed in 1948. The story is told via a detective story that is intertwined with the Tinglit community, chess, and messianism. Very definitely a great story, a great conceit and great writing. The New York Times describes the protagonist as “the most appealing detective [hero] to come along since Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe.” In using the detective genre to tell a post-World War II story, this book shares with another great alternative history, Fatherland, by Robert Harris.
A DROPPED WORD
Earlier this week, a sentence in my Musings about book banning was missing a word—and a missing word can make a sentence incomprehensible. I hopefully now am making the point! Here is the correct sentence, within its context:
[Book banning is] an intrusion into parenting. Those seeking to ban books maintain that educators shouldn’t be able to foist upon young minds books that might be profane or might pollute their young minds with difficult ideas. They believe they should step in and establish “standards” for the community. But in trying to establish broad standards, without regard for the pedagogical aspects of reading choices, they impose themselves as substitutes not only for teachers, but for other parents…When parents restrict what ALL children within a class or school district can read, they are making parenting decisions for everyone else. In fact, their philosophical, religious, and/or puritanical view is foisted on the majority of people who are trusting in their children being exposed to ideas by educators who presumably are invested in using this literature to improve reading ability and comprehension, enhance critical thinking, and expose children to other cultures, experiences and ideas. It is the book banners who are interfering with the right of others to parent.
REMEMBERING THE DEPARTED
In Judaism, there is a service that takes place on Yom Kippur that is devoted to the memory of those who no longer are with us in body, but who are with us in spirit. This service, called Yizkor (loosely translated as, “may he remember”). The service is about memory. Many congregations have special readings to remember leaders of our nation, leaders of the congregation, and members of the armed services and first responders. But the focus of the service, and the ultimate prayers at the end, are about remembering those in our family and among our friends who are gone.
This year, Rabbi David Woznica shared with us direction from which we all could benefit. In the moment of silence before reading the memorial prayer, he suggested that everyone stop to say something in their minds to the person that is gone. It might be “I love you.” It might be “I miss you” or “I wish I told you more often what you meant to me.” But he went on—for some people, it might be “I forgive you” or “I wish we had been closer” or “I wish we had reconciled.” Not all relationships with those we loved necessarily were good. And virtually all relationships were left incomplete, with an abrupt departure. These exits leave us scarred—both the loss of people with whom we shared love unconditionally and those with people where there may have been “unfinished business.” The important thing is that we, the living, can complete these conversations in our own minds and allow ourselves to move on.
When I was a child, I didn’t appreciate what Yizkor (which is recited not only on Yom Kippur but on several other holidays) was about. I didn’t understand why we remember people on the anniversary of their death. What I understand now is that, although in some sense the departed are always with us, these rituals allow us a set time and setting in which to visit with those people no longer with us—to share moments with them through personal reflection. The preoccupation with death that I thought I understood when a child actually is a preoccupation with life and with memory. Traditions offer us these precious moments.
Have a great weekend,
Glenn