Yiddish Über English

or Apartheid Unity at the Asifa Part II

To khop what's going on read Part I first

זאהל זיין אז אידיש איז נישט לשון קודש... עס איז כאטש לשון קדושים

"Let it be that Yiddish is not the Holy Tongue" I heard many a Holocaust survivor aver "it IS the tongue of the holy / the martyrs"

For many Kharedim, particularly for Khasidim, Yiddish is not just another language.  Unquestionably many Khasidim have little inkling that Yiddish is a dialect of middle-low German written in Hebrew Characters (Ivra-Taitch= עברי-דייטש) with healthy servings of Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Aramaic and translated Talmudic idioms thrown into the linguistic stew. Yet most are well aware of all of the above but could care less.  For them "you can't spell Yiddishkeit without Yiddish" and Yiddish fluency and literacy is central to ones Jewish identity.

Moreover, many non-Khasidim have internalized this lesson and are somewhat cowed and intimidated by the perception of greater Kharedi, in particular, Khasidish "authenticity". The language is a major component  of the Khasidisha err, Yiddisha, panache. The levush, the peyos, the insular neighborhoods, the sofrim, shokhtim, mohalim and poskim would all mean far less if all the signage, newspapers, posters and the speech were not in Yiddish.  While we all strive to be Torah-True it is they, the thinking goes, who are Torah-Truer. In  no small part this is due to a language which informs all their thoughts, speech and even deeds with a Havdala-from-the-dominant culture consciousness.  Hearing sundry Twerskis publishing and orating in the Queens English gives the rest of us a cognitive-dissonance headache.  Someone who LOOKS like that ought not to be SPEAKING like that!

Which brings us to the Great Citifield Asifa where seldom was heard, a S'fas HaMedinah word, but where apologies for same were the order of the day.

READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP

In their more dispassionate moments many a EFLers must have had  thoughts along these lines cross his mind:  "This is nonsense. What, genoi, makes Yiddish so special?  I know that both my Bubbies and Zaidies spoke it but... so what???  It is nothing more than German and not very good German at that.  How would the Khasidim feel if Ladino-fluent Sephardim implied that they were somehow less fully Jewish because of their Ladino-illiteracy? Besides the Yiddish being spoken currently is hardly pristine. Golus Amerika has infused Yiddish with plenty of English words. Moreover even if at one time there was something vaguely holy, or at list Havdala-Conscious about Yiddish in the wake of the Khurban-Europa (Holocaust is a Greek-based Traifa word coined by inauthentic English speakers) do we really want to be exalting a language derived from the tongue of the cruelest annihilationist anti-Semites in history? Better that we should create a new pidgin-Ebonics Jewish Lingua franca with  English transliterated into Hebrew- Characters!  Blast it!  This isn't just nonsense, it's offensive, divisive drivel.  Why am I allowing myself to sit here for four hours and be insulted like this?". OK.  Perhaps these thoughts crossed the mind in moments that are hard to characterize as dispassionate.

I can, and probably bl"n will, offer a boikh sevora as to why / how Yiddish became so sacrosanct among many Kharedim. First I'd like to share one source of fairly ancient provenance that shows how Khasidish adulation of Yiddish as a Loshon Qedoshim has deep historical roots. No doubt it is only my ignorance of  ספרי חסידות that prevent me from citing more sources and proof-texts.  I welcome these in the comment thread. (Ironically I came across this source while visiting a Torah site on the internet!)

The following is from the Sefer Shearis Yisroel from The Viledniker.  He was a talmid of the Tchernobiler . The Sefer was published in 1877, one hundred and thirty five years ago. [I believe that it is the first edition and hope that my Bibliophile teammate, Mississippi Fred,  will rush to inform us if in an even earlier edition exists.] And so, as received wisdom,  it's safe to guesstimate that the notions  taught in this passage are at least 150-200 years old. 

 התורה ניתנה בשבעים לשון באר היטב. אך לשון ארמי שהוא התרגום יש סברא שהוא בפני עצמו ואינו בכלל הע'י לשון . ובאמת ידוע שהתרגום אינו פירוש על לשה"ק הקדש כ״א ענין בפני עצמו. אבל כל שארי הלשונית המה פירושים על לשון הקודש. דהנה התורה הקדושה בעצמה היא אותיות קדושי׳ והלבוש שלה הראשון הוא לשון הקודש   ואח״כ כשנתלבשה בלבושי שק באלפי אלפים לבושים יש לה בכלל כל לבושי הע׳ לשון .והנה במקומינו אחרי שאנו מבארים כל התורה ע״פ לשון אשכנז המורגל בינינו עשינו אותו הלשון הכנה רבה להכיל בתוכו קדושת לשון הק׳ וענינים הקדושים ויש בו צד מעלות קדושה מפני שהיא ביאור כל עניני הקודש לפנינו משא״כ בתרגום שאין ביאור לנו .ונוכל לומר שתרגום הוא יותר בקדושה שהוא קרוב יותר ללשון הקודש ובאמת פעם הוא כך ופעם הוא כך כמבואר
 בכ' האריז׳ל שתרגום הוא בנוגה ופעם כך כו". והנה כל הלשונות הם לבושים ומסכים לבחינת התורההקדושה גם שבאמת יש אלפי אלפים לבושים ועולמות עד שנתצמצם לבחי׳ לשה״ק. שהתורה הקדושה בעצמה גבהה מעלתה לאין קץ יותר מבחי׳ לשון הקודש. אבל לשון אשכנז המורגל בינינו הוא בחינת פרוכת המבדיל בין הקודש- קדושת התורה לבין שאר כל הע׳ לשונות וד״ל. ושמעתי ממורי שראה בחלום שמסדרין למעלה אברי משיח צדקנו.  וא"ל רמז ע״ז שנמצא ברש׳׳י בתנ׳׳ך סידרא בלע״ז . והיינו שמסדרין אברי משית ע״י הלע׳׳ז דוקא והענין עמוק הוא מאוד. י א

My humble translation follows:
The Torah was given in 70 languages, be'er haytaiv. However there is a Sevara (logical argument)  to say that Aramaic , the language of the Targum, is a language unto itself outside the realm of the 70. Truth be told it is known that in contradistinction to the other languages Aramaic is NOT a commentary on the Holy Tongue but a "thing" unto itself. All the other languages are commentaries on the Holy Tongue.

For behold: The Holy Torah Herself are the Holy letters and her first garment (i.e. the underwear that clings to the body itself [see-through???] )  is the Holy Tongue. Afterwards the Torah is garbed in sackcloth, in thousands upon thousands of (layered) garments. Within / among these thousands of garments are the 70 languages.

Now in our locales, since we explain the Torah by translating it into the language of Germany that we are accustomed to (Yiddish) we have invested that language with "a great Preparation (Hakhonah Rabbah)" to contain within itself the Holiness of the Holy Tongue and the Holiness of Sacred matters. It (Yiddish) possesses an aspect of the exalted status of Qedusha inasmuch as it communicates to us, in the present, all holy matters. Whereas Aramaic (which we no longer understand, nor speak???) does not. 

One could argue that Aramaic is superior (in holiness to Yiddish) inasmuch as it is closer (etymologically) to the Holy Tongue. In truth, at times it is this way and, at other times, that way (??? at times Yiddish is superior and at others Aramaic is superior???) as explicated in the writings of the AriZa"l who taught that the Targum / Aramaic is in Nogah ( a "Husk" = Qlippah  in which an admixture of Light and Darkness reign). 

Now all the languages are clothes and veils for the aspect of the  Holy Torah (obscuring rather than revealing). In fact, there are thousands upon thousands of garments and worlds (that the absolute essence of Torah is filtered and distilled through) until She (the Torah) is (even) constricted (Tzimtzum) into the Holy Tongue! Because the level of the Holy Torah Herself is exalted far beyond the that of (even) the Holy Tongue.

However the German that we are accustomed to speaking (Yiddish) is , metaphorically speaking, like a Parokhes (the curtain that separated the inner and outer sanctum in the Mishkan / Miqdash and that, significantly , was rolled back on Holy Days to reveal the Ark and the Keruvim) that separates the Holy, the Holiness of the Torah, and the other 70 languages. This should suffice for those possessed of understanding.

I heard from my master who saw in a dream that, On-High, the limbs of the Messiah were being arranged in an orderly fashion. He was told that an allusion to this process can be found in Rash"i in TeNa'Kh (who wrote...citation needed)  Sidra (= order) B'La"z (in the foreign language of the idolaters). I. E. that the sequencing / "setting-in-order" of the "limbs" of the Messiah is effected through the L"Az language, Yiddish. This is an exceedingly deep and profound matter. 

Although much of this esoteric passage eludes me there are some comprehensible, significant and salient take-away teachings:

1. Aramaic has a special status. it is neither the Holy Tongue nor among the 70 languages
2. Although the Torah was given in the 70 languages these languages are like sackcloth garments (itchy, obscuring and symptomatic of a sadness if I catch his metaphoric drift)
3. Yiddish is suffused with holiness because it is used to study Torah and daven with.  He describes these usages of the language as a הכנה רבה=a "great preparation". Unless he means some mystical rites  that changed the nature of Judeo-German/ Yiddish that he is not describing to us non-Mequbolim.
4. Yiddish, inferior to Loshon Qodesh, may or may not be superior to Aramaic a language tainted per the Ar"i, by Qlipas Nogah.
5. Even the Holy Tongue is not the ultimate in Holiness.  Abstract,  "Pure", unfiltered, unconstrained Torah is something that even Loshon Qodesh  is too meager to contain. Unfortunately Loshon Qodesh is the best that we human Medabrim can hope for.
6. Other languages are akin to a mesekh / mavdil. Yiddish OTOH is like a Parokhes. Per my close reading that means that while it separates and conceals it also "contains" Qedusha. This is not concealment for the mere sake of obscuring. It  conceals and "contains"the  Qedusha to save it from "dissipation" through Havdala-deficiency. If Qedusha does not respect it's own boundaries it will lose itself. Also, like the Parokhes of old, Yiddish sometimes rolls back to reveal our being beloved by HaShem.
7. The Tchernobler frequented the Heikhal of Moshiakh
8. Yiddish is essential to the very posture, the שיעור קומה, of Moshiakh. His "limbs are ordered" by Yiddish speakers / thinkers. Yiddish speakers are, as it were, Moshiakhs orthopedic surgeons.

It is impossible for me to say how many of the Speakers, of the dais members and/ or of the 25,000 plus khasidim who attended the Asifa have first hand familiarity with this passage.  But as the Viledniker was  a very early Master in the History of Khasidus , as he is venerated by all krayzen = Khasidic groups today and as it stands to reason that one more well-read than I could find similar Divrei Torah (Divrei Elokim Khayim) in other EARLY khasidic works it is safe to assume that many of these hashqofos are commonly held and deeply felt.

So if you'd like to understand why the few speakers who spoke in English felt compelled to apologize for doing so, or why Khasidm view you , the EFLer, as a second class Jew consider this:
A. When Torah is communicated in English she wears sackcloth and ashes, when Torah is communicated in Yiddish she is properly ensconced behind a Parokhes where she belongs.
B. A khosid taitching a simple mishna or posuk Khumash into Yiddish may  just may be  communicating in a medium holier than the Gemara (Aramaic) itself.
C. Like the Khasidic movement itself whose mission is to hasten the coming of Moshiakh Yiddish is Moshiakhs Orthopedic surgeon.  Reading and speaking Yiddish is  הפצת המעינות while standing still. Think of Yiddish as linguistic Chabad Houses!

Substitute the word Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and/ or  Hungarian for "English" in the above and you'll begin to see that the dismissive, hostile attitude that many Khasidim have for English is of ancient provenance, deeply felt and predicated on cherished Pan-Khasidic teachings of the early Masters.

And so it's no wonder that the Khasidc majority abides by an Apartheid attitude in which the English speaking Shomrei Mitzvos minority are viewed as damaged goods and second class. These are attitudes that go far beyond a simple notion of לא שינו את לשונם Havdalah Consciousness.  Only a deaf man cannot "hear" the superiority of Yiddish over English et al. And we all know that Halakhah deems a Kheresh as something less than a בר דעת.

That's (possibly) the view from the Khasidic side of the aisle. To hear the view from the opposite rim of the Grand Canyon that makes a mockery of the so called Akhdus... I'll have to write another post.  this one turned out much longer than I anticipated..

Evanston Jew I hope you're out there somewhere reading this and I hope that you enjoy it.
Addendum:  the Viledniker was born in 1788/9 and was Nifter in 1850 at the age of 61-2. Assuming that he first said this Torah in his 40s it was publicized around 1830-1840... over 180 years ago. I have yet to hear from Mississippi Fred from On the Main Line but 27 years seems along time to wait to publish a sefer posthumously so i wouldn't be at all surprised if there was an earlier edition than the one I copied from uploaded on HebrewBooks.org.