Skip to main content

Oy, gevalt… the holy yud and hey

Am I the only one feeling a little “gevalt-ish” about this???  I’m all for not taking Hashem’s name in vain (OMG, who wouldn’t be? – ha ha ha), but is this a bit – much?

image

This worksheet for Parshas Vayeishev, downloadable at chinuch.org, asks (both questions are the same), “Who else was in jail?” (ie with Yosef).

But the word “was” (in Hebrew, היה) happens to contain letters that are also present in Hashem’s name, ie the letter Yud and the letter Hey.

So it’s been hyphenated.  הי-ה… lest anybody think that we are actually using Hashem’s name.

This makes about as much sense as hyphenating the word “pagoda.”  (I can just hear someone saying, “Well, it does have ‘God’ in the middle…”)

It’s right up there along with people who say “yud-kay-vav-kay,” or abbreviate the holy word Hashem (literally, “the name,” nothing about God at all, really) as ד׳ (dalet), lest they abuse in some way the sanctity of the holy letter ה׳.

Yup, kids, an ENTIRE letter of the alphabet is off-limits.  “Hey – I mean ‘dey!’ – don’t blame us… it’s in the aseres hadibros.”

And don’t get me started on people who say “adoshem,” which kind of sounds like teasing:  “Hey, Lord, I’m going to call on You… baruch… atah… ado… SHEM – psych!!!”

I’m not going to hyphenate “Lord”; I’m not going to hyphenate “Almighty” (or write it in Hebrew as קל ש-קי).  These are English words in everyday use.  I’m even a little torn about “God”, though it seems more like a litmus test.  Even Jews who aren’t frum do it.  Even goyim do it sometimes so they won’t offend us.

Why?

It’s like we’ve forgotten that none of these syllables we’re protecting ourselves from are God’s REAL NAME – the big ineffable name that we no longer even attempt to, well, eff.  

And even that might, frankly, be not exactly his REAL name… in that it might not contain any part of his infinite essence.  It’s just a linguistic construct that helps us conceive of and address him appropriately.

Seems to me that every new linguistic fence is distance we don’t need between ourselves and Hashem – or however you want to refer to our eternally choosing-and-chosen deity.

Hashem has given us these names (or revealed hints about them), as a way to build intimacy; to help us understand him, close-up.  By rejecting this gift, by scaring our kids about when and where to use the names, we’re building a great big “keep away” construction zone – slashed with hyphens and strewn with out-of-context dalets – that’s just going to drive them farther away.

Comments

  1. YES. THANK YOU!

    I have a whole rant on this topic, but I have to go get ready for shabbat. This post was so heartening, I might even summon the energy to make a few extra dishes...

    ReplyDelete
  2. excellent post!! it'a all about realationship/intamacy :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh my gosh I agree completely!

    Although, it's the same progression for any 'taboo' words in a language; we replace the taboo word with another word,which eventually becomes taboo itself, so we replace it, and so on.

    We've lost so much language that way. It's an interesting process.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love your comments!

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful.  Three pages are included:  one page with two po

What do we tell our kids about Chabad and “Yechi”?

If I start by saying I really like Chabad, and adore the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"l, well... maybe you already know where I'm headed. Naomi Rivka has been asking lately what I think about Chabad.  She asks, in part, because she already knows how I feel.  She already knows I’m bothered, though to her, it’s mostly about “liking” and “not liking.”  I wish things were that simple. Our little neighbourhood in Israel has a significant Chabad presence, and Chabad conducts fairly significant outreach within the community.  Which sounds nice until you realize that this is a religious neighbourhood, closed on Shabbos, where some huge percentage of people are shomer mitzvos.  Sure, it’s mostly religious Zionist, and there are a range of observances, for sure, but we’re pretty much all religious here in some way or another. So at that point, this isn’t outreach but inreach .  Convincing people who are religious to be… what? A lot of Chabad’s efforts here are focused on kids, including a