Opinions of Peter Belmont
Speaking Truth to Power
| Hebrew as a secret language |
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by Peter A. Belmont / 2012-04-28
We read in the jewssansfrontieres article ”The Haaretz Pardes and Gideon Levy” There are are, according to traditional Jewish hermeneutics, four levels of interpretation. The last one is really dangerous. Haaretz, apparently, has a new twist on that distinction. Articles in the first three categories (pshat, remez and drash) are translated into English and offered on the internet. Maybe that is part of being “a light onto the nations”. Articles in the fourth category, sod, secret, are kept strictly in the holy language, out of the reach of the nations. It has long seemed to me that Hebrew serves Israel as a secret language. Most people—even, I suppose most people who call themselves Jews—cannot read it at all (or easily) and therefore do not read it. I imagine that the foreign media stationed in Israel are largely innocent of ability to read Hebrew. Perhaps as to that I am wrong, but we are constantly being told that there is much being published in Hebrew in Israel that is not reported in the USA’s MSM. If Hebrew is not actually a language unknown to the USA’s MSM, that MSM certainly seems to threat it as if it were. I guess it is a matter of indifference whether that sad fact is a consequence of Hebrew-illiteracy or of politically-motivated censorship. One thing though—if the media cannot read Hebrew, perhaps they also cannot understand spoken Hebrew. That really means they cannot do their job. Just a thought. In the selection, above, we are told that Ha’aretz declines to republish certain articles in English in order to keep them “sod” (secret). How would that work if Hebrew were readily readable by the very people from whom Haaretz wished to keep matters secret? A very serious type of secret is a religious secret—for people outside a faith want to know what the tenets of that faith are. In America we are constantly bombarded with the phrase “Judeo-Christian ethics” or “Judeo-Christian tradition” and in order to understand that, we must know what Jews (and, of course, Christians) hold as ethical positions (or as traditions). Should we believe, for example, that the Jewish teaching “do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you” is universalistic in meaning (that is, Jews should not treat any people, even non-Jews, as they would not themselves wish to be treated)—or is it a narrower teaching (e.g., Jews should not treat other Jews as they would not themselves like to be treated)? Put another way, when Jewish teachings (torah, talmud) use a term such as “person” or “man”, when do they mean to designate only a Jewish person or Jewish man and when do they mean to designate any person at all, or any man at all? This question is, of course, not strictly a question of the meaning of the Hebrew language—it is a question of interpretation, a question of interpretive tradition in the event (as I suppose) that Jewish religious interpretation is traditional. If Jewish religious writings are capable of using a word ambiguously—so that the word “person” might mean “Jew” or might mean “anyone, Jewish or not”—then it is not the Hebrew language which is keeping secrets, but the interpretational tradition. Do we know anything about that tradition? Are translations of Jewish religious teachings into English correct or misleading? Are the secrets revealed or kept? Israel Shahak Israel Shahak (link to wikipedia) was an Israeli worker for human rights especially for Palestinians living under occupation. Shahak * * * joined the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, was elected president of the League in 1970. That same year he established the Committee Against administrative detentions. Essentially, he was saying that Hebrew was a sufficiently secret (or unknown) language that translations were needed even where (unsatisfactory, non-fully-disclosing) translations into English had been made by the newspapers themselves. Israel Shahak created quite a stir by relating that rabbis had agreed that it was a correct interpretation of Jewish law that a Jew should not break normal sabbath rules merely to save the life of a non-Jew. Shahak repeated his account in the opening chapter of his 1994 book, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, stating that “Neither the Israeli, nor the diaspora, rabbinical authorities ever reversed their ruling that a Jew should not violate the Sabbath in order to save the life of a Gentile. They added much sanctimonious twaddle to the effect that if the consequence of such an act puts Jews in danger, the violation of the Sabbath is permitted, for their sake.”The point of this story, here, is not to get to the right or wrong of Shahak’s assertion but, rather, to show that [a] it is unclear just what the Jewish tradition, or modern interpretations of it, are, and [b] the fact of its unclarity is proof positive that the Hebrew of the torah, talmud, and perhaps other religious teaching materials is “secret”—for if it were perfectly clear, this entire argument could not have occurred. |
Comments:
| HemiFaulk 2012-10-04 | |
| Yes something must be done if we are to lesssen bloodshed between nations. Petro dollars and Oligarchs rule the airwaves and make rules that do not benefit society, yet the tug and strain of Capitalism-Marxism continues in global affairs, melding at top levels when it suits them I will refrain from commenting on [ http://mondoweiss.net/2012/10/exile-and-the-prophetic-without-the-prophetic.html ] [ Marc Ellis at Mondo ]. on the prophetic, yet I liked your comments enough to follow you here to say yes, if they were not so rude to their neighbors the results would be more peaceful. I almost feel like I just told a joke to write that, very sad indeed. Hillel could not have been wrong, right? |
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