It’s amazing to realize that the six weeks of the internship program are over. What’s even more amazing is to realize that it’s been eight years since I first became interested in Yiddish; six years since I began to feel it was a near-impossible task; one year since I began learning. And now, though still not fluent, I can speak, read, write in Yiddish. I can understand native speakers, I can read Sholem Aleichem. A few days ago in the stacks I found the Sholem Aleichem story that started it all: the very last story in the 27th volume of his completed works. איבער אַ היטל (“On Account of a Hat”). It was reading this story when I was 12 that first opened my eyes to the world of Yiddish and made me want to learn the language so that I could read this same story in the original. Now I can.

Over the past few weeks I have become more and more convinced that, however difficult, Yiddish must be part of my everyday life. It is too important to me to put it down simply because I have few people to speak with. I know that I am leaving and I know that my university, unfortunately, does not offer Yiddish. But I also know that, while having reached my initial 12-year-old-girl goal, and having found איבער אַ היטל, this is just the beginning.

זיי געזונט און שטארק. אַלץ וועלן מיר
Zay gezunt un shtark. Alts veln mir.

And if Moyshe-Leyb, the poet, tells
That he saw Death on the high waves –
Just as he sees himself in a mirror,
And it was in the morning, around ten –
Will they believe Moyshe-Leyb?

And if Moyshe-Leyb greeted Death from afar
With a wave of his hand, and asked how things are?
Jut when thousands of people were
In the water, madly enjoying life –
Will they believe Moyshe-Leyb?

And if Moyshe-Leyb, tears in his eyes,
Swears that he was drawn to Death,
As a man is drawn at dusk in desire
To the window of a woman he adores –
Will they believe Moyshe-Leyb?

And if Moyshe-Leyb paints Death for them
Not gray and not dark, but dazzling and colorful,
As he appeared, around ten in the morning,
Far away between sky and waves –
Will they believe Moyshe-Leyb?

און אז  משה–לייב, דער פאעט, וועט דערציילן,
אז ער האט דעם טויט אויף די כוואליעס געזען,
אזוי ווי מען זעט זיך אליין אין א שפיגל,
און דאס אין דער פרי גאר, אזוי ארום זען ––
זי וועט מען דאס גלייבן משה–לייבן?

און אז משע–לייב האט דער טויט פון דער ווייטן
באגריסט מיט א האנט און געפרענט ווי עס גייט?
אין דווקא בעת ס’האבן מענטשן  פיל טויזנט
אין וואסער זיך ווילד מיט דעמ לעבן געפרייט ––
צי וועט  מען דאס גלייבן משה–לייבן?

און אז משה–לייב וועט מיט טרערן זיך שווערן,
אז ס’האט צו דעם טויט אים געצויגן אזוי,
אזוי ווי עס ציט א פארבענקטן אין אווענט
צום פענצטער פון זיינס  א פארהייליקטער פרוי ––
צי וועט מען דאס גלייבן משה–לייבן?

און אז משה–לייב וועט דעם טויט פאר זיי מאלן
ניט גרוי און ניט פינצטער, נאר פארבן–רייך כיין,
אזוי ווי ער האט ארום צען זיך באוויזן
דארט ווייט צווישן הימל און כוואליעס אליין ––
צי וועט מען דאס גלייבן משה–לייבן?

זיי געזונט און שטארק. א ביסל מער צו קומען
Zay gezunt un shtark. A bisl mer tsu kumen.

In class on Wednesday Hankus Netsky started by teaching us a nigun. Yesterday we sang it again.

He said it was an alternative to coffee, that it would energize us.

Somehow it did.

I, at least, felt more energetic than I have in a long time, both well-rested and ready to do something – dance, swim, skip, anything that moved my body – and I felt happier.

It also reminded me of another nigun that another intern had taught us at a Shabbes dinner.

Both times I felt connected and in harmony with my inner core, and somehow, I think, this is what energized me. Blessedly without lyrics, there was nothing to distract me from the basic, fundamental tune.

Hankus also told us that there are other nigunim that are more meditative and, tied to the rhythm of your breathing, are meant to help you reach a higher level of consciousness, connecting you to G-d.

I don’t know much about nigunim, but I love the two I have learned and would love to learn more of them and about them.

זיי געזונט און שטארק. א ביסל מער צו קומען
Zay gezunt un shtark. A bisl mer tsu kumen.

While an intern at the National Yiddish Book Center, I am researching the Yiddish response to Darwinism. I am mostly interested in the initial reaction after the publication of On the Origin of Species. However in my research I

Rabbi Schwadron

came across a more contemporary Yiddish article from the Algemeiner Journal (a Lubavitch Yiddish and English newspaper) written by editor Yosef Y. Jacobson in 2005. It begins with the following story:

“The Jerusalem Preacher, the late Rabbi Sholom Mordechai Schwadron (1921-1997), used to tell a story about a Yeshiva student who would come to him from time to time and express his envy of beasts and animals, which have no restrictions in their life and are free to do what they want, how they want, where they want and with whom they want.

‘A beast doesn’t need to eat with a fork or a spoon,’ said the Yeshiva student. ‘It doesn’t need to get dressed when it wants to go out into the street; it doesn’t need to use a toilet. It doesn’t need to pray three times a day, eat kosher, observe Shabbes, lay tefillin, give tzedakah and in general lead a moral life. Akh! How a beast lives! How pleasurable! To be a person is to be a slave. It is a tragic curse, a terrible thing, that one is not able to experience earthly pleasures.’
And the boy sobbed. ‘Why did G-d tragically make me and create me as a person?’ he cried with terrible weeping. ‘Oy Goteniu,’ the boy sobbed. ‘Why didn’t you make me a beast?’

And Rabbi Shvadran used to answer the boy in his peculiar Jerusalem nigun, as follows:

‘Boy, boy, you have nothing to cry about, you are really an ass.’”

זיי געזונט און שטארק. א ביסל מער צו קומען
Zay gezunt un shtark. A bisl mer tsu kumen.

Another translation workshop will be held tomorrow, Thursday, July 16, at 4pm at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. To register, click here. Or call the Yiddish Book Center at (413) 256-4900 for more information.

When onto the floor falls my bread-and-butter,
Then starts the head-shaking of grandmother:

“A sign, my darling, my dear child, a sign,
Your bridegroom goes hungry, without food or wine.”

Oh, could I see grandmother shaking her head
Whenever I let fall my butter-and bread,

Grandmother’s coquettishly wrinkled-up brow,
Or hear her dear, homely sense of it now!

פוטערן–ברויט
ווען ס’פוטערן–ברויט פאלט אויף דער ערד מיר אראפ,
דא נעמט זיך צעשאקלען דער באבעשיס קאפ

א סימן, מיין לעבען, א סימן, מיין קינד,
דער חתן איז ערנעץ–וואו הונגעריג אצינד.

א, ווידער זעהן וואלט איך דער באבעשיס קאפ
זיך שאקלען, ווען ס’פוטערן–ברויט פאלט מיר אראפ

דער באבעשיס חנ’דעל, אין שטערן דעמ קנייטש,
צי הערען דעמ ליפען, דעמ היימישען טייטש!

1922

Photo by Barbara Conn

Perhaps it is taboo to write about one’s blog in that very blog. Nonetheless, I will proceed.

When I set out to write this blog, I wasn’t sure what it would be like. I have written print journalism for both my high school and college newspapers – but this is not the same. It’s not just that I’m expressing my own opinion rather than reporting, or that I can choose my own topics and am writing about something very personal and important to me – it’s that people actually respond.

The first few days, I wasn’t sure if people were even reading what I wrote (besides my mom, of course). But they are. You are. I cannot describe in words how meaningful your various comments have been or how exciting it is to read various perspectives on the issues I bring up. I now feel that, in addition to the Yiddish intern community I am part of, I am also part of a Yiddish internet community — with people of all ages and backgrounds (even someone who was raised a Mennonite and is now a Rastafarian).

The Yiddish speakers of the world may be few and far between, but with the internet, whether through this blog or via Facebook, etc., we can stay in touch. We will always have someone, somewhere, who we can speak to in mame-loshn. A dank.

זיי געזונט און שטארק. א ביסל מער צו קומען
Zay gezunt un shtark. A bisl mer tsu kumen.

It’s interesting to consider both the similarities and differences between cultures.

Consider for example, the advent of tkhines (as well as Yiddish “translations” of the Torah, etc.). Tkhines were Yiddish prayers for women that were often more personal than canonized Hebraic prayers for men, and often centered around daily life – cooking, childbirth, etc. – in a sense elevating the domestic to holy. Looked at within the context of broader European history, as Professor Naomi Seidman pointed out, tkhines originated around the same time as, and have parallels to, the Protestant Reformation.

These parallels include:

Tkhines were written in vernacular Yiddish (mame loshn) rather than the holy Hebrew (loshn kodesh), just as the Bible began to be written in various European vernaculars instead of Latin.

Holiness and prayer were now opened up to everyone, rather than being limited to a certain segment of the population.

Both the Reformation and tkhines represent a sort of class rebellion. But while in Christendom people took power back from the priests, in Ashkenaz, tkhines included women (to an extent) in a larger society. Because Ashkenaz status was based on education rather than money, and supposedly all men (but not women) were well-versed in the Torah and Talmud, a different sort of “class liberation” was needed.

The questions beg: Who influenced whom? Was this influence a one-way street or a more complicated, twisted dialogue? Or was there something about this historical moment that independently had a similar effect on very different communities?

Regardless, it seems that the so-called insular, walled-in shtetl had some doors that were open.

זיי געזונט און שטארק. א ביסל מער צו קומען
Zay gezunt un shtark. A bisl mer tsu kumen.

While in Boro Park, we had the privilege to meet a Chasidic Soyfer.

זיי געזונט און שטארק. א ביסל מער צו קומען
Zay gezunt un shtark. A bisl mer tsu kumen.

Avrom Sutzkever

Shall I start from the beginning?
Shall I, a brother,
Like Abraham
Smash all the idols?
Shall I let myself be translated alive?
Shall I plant my tongue
And wait
Till it transforms
Into our forefathers’
Raisins and almonds?
What kind of joke
Preaches
My poetry brother with whiskers,
That soon, my mother tongue will set forever?
A hundred years from now, we still may sit here
On the Jordan, and carry on this argument.
For a question
Gnaws and paws at me:
If he knows exactly in what regions
Levi Yitzhok’s prayer,
Yehoash’s poem,
Kulbak’s song,
Are straying
To their sunset –
Could he please show me
Where the language will go down?
Maybe at the Wailing Wall?
If so, I shall come there, come,
Open my mouth,
And like a lion
Garbed in fiery scarlet,
I shall swallow the tongue as it sets.
And wake all the generations with my roar!

1948. Israel.

זיי געזונט און שטארק. א ביסל מער צו קומען
Zay gezunt un shtark. A bisl mer tsu kumen.