Modern Hebraish and Tanach Ram

Linguists know, and do not hesitate to point out that Modern Hebrew is compound language with  Semitic words but Indo-European syntax. Those who revived it, people who spoke Yiddish, German, Russian and other European languages have given it a distinct non-Semitic flavor. Word order, formation of tenses and idiomatic expressions of Ivrit are European and not Semitic. However, it is not only that  the syntax is not, well, Jewish, many words take on meanings in modern Hebrew that are not the same as the original meanings of the same words in Tanach.

An interesting example is discussed in an article in the most recent issue of Jewish Bibilical Quarterly (XXXVII:2), And Dinah the Daughter of Lea went out: The meaning of Yatzanit in Rashi's commentary, by Gilad J. Gevaryahu. Rashi uses this term twice, both based on the same passage in Bereshis Rabba 8:12. Rashi uses it in his commentary to Gen.34:1 to explain why Dina was called, the daughter of Lea.

...because of her going out, she is called the daughter of Lea, for she also was a yatzanis.

The other place is in Gen. 1:28, where Hashem blesses man to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and conquer it. Here Rashi says: "...to teach that man conquers woman so she should not be a yatzanis".

Yatzanis is probably a term that I think means someone who spends too much time in the street and is excessively friendly, especially with men, not a virtue for a modest Jewish woman. Similarly, Rashi brings the following etymology of the name of Shlomis bas Divri (Lev.24:11)-this Shlomis chatted with everybody and so attracted the attention of an Egyptian taskmaster who ultimately had a son with her, the Danite man who argued with the Israelite man and "blessed" the Divine Name. 

Whatever yatzanis means, it does not mean what it means in modern Hebrew, where it means a woman of ill repute. The Biblical Quarterly article shows how an otherwise astute journalist in Yediot Acharonot, misread this term to mean exactly that and wrote a column making much ado about nothing. This example shows how modern meanings interfere with the even educated Israeli's understanding of the language of Tanach.

Here are some other examples from Prof. Zuckerman:

"Israelis might understand the very basic meaning of bereshit bara elohim et hashamayim ve'et ha'aretz (In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth) rather than, say, hatzvi yisrael al bamotekha alal (II Samuel 1:19: The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places). But how many Israelis can really fathom tohu vavohu or tehom (Genesis 1:2), the Israeli misleading senses being "mess" and "abyss"? How many Israelis know that an egla meshulleshet (Genesis 15:9) is not a triangular cow but "a heifer of three years old"? If they studied the RAM Bible, they would know because it is translated as such: egla bat shalosh.

Most Israelis misunderstand yeled sha'ashuim (Jeremiah 31:19) as "playboy" rather than "pleasant child." Ba'u banim ad mashber (Isaiah 37:3) is misinterpreted by Israelis as "children arrived at a crisis" rather than as "children arrived at the mouth of the womb, to be born." Adam l'amal yulad (Job 5:7) is taken to mean "man was born to do productive work" rather than "mischief" - an accusation of the inherent wickednessof mankind. One could give thousands of examples, and from post-biblical Hebrew too: for instance, how many Israelis can follow the meaning of

the Hanukka hymn "Ma'oz Tzur Yeshu'ati"?

ISRAELIS ARE INCAPABLE of recognizing fine points of aspects and tenses in the Bible. I remember in my IDF basic training, the commander ordered us "od hamesh dakot hayitem kan!" (Within five minutes you will have been here), hayitem referring to an action in the future. In the Bible, heyitem regularly refers to an action that has been completed, independently of whether or not it is in the past or future. Such a biblical mind-set is in strong contradistinction to the weltanschauung of the Homo sapiens sapiens israelicus vulgaris and to the way Israelis read the Bible.

Ask Israelis what avanim sha'aqu mayim (Job 14:19) means and they will tell you that the stones eroded the water. On second thought, they might guess that it would make more sense that the water eroded the stones. Yet such an object-verb-subject order is ungrammatical in Israeli today. "

Taking note of this fact, the Tanach has now been translated into....Hebrew.

 

There are those who do not approve:

"That is the problem - lack of reverence. The RAM Bible conveys a message: The Bible is nothing special; it's not important enough to learn the sometimes difficult language so we are converting it to child-talk. It is not a cosmic experience. Children in the non-religious school system won't be privileged to hold an authentic Bible in their hands at an impressionable age.

A second problem is that widespread use of RAM will exacerbate the fragmentation of Israeli society into those in touch with the Jewish book shelf, and those cut off from our wellsprings. Not only are traditional Jewish texts informed by the Bible, but the script of modern Jewish and Israeli life is suffused with Scripture. In his novel Black Box, Amos Oz expresses the disappointment of a pioneer crestfallen when he comes on aliya to the Promised Land, by using the phrase from Genesis 29:25 "Vayehi vaboker vhinei hi Leah" (And it came to pass, that in the morning, behold, it was Leah!). I was crestfallen when I read the RAM version, which flattens and overtranslates this poetic exclamation: "Uvaboker hitgaleh l'Ya'acov shehinei zu Leah v'lo Rahel." (In the morning Jacob discovered it was Leah and not Rachel.) "

However, while more education can avoid the gross kinds of errors, the ability to fully understand the Biblical idiom comes with many years of study and application. It is not realistic to expect even the educated Israelis to possess instinctive recognition of the fine points of Biblical Hebrew. The example of yazsanis shows that even a well-educated woman whose craft is Hebrew words is liable to substitute the modern meaning of the word for it true meaning. In this way, those of is who study Tanach without the knowledge of modern Hebrew may actually have an advantage over native Israelis.

Comments

[Ploni]

"Adam l'amal yulad (Job 5:7) is taken to mean "man was born to do productive work" rather than "mischief" - an accusation of the inherent wickedness of mankind"

Don't chazal understand l'amal as work too?

[osoavakesh]

You are correct. See this in Sanhedrin perek chelek: "R. Elazar said: Every man is created to labor, as it reads [Job, v. 7]: "But man is born unto labor." From this, however, we do not know if it means mental or manual labor. As the end of the above-cited verse [Prov. xvi. 26] ends "for his mouth imposeth it on him," hence mental labor is meant. But still I am not aware if it means wisdom or gossip. But as [Josh. i. 8] reads: "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth," hence it means for the labor of the Torah. And this is what Rabha said: Every body is made for labor. Well is to him whose labor is in Torah".