CherryBim, The Artscroll is like GPS- they both get you to where you need to go, but you have no clue how how got there. One needs to learn how to make a laining. Whether the translation in your head is in yiddish or English is irrelevant. Is the Artscroll really on a lower level than the Beis Yehuda Chumash? I agree with you 100% on this one. I have never said otherwise. In fact, I have even quoted sources to say that Aramaic is a loshon hakodesh. There are no such sources for Yiddish though, and when I ask for one, I’m told “pants”.
Mitzvos need to be stated in sefarim. Kol Hamosif gorea. Once the mekor for mitzvos is one’s boych instead of rabbeim or sefarim, one can turn anything into a mitzvah or an averia. If I claimed it’s a mitzvah to wear a spoddik and an aveirah to wear a streimel, and give the mekor as “pants”, you’d feel pretty “hoised”.If I claim it’s a mitzvah to eat cereal in the morning instead of bread, and said it’s pashut, you would be right in laughing at me. Hashem and the Gedolim who interpret our mesorah determine mitzvos and aveiros. So again I repeat: What is the source for this alleged mitzvah that one needs to speak in Yiddish? And what is the source for the mitzvah to speak in Yiddish that says it’s so important that it overrides the mitzvah of limud Torah berabbim?
Speaking of hoisen and Yiddish, there is a story that circulates in yeshivas that at the funeral of a certain Gadol, someone got up there and spoke in Yiddish. He meant to say the the gadol speant a lot of time in Yungeleit’s houses. Unfortunately, his limited knowledge of Yiddish made him forget that the plural of “hoise” is “heiser”, not “hoisen”.