Is Yiddish Holy?

The only holy languages are Lashon Kodesh (Hebrew) and Aramaic.

It doesn’t have kedusah per se but the idioms, colloquialisms and euphemisms are so based on Torah, chazal and Torah haskafa that Yiddish has enormous value in that sense.

To give a random example. (I can think of many, many others)Someone who was picking up Rav Moshe Feinstein to drive him somewhere told him “In Europe (Yiddish) we said the ba’al agalah is here. In America(English) we say the car is here” Rav Moshe commented that this is a very sad difference. In Europe (Yiddish)the focus was on the person (the ba’al agalah) who is waiting outside.In America(English)the focus is on the car and your ability to get a ride.

Ba’al Agolah is Hebrew so this idiom definitely wasn’t picked up from non-Jewsih society.

Some groups have a tendencey to consider anything that (in their minds) symbolises Jewish culture to be holy. This can include anything from shtreimels to IDF uniforms.

Personally, I think their being מניח את העיקר ותופס את התפל

?

That’s what I think the reality is.

Always a pleasure to make my point while being respectful. 😎 (Really my point was that, depending on the issue, they could be correct in that it symbolizes Jewish culture and contains elements of kedusha.)

Greek is holy because the emperor Ptolemy wanted a copy of the torah in Greek for his library in Alexandria. He then asked 70 Rabbanim to translate the torah into greek. He put the 70 Rabbanim in seperate rooms unable to communicate with other. They each made the exact same translation of the torah into Greek including I belive 5 changes. Like during creation, The torah says “Let us make man” they all translated it as “I shall make man” and the Emperor’s wife’s name sounded like the hebrew word for Rabbit and the torah says something not nice about a rabbit, so they changed that as well.

Since all 70 translations came out exactly the same inclduing the changes. It was seen as a miracle (and a bad thing to some as they thought now the non-jews could read the torah) from Hashem, so you can read the Torah in Greek.

“At least there are tefilos in Aramaic, I.e.the kaddish. There are none in Yiddish. However, Yiddish has a lot of curse words; I don’t know of any in Aramaic”

There are many tefillos in Yiddish.

And that you do not know of something is far from being conclusive proof.

Vdal

Greek is holy because the emperor Ptolemy wanted a copy of the torah in Greek for his library in Alexandria.

I thought the Gemara learns it from a posuk יפת אלקים ליפת וישכון באהלי שם. Do you know of any valid source that connects the translation to Greek to the fact that you may read a Greek Torah scroll?

Gut funn Avraham

Torah and other holy talk were spoken in many other languages, does that make all the languages holy?

Yiddish, in my opinion has some Kedusha, because of the fact that so many Gedolei Yisrael and Talmidei Chachamim used it to discuss fantasic chiddushei Torah

There is probably today more Chidushei Torah in English , than there is in Yiddish, certainly more seforim today are written in english than yiddish

True. Ladino also contains elements of kedusha.

See Shulchan Oruch, Even Ho’ezer 126:1 where the Remo writes that Hebrew and Aramaic “were both given at Sinai, they were linguistically related, and they are like one language”.

Let’s start from the very beginning for a thorough discussion:

theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/the-importance-of-yiddish/page/1

lesschumras, that happens to be a matter of dispute in Gemoro Sanhedrin 22a.

As pointed out above, the argument that Yiddish is holy because it was the language used to learn Torah is flawed because there are many languages used to learn Torah, and no one is going to claim that they are holy.
I have a different take, inspired by ChabadShlucha’s thread on holiness:
If we define kodesh as something set aside, separate, then one can argue that Yiddish is Kadosh because it separated the Jewish people from others- although similar to German, it was the language of the Jews, it made them distinct from their non-Jewish neighbors for many years, and also bonded Jews from different regions- at least those hailing from European countries. Same with Ladino in its time. (My father once taught Russian immigrants recently arrived in the US in the 1990s. He was able to communicate with them by speaking Yiddish with some of the old timers, who then translated to the younger ones). One can also argue that as Yiddish loses this function, it loses its status as Kadosh.

In the Sefer B’Tuv Yerushalayim it relates that the Maharil Diskin refused to speak to a certain Talmid Chacham of Jerusalem because he used to spek only Loshon HaKodesh. Said the Maharil Diskin, “For generations we are accustomed to speaking Yiddish, not Loshon HaKodesh.”

p.s. However it seems that R’ Sonnenfeld later regretted this position.He even answered the Mandate language replying he spoke hebrew

the Debreciner Rav ZL was asked about about english and he replied that our “Yeshivishizing” english suffices to fulfill what the Chasam Sofer wanted. We borrow many expressions from Yiddish, Aramaic (as in l’chorah, memaileh etc) and Hebrew (like mamsh), as well as changing the usage and syntax (The usage of the word “by” in “I was by so-and-so for Shabbos” does not happen in the English language).

Rav Reuven Grozovsky in “Bayos HaZeman”, regarding making Modern Hebrew our “national language.”brings a responsa of Rav Yaakov Sasportes, a great combatant in the fought against the Shabse Tzvi He relates that Shabse Tzvi actually intorduced some positive, even obligatory practices into Judaism. [Performing Birkas Kohanim daily, even in Chutz La’aretz, was foremost among them. But, says the Ohel Yaakov, even though this is a good and positive practice, and perhaps even obligatory according to Halacha, since its origins came through Shabse Tzvi, we should not do it.

Not at all. The Bundists, Jewish communists and reformers were the biggest proponents of Yiddish as a cultural medium. No holiness whatsoever in Yiddish. Moshe Rabbeinu did not speak Yiddish.

Winnie, many non-Jews have been fluent in Yiddish. James Cagney picked it up as a boy on the Lower East Side – and used it in two of his movies. Colin Powell learned it working for Jews. An immigrant from Russia once told me that when her mother was sitting in a park the Arab caretaker addressed her in Yiddish. He had worked for Jews as a boy in the Old city of Jerusalem.

Tie, kol hasoneh halachot kol yom. BTW, some Sephardic groups also had this pronunciation. Apparently it was widespread in ancient times as it passed into Ancient Greek (sabbaton), Latin (sabbatum), English (sabbath and sabbatical), Spanish and Italian (sabato) and Russian (subbota).

Don’t be putting words into RMF ‘s mouth when he is not here to clarify. Prove your statement, RedLeg

Time, when Rav Charlap first came to Rav Kook’s yeshiva he addressed him in creole German. Rav Kook said “Being that you are new here I will not hold it against you. However, you should know that one does not address me in Jargon”. “Is there a mitzva to speak Hebrew ” by Rabbi ephraim Sprecher (online) where he quotes various sources, including RMF, as saying that there is such a mitzva. The Sheeta Mekubatzet even quotes the Raavad as saying that one might not fulfill the mitzva of talmud Torah in another language.
As for Rav Reuven’s alleged speech, it would certainly surprise Sephardic and Yemenite Jews (as would being called “Yidden”).
Shabbatai Tzvi did not institute saying Birkat Cohanim in Chul. This is the position of the Mechaber. The Gra and Rav Chaim of Volozhin also wanted to institute it but were unsuccessful.

” Moshe Rabbeinu did not speak Yiddish.”
Moshe Rabbeinu didn’t do much of what we do having developed over the eons. One who however diverts from them[ not out of ignorance but out of contempt]
Poretz geder yin’shache’hu nachash
AND
minhag yisroel Kodesh!?

2/Chavtzeles HaSharon (I:OH:10) Loshon HaKodesh is only Kodesh if its used exclusively for holy things. That is once you start using it to speak mundane things, its not holy anymore.
The Rambam writes that a love song in Hebrew is more repulsive to G-d than the same song in Arabic, for instance, because the pollution of the Holy language is an additional crime

3/Though there were Yiddishistin who spoke Yiddish, they took it from us, not vice-versa (as is the case of Modern Hebrew), and as we do not live in a society dominated by Yiddish-speaking frei, there is no benefit of Lo shinu es leshonam by not speaking Yiddish.

huju,

I believe the Gemora says Adom HaRishon spoke Aramaic.