Shabbat: Parsha Yitro

Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is Parsha Yitro, Exodus 18:1-20:23. This parsha is short, but there are two good reasons for this. First, the episode in next week's parsha must stand on its own (we'll see why next week) and second, there are two very important things that happen in Yitro. The more obvious of the two is the giving of the Ten Mitzvot. Remember, we won't be referring to them as "Commandments" here, as we discussed in a previous post. But before we get to the Mitzvot, there is an interesting and arguably more important scene between Moses and his father-in-law Jethro, for whom the parsha is named. As the Israelites travel farther from Egypt they end up in Midian, which is where Moses lived after being banished from Egypt for killing a task master. In Midian, Jethro still lives and takes care of Moses's wife Zapporah and their two sons. Moses and Jethro have a happy reunion and basically catch up with one another. I'm a big fan of scenes like this. The Torah frequently features family reunions. The fact that the holy texts take time out to reinforce the importance of loved ones in our lives is wonderful and reassuring. Even as Moses is the prophet of God and the leader of an entire nation, he is still only human. He misses his family and shows them deference despite his social station. He even takes advice from his father-in-law, who is really the only parental figure Moses has left in the world. That in itself is an interesting commentary about family responsibility. When Jethro sees that Moses spends all day, every day acting as the judge for every little problem the Israelites have, Jethro tells Moses that he needs to make some changes lest he burn himself out and fail as a leader. Jethro suggests that instead of just interpreting the law for them, Moses ought to teach the law to all of the people so they can be judges for themselves. He also tells Moses to delegate responsibility to the righteous for smaller groups. Specifically, that there ought to be community leaders for groups of thousands, then for groups of hundreds within those thousands, then groups of tens within those hundreds. Essentially, Jethro is suggesting a Federal, State, and Local governmental system, freeing Moses to address only those issues deemed too difficult for the many different delegated judges. Essentially, Moses is now the Supreme Court. This sets a precedent for keeping the big-wigs out of local affairs while still maintaining a single rule of law throughout the nation. This is why I say that the delegation segment is more important than the Ten Mitzvot. These are really just a few more common sense laws to add to an already established list of Israelite codes of conduct. This parsha begins a process that never really stops throughout the Torah and beyond. Most of the Torah from this point forward is concerned with the creation of laws by which the people agree to live. The laws get more nuanced and complex as the nation gets closer to solidification, but for now they are just day-to-day modes of order. The only thing that sets the Mitzvot apart from other laws is that they are handed down directly from God to the people, so their authority is absolute. These are laws that cannot be debated. If Moses is the Supreme Court, God is the Constitution.

Wednesday Hebrew: Notes on Translation

Several times now, I have made reference to the difficulty of directly translating Hebrew into English. This problem has resulted in centuries of debate over the exact meaning of many passages from the Torah. This is not an issue confined to any one religion. Modern Jews who have little to no training in Hebrew, Toritic or otherwise, often approach scripture from the same angle as Christians who only have the Old Testament in their regional vulgate. So, why is Hebrew difficult to translate and why are there so many discrepancies between the many versions of the same passages? The story begins in Alexandria, Egypt circa 300 BCE. At this time, the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon spread throughout the Mediterranean region, including the former Egyptian Empire. After Alexander's death, Egypt came under the control the Ptolemy line, maintaining a decidedly Greek influence in the area, including the Greek language. Alexandria was the home to The Great Library, a collection of texts that was, at the time, unrivaled the world over. Countless scrolls and other documents came through Alexandria where they routinely underwent translation by a veritable army of scholars. Among those scholars were Jewish thinkers who found that it was necessary to bring their holy texts into the modern world so those Jews under Greek rule who had no Hebrew education could still study the Torah. So, the Septuagint project was born. As the name suggests, the Septuagint was reportedly translated by a series of approximately 70 scholars. This process took place over the course of 200 years. Given the timeframe, complexity and sheer scale of the project, mistranslations and general disagreements were bound to happen. On top of these problems, there is an issue inherent to bringing a semi-linear Semitic language into a decidedly linear European language. As I've pointed out before, Hebrew's shoresh system using "root" combinations of three consonants creates the potential for myriad connotations and shared symbols between several words that aren't necessarily related in other languages. Take for instance the Hebrew word Dahm. This means "Blood" and naturally shares a root with word Adom, the word for the color Red. Of course, these also share their root with the word Adama, "earth, ground, or soil" which is where the name Adam comes from because in Genesis Adam was created from clay. These shared roots and connotations do not survive into the Greek, let alone into further translations from Greek into other languages. Beyond the Septuagint, the Torah or Old Testament underwent more translations into other European languages. The Greek Bible soon found its way into a Latin translation during the Roman Empire. After that, the Latin was used to translate the text into German. In time, every society with a monotheistic presence had a version of the Bible in their native tongue. As one might guess, this resulted in a very complicated version of the Telephone Game. A translation of a translation of a translation is bound to have some errors and lost content. This doesn't mean that it is impossible to get a lot of wisdom out of Biblical texts in a language outside of Hebrew. The stories are simple enough on the surface to be accessible in Martian if need be. All the same, Hebrew is the original language of the Torah. In order to understand the text in all its fullness, one must be able to read it as it was first written.

Shabbat: Parsha Beshalach

Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is parsha Beshalach, Exodus 13:17-17:16. Often times when modern people reach this part of the Torah they recoil at the sudden appearance of war in this tale of redemption. Without the context of life in the ancient Near and Middle East, this uneasiness with bloody conflict is understandable. Unfortunate though it may be, it has always been an essential aspect of nation building for a people to prove their ability to defend themselves from attackers. Still to this day, even those organizations ostensibly concerned with fostering peace make provisions about war. The United Nations has a list of criteria for those who want to claim themselves a sovereign nation. One criterion is that the nation demonstrate a capability to defend itself from foreign threats. As the Israelites leave Egypt, they are immediately faced with just such an issue. When Moses leads his people from Egypt, the pharaoh attempts to recapture them one last time. This is the famous scene at the Red Sea. God instructs Moses to raise his staff over the sea as if to divide it and indeed the sea parts. As the Israelites cross the dry sea bed, the water itself is described as being a wall on either side of them. When the Egyptian army pursues them into the sea, the water crashes down on top of them. But there is something here that should give us pause. The Torah is usually fairly exact with its language. While the traditional interpretation of this passage is that the Israelites safely crossed the sea, then the sea went back to normal when the Egyptians entered, the language itself doesn't present us with that much linearity. It could just as easily be read as the two events happening simultaneously. Aside from being a miracle, how could this be possible? Once again, we must approach the Torah on the level of metaphor. The passage clearly states that the Israelites find the bodies of the Egyptian soldiers washed up on the opposite shore, indicating that the Egyptians drowned more or less at the same time as when the Israelites crossed. In one sense, this makes the scene less magical, but it also makes the lesson that much stronger. Pharaoh says of the Israelites at the bank of the Red Sea that they are "bound up in the wilderness". As we saw last week, the "wilderness" is a common allegory for the confusion of life. In this passage, those who follow God in the sea, the wilderness, survive. Those who follow violence and lust aren't so lucky. When the Israelites are on the far shore and the conflict is over, Moses stands before the people and essentially composes a song of glory. That song lists God's victories and therefore the victories of the Hebrew people by association. It sounds like any glory song of the era. Like much of ancient Greek poetry, it's a way to rattle swords and impress other nations with the strength of a people. A portion of Moses's song became a major prayer in modern liturgy. The Micha Mocha prayer is pulled from the middle of the glory song. Before it was a rabbinic prayer, Micha Mocha was a common battle cry used by a number of famous generals in Jewish history. It is essentially a cry that says, "My God is too powerful to be beaten. A lot of people have tried and we destroyed them". While we today don't have as much use for glory songs or battle cries, these things were of the utmost importance in establishing a respected presence in the ancient world.

Wednesday Hebrew: Jerusalem

There is perhaps no city on Earth more mythic in emotional scale or more torn by conflict than Jerusalem. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, having been dated to as early as 4000 BCE. Next to Byblos in Lebanon, Jerusalem may be the oldest continually inhabited city in human history. It has been destroyed twice, once by the Babylonian Empire and then by the Roman Empire. It has been under seige, captured, recaptured and otherwise fought over hundreds of times. This makes the origin of its name tragically ironic. At the root of Jerusalem's Hebrew name, Yerushalayim, are three letters. They are Shin, Lamed and Mem. In all semitic languages, that root pattern and its cousins have the same connotation. Shalom, Salaam, peace. There are many early references to the city of Jerusalem. Biblically, the first mention of it is in the book of Genesis, chapter 33. As part of his travels, the patriarch Jacob journeys to a country called Shachem, specifically to a city called Shalem. This word, Shalem, essentially means "completeness" or "wholeness". As is often the case, specific locations in the Torah are used to represent philosophical concepts. If a troubled biblical figure travels to a city called "wholeness" there is some sort of lesson to be learned. From this and from other references, it's fairly obvious that the people of the ancient world saw some great importance in the city that would be Jerusalem. Exactly why, it is impossible to say. It was not just early monotheistic societies who saw greatness in Jerusalem. Egyptian records, specifically the famed Amarna Letters, mention a city in the levant using the Akkadian term Uru Uru Salam Ki. That "salam" ought to be familiar by now. As for "Uru Uru", this shares an etymological root with a modern Hebrew word, Ir, meaning "city". This is where the "Jeru" in Jerusalem comes from. In ancient semitic languages, repetition was used as a means of emphasis or aggrandizement. The "ki" was just a grammatical structure declaring the end of the phrase. In this case, the phrase would mean "That great city of peace". As Jerusalem grew and the language spoken in it solidified, the name transformed into its modern state. The current suffix "ayim" is an ancient Hebrew grammatical structure to denote duality. This makes reference to the fact that Jerusalem is built upon two hills. There is another frequent geographic term in Hebrew that uses the dual suffix. Mitzrayyim is the Hebrew word for Egypt. At the time when the Hebrew people interacted with Egypt, it was split into two kingdoms. Many cultures have recognized Jerusalem as an important city and have used it as a symbol of peace and righteousness. The early American settlers of the Puritan pilgrim lines were especially fond of the concept of "the city on the hill". American cities like Salem, Massachusetts bear the same etymological root as the holy city. Only time will tell whether Jerusalem will remain such a pervasive symbol in human culture. Should our species ever colonize lands beyond our own planet, I wouldn't be surprised to hear of a settlement called Jerusalem.

Shabbat: Parsha Bo

Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is parsha Bo, Exodus 10:1-13:16. Parsha Bo is one of the most important, pervasive segments of the Torah. The origins of some very important liturgy come from Bo, as do the first instructions for the holiday of Passover. But first, there are the concluding three of the ten plagues. They are locusts, darkness and the death of the first born. The plagues themselves seem almost arbitrary. They are a strange mix of natural disasters that don't seem to be related. Upon deeper reading, their connection becomes apparent. As we saw last week, these plagues are not intended as a punishment for Egypt or even to coax the pharaoh to release his slaves. Rather, they occurred as a demonstration, to make a point. Each of the ten plagues is a direct assault on one of the gods in the Egyptian pantheon through some symbol of their presence. For example, the turning of water into blood was the first plague, and rightfully so. Most of the water in Egypt would have come from the Nile river. According to Egyptian mythology, the god of the Nile was Hapi the father of the gods, and later Osiris the god of rebirth. The last two gods assaulted by the ten plagues are Ra, the supreme god and god of the sun, and the pharaoh, seen at the time as being a god given flesh to rule over the people. The death of the first born is a plague directed at the pharaoh's ability to maintain his line's hegemony in Egypt. Before the tenth and final plague, God instructs Moses to tell the Israelites to mark their doors with the blood of a sacrificial lamb as a sign to spare their houses from the death of the first born. In addition, the lamb is supposed to be made into a feast for the house. The instructions also demand that this observance should be repeated every year at the same time. In addition to the eating of a sacrificial lamb, the Israelites are told to eat only unleavened bread for the entire week of the festival. The reason for this becomes apparent later in the parsha. When the Egyptians finally tell the Israelites to leave the land, they push them out in a hurry. It all happens so fast that the Israelites don't even have time to let the dough of their bread rise. This parsha has one of my favorite lines in the entire Torah. God instructs the Israelites to prepare themselves to leave Egypt by saying they should eat their lamb feast, "With your loins girded, your shoes on your feet and your staff in your hand." What an excellent line. The feast of the pascal lamb isn't some random ritual. These people needed to eat a good meal to get up their strength for the long journey ahead. This line has so much meaning beyond the literal. As we will see, the voyage from slavery, through the wilderness and into the promised land is a great metaphor in the Jewish faith. It is an allegory for the search for enlightenment. God's instruction for all those who seek truth is to begin that process prepared for the long haul. The Israelites begin their march out of Egypt at the end of this parsha. The victory here, as the proverb goes, is not the end, it is just the beginning. They go with the instruction to pass this story down through the generations and to maintain these traditions. It is a subtle sign that all people, Jewish or otherwise, will face their own Egypt, their own personal slavery. Parsha Bo is a reminder that the road out of each individual's Egypt is one that requires the utmost preparation.

Wednesday Hebrew: Mitzvah

If there is one word that sums up the core of Jewish philosophy, it is Mitzvah. This is one of those very complex Hebrew words that just doesn't have an easy, direct translation into English, or any other language for that matter. In fact, the word Mitzvah is at the center of one of the most hotly contested mistranslations in all of monotheism: Commandment. The first use of the word Mitzvah comes in the biblical book of Exodus. After the Israelites leave Egypt, God leads them to Mt. Sinai (or Mt. Horeb, depending on who you talk to) and gives them the Ten... Commandments? Not exactly. The word in the Torah is Mitzvot, the plural of Mitzvah. That word doesn't even share a common root with the two different words in Hebrew that can mean "Command". One of those words is the verb L'shalot which basically just means, "To tell someone to do something" and the other is a verb from a different "family" of verbs, Pikodah. Neither of these could possibly be construed to relate to Mitzvah. So, why translate Mitzvah as "Commandment"? Well, that's an issue of philosophy. The list of Mitzvot handed down at Sinai have commonly been interpreted as laws that come directly from God. Philosophically, it sets more nicely for a lot of believers and theologians to think of them as hard rules given by the ultimate authority. It's certainly easier to explain them that way. The truth is that the Ten Mitzvot aren't commandments in any form, not even grammatically. Take for instance the Mitzvah commonly translated as, "Thou shalt not kill". In the original Hebrew, the phrase is Loh Tirtzakh. This literally means "No murder." Were this a command, it would be phrased Tzakh Loh. Is this just nit-picking? Absolutely not. There is a very different connotation here. Philosophically and linguistically speaking, that big list of ten things just doesn't make sense as an authoritative command. The Torah explicitly states that human beings have free will. It seems a lot more likely, given context, that the big list actually means to say, "In a society of righteous people, the following things are true." The Ten Mitzvot are not followed by The Ten Consequences for Breaking The Ten Mitzvot. These aren't rules or commands, they're statements of righteousness. So, what exactly does Mitzvah mean? These days, Jews use the term to mean any act of goodness or kindness. While that's closer to the spirit of the word, it's still not exactly right. It's true that all good and kind acts are Mitzvot, but not all Mitzvot are good or kind. More accurately, Mitzvah is a lifestyle. It means remaining mindful of what would be best in any situation. To live a life of Mitzvah is to strive to make the world better through actions and to appreciate what good there is in the world already. There are as many Mitzvot as there are experiences in life. Every experience is an opportunity for Mitzvah, even times of difficulty and sadness. It is sad to lose a loved one, but it is a Mitzvah to fondly remember the dead. It is frustrating to meet with cruelty and ignorance, but it is a Mitzvah to refrain from anger and choose to educate the ignorant. This lesson is just the beginning of understanding Mitzvah. It is a very rich, complex philosophy and it is the central preoccupation of Jewish theology. In a sense, it is a word that has no translation because its meaning changes with each year and each life that lives it.

Shabbat: Parsha Va'eira

Shabbat Shalom and welcome back to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is Va'eira, Exodus 6:2-9:35. In last week's parsha, the Israelites first became slaves in Egypt and God enlisted the prophet Moses to demand their freedom from the pharaoh. This week, Moses, his brother Aaron and both their families travel to the heart of Egypt to do just that. As God previously told Moses, the pharaoh rejects the demand. The result of his "hardened heart" is a series of miraculous plagues brought down upon Egypt. In Va'eira, we get to see seven of the infamous Ten Plagues. But before we get to that, there are two things that bear discussing. First, there is the episode with the rods turning into snakes. When Moses and Aaron approach the pharaoh, they demonstrate the power of God by casting Aaron's staff on the ground where it transforms into a snake, as God said it would. The pharaoh, unimpressed, calls in his own magicians who perform the same trick. However, the snake from Aaron's staff devours the others. This is an interesting moment. The obvious connotation is that God cannot be outdone or overwhelmed. But there's something else here. Recall several weeks ago when a previous pharaoh called Joseph to him to interpret his dreams. In those dreams, the weak and sickly grain, then cattle literally devour the strong grain and cattle. At the time, the interpretation is that a period of feast will be followed by a period of famine. Still, it's hard not to see some connection between those dreams and the moment with the snakes. Our minds are drawn to the original pharaoh's dreams because it seems they not only foretold the famine, but also the rise of the Israelites. The other thing people often ask is why God told Moses to demand the Israelites' freedom when God knew from the beginning that the pharaoh would deny it. The simplest and most likely reason is that this isn't a story about enlightening the pharaoh, it's the ultimate demonstration of God's power. An example is being made of Egypt for the express purpose of passing the story of the Exodus through the generations. Still to this day, "Egypt" is a metaphor in the Jewish faith for times of difficulty, confusion and disconnection. In this story, the Ten Plagues are not a consequence for wrongdoing, they're the whole point. This week's parsha begins what is possibly the greatest, most far-reaching allegory in Judaism. This truly epic story tosses around a lot of loaded terms and is rife with symbolism. There is a lot to contemplate of slavery, both literal and metaphorical, as there is much to consider in the questions of the trials of life. These terms- Slavery, Freedom, Holiness, and even what exactly makes a true Nation; these are the concerns of a large part of Jewish philosophy. As we enter into the most fantastical part of the Torah, it's very important to not get lost in the powerful imagery and to keep ourselves from disconnecting from their underlying purposes. We are 21st century people. We don't build pyramids by hand, we don't witness grand visual miracles and many of us take our freedom for granted. There is knowledge here in the story of the Exodus, but in the coming weeks it is of the utmost importance that we approach the text with the intent to dig into the metaphors.

Wednesday Hebrew: "Ivrit"

Last week's Hebrew lesson began our look into the history of the language and the people who spoke it. Today, we'll be exploring where the term "Hebrew" itself originates. When discussing the term "Hebrew" in reference to the language, there are actually three separate words we need to understand: Hebrew, Yihudit, and Ivrit. We'll begin with "Yihudit" because the other two terms are much more closely related. "Yihudit" is a word that means, "The language of Yihudah", while the term "Yihudah" refers to the kingdom of Judah. In the ancient territory that we know today as the modern State of Israel, there were actually two presiding kingdoms. In the north was the ancient kingdom of Israel, which had the kingdom of Judah at its southern border. When the Roman Empire came to dominate the region, they latinized the name of the territory into Judea. This is where the terms "Judaism" and "Jewish" come from. The people who lived in Judah would have said they spoke "Yihudit", as naming languages based on the regions in which they were spoken was the linguistic convention of ancient Hebrew speakers. The terms "Ivrit" and "Hebrew" are related both linguistically and in spirit. "Ivrit" comes from the root word "Avar" which refers to someone who comes from far away. It should be noted that this is distinct from the words referring specifically to foreigners. The Hebrew word "Goi'im" is the most direct translation of "foreign people" and became the modern Yiddish term "Goyim" which refers to all non-Jewish people. In addition, there was an ancient Canaanite slang term for foreigners, "Gidolim" which literally translates as "Big ones". This is where the story of David and Goliath comes from. Goliath originally wasn't a giant, but a foreign leader. The "far away" to which "Avar" refers is actually closer in spirit of the word "Hebrew". That word can be traced to many similar iterations in various ancient Near and Middle Eastern cultures. Many Near Eastern cultures, like Sumeria, Akkad and Babylon had the term "Ibiru", while the Egyptians adopted the word into their Coptic language as "Ipiru". These words essentially indicate a people who live outside the cities. They often get referenced as the people who live on the other side of the river, which had a similar connotation as the modern colloquial term "People from the wrong side of the tracks". At the time of its regular use, "Ibiru" didn't necessarily refer to a particular ethnic group, but to a certain variety of ancient civilization. People called "Ibiru" weren't really seen as being foreigners because they weren't from a particular kingdom or city-state. Many of them were nomadic and tribal. Those people who would eventually become the dominant ethnic group in Canaan were known as being "Ibiru" in the lands in which they previously dwelt. Ultimately, this sense of the Jewish people being outsiders without necessarily being foreigners has carried throughout Jewish history. It is, for better or worse, an intrinsic part of the Jewish identity. Perhaps this is why Jews have flourished in the United States. Most of the people who came to live here were not natives of the land, so America became a place of outsiders who were all equally foreign.

Shabbat: Parsha Shemot

The Torah portion for this week is Shemot, Exodus 1:1-6:1. There are many very well-known stories in this parsha. It is the beginning of the book of Exodus, the story of how the Hebrew people left Egypt and received the Ten Mitzvot and the Torah. It is essentially the story of how a people not unlike most other peoples at the time came to be the first Jews. But before that happens, they have to endure a lot of hardship. Just like Joseph, the Israelites first go through a period of slavery and pain, then through great and difficult acts they become the people they were meant to be. In Shemot, we learn how the Israelites came to be slaves in Egypt in the first place. If you recall from last week's parsha, Joseph called his entire clan to come live in Goshen, a territory of Egypt. Because of Joseph's service, his people were welcome. Unfortunately, the king of Egypt from Joseph's time dies and the next king is far less kind. Because the Israelites become a numerous and prosperous people, the pharaoh worries that they would be a liability in times of war. In fact, there are so many Hebrews that the pharaoh believes they would overtake Egypt should they side with Egypt's enemies. The pharaoh's solution to this problem is to enslave the Israelites in order to weaken them. When that doesn't work, he orders the nurses of Goshen to kill every newborn Israelite male. This is the parsha's first instance of women playing an integral role in the survival of the Hebrew people. Against the pharaoh's wishes, the nurses secretly save the boys of Goshen and lie to cover up the rescue effort. For this, God protects them. It's an all-too-frequent exercise to point out the misogyny of the bible. Certainly, there are many instances of females being treated worse than males simply for being female. However obvious these moments are, for its time the Torah is actually startling in its progressive outlook on gender. In fact, Exodus is a book that is particularly focused on the raising up of women. The nurses not only defy a man, they defy the most powerful man in Egypt, all because they have their own notions of what is right. That God protects them is a sign that free-thinking women are exalted in the Torah. The story could just as easily feature men saving the Israelite boys. The fact that women are the saviors is deliberate. There is another, very similar episode later in the parsha. After God charges Moses with the task of going to the pharaoh and demanding the release of the Israelites, Moses is in something of a hurry. He packs up his family and starts on the road to central Egypt. His pursuit is so single-minded that he neglects to circumcise his newborn son. Just because Moses is God's emissary to the pharaoh doesn't mean he gets special privileges. God begins to kill Moses for his transgression. The only reason he survives is because his wife, Zapporah, realizes what's happening and quickly performs the circumcision. In a particularly dramatic moment, Zapporah casts the recently amputated foreskin at Moses's feet. Repetition, as I've previously mentioned (no pun intended), is a common Toritic method of creating emphasis. That we get two separate episodes of women saving the children of Israel despite the men around them is important. We are meant to see these women as strong, active and mindful individuals. It's rather plain that, at least in this parsha, the women have a much more solid moral core than the men. They are not passive nurturers, but people willing to fight for what they believe is right and true. This not only lifts them up, it plants a responsibility in them that will follow for the rest of Jewish history.

History of Hebrew

Whenever a curious non-Jew enters a synagogue for the first time, one of the most striking parts is the strangeness of Hebrew. It is read right to left and the letters are completely foreign. It looks more than just ancient, it looks arcane. Hebrew is full of sounds not found in American English and the chanted prayers come from a very different time and place. But Hebrew really isn't as strange, or as foreign, as it first seems. Let's break down some bits of history to show how Hebrew really isn't that far removed from the languages we know in the West. Hebrew didn't develop in isolation. In fact, it's one of most-traveled tongues in the world. It belongs to a linguistic super-family called the Afro-Asiatic languages. The vast majority of European languages come from a super-family known as Indo-European. The Hebrew we see in the Torah is Classical Hebrew, which itself is fairly close to Modern Hebrew. To put things in historical context, 2000 years ago the version of Hebrew spoken in Judea was called Aramaic, but Classical Hebrew had already come to be adopted for ritual purposes. The two languages are very close. Aramaic was really more of an everyday spoken language. Long before even Classical Hebrew when the Jewish culture was in its early stages of development, those people who would become the Hebrews likely wrote and spoke Proto-Canaanite, the language of the loose amalgamation of peoples in the region of Canaan near the dawn of human civilization. Proto-Canaanite was a pictograph system, meaning that the symbols that later became associated with specific sounds began representing whole concepts. For example, the original pictograph for the letter Alef resembles the head of a bull and was meant to indicate strength or leadership. From Proto-Canaanite, a more directly phonetic alphabet developed in the Phoenecian language. The region of Phoenecia was, like many parts of the world at that time, arranged as a series of independent city-states rather than a unified kingdom. To run with our example, the letter Alef transformed into the following shape: It's easy to see how this letter, like so much of the Phoenician alphabet, influenced the Greek language, which is the origin of the letter Alpha, itself being functionally identical to the modern letter A. This is because Greek informed Etruscan and Etruscan developed into Latin. Today, we anglophones use the Roman Latin Alphabet. Even the term "Alphabet" comes from the first two letters in that system stemming from Proto-Canaanite, "Alef" and "Bet". Even the progression of Western letters follows the the same progression as Hebrew. Where the Greek runs- Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, etc., Hebrew runs- Alef, Bet, Gimel, Dalet, etc. This is how languages develop; not in a vacuum, but as a confluence of cross-cultural communication. There are even a few Hebrew words that snuck their way into English. One that comes to mind is the word Sabbatical, meaning an extended period of vacation from one's work. This comes from the Hebrew term "Shabbat", which means Sabbath, and comes from the Hebrew verb Lishavet meaning "To rest". So, no matter how strange and foreign Hebrew may seem to a lifelong English-speaker, the two languages share a common history, as do the majority of the languages spoken on planet Earth today.

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