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The Sanctification of Yiddish among Hasidim

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2020

Daniel Reiser*
Affiliation:
Herzog and Zefat Colleges
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Abstract

The sanctification of Yiddish in hasidic society occurred primarily in the first half of the twentieth century and intensified in the wake of the Holocaust. The roots of this phenomenon, however, lie in the beginnings of Hasidism in the eighteenth century. The veneration of Yiddish is linked to the hasidic attitude towards vernacular language and the status of the ẓaddik “speaking Torah.” Hasidism represented—and represents—an oral culture in which the verbal transfer of its sacred content sanctifies the language spoken by its adherents, in this case, Yiddish. This article presents a theological and sociological examination of the various stages of the sanctification of Yiddish among Hasidim from the movement's early stages to the late twentieth century.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2020

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Footnotes

This article was supported by Herzog College, to which I would like to express my sincere and deepest gratitude. I am most grateful to Chava Turniansky, Ariel Evan Mayse, Rebecca Wolpe, and Sam Glauber-Zimra for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this paper. Many thanks to the anonymous readers, whose comments greatly enriched and broadened the article.

References

1. See Jacobs, Neil G., Yiddish: A Linguistic Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 23Google Scholar.

2. Concerning the history of Jewish multi/bilingualism in general, and the relations between Yiddish and Hebrew in particular, see Bartal, Israel, Cossack and Bedouin: Land and People in Jewish Nationalism [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: ʽAm ʽOved, 2007), 247314Google Scholar; Weinreich, Max, History of the Yiddish Language, ed. Glasser, P., trans. Noble, S. and Fishman, J. A. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 1:247–314Google Scholar; Harshav, Benjamin, The Meaning of Yiddish (Berkeley, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), 824Google Scholar; Fishman, Joshua A., “‘Holy Languages’ in the Context of Societal Bilingualism,” in Opportunities and Challenges of Bilingualism, ed. Wei, Li, Dewaele, Jean-Marc, and Housen, Alex (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2002), 1524Google Scholar.

3. Israel Bartal has demonstrated that the Haskalah literature written in Yiddish was nevertheless paradoxically the sworn enemy of Yiddish. See Bartal, Israel, The Jews of Eastern Europe 1772–1881 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 98101Google Scholar. Over the years, the Yiddish language achieved cultural recognition in its own right, in particular in the wake of the literary works of the three classic Yiddish writers, Mendele Moykher Sforim (Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh, 1835–1917), Sholem Aleichem (Shalom Rabinovitz, 1859–1916), and Y. L. (Yitskhok Leybush) Peretz (1852–1915), known as the grandfather, father, and son. See Novershtern, Avraham, “Ha-sifrut ve-ha-ḥayim: Ẓemiḥatah shel sifrut yidish ha-ḥadashah,” in Leʼan? Zeramim ḥadashim be-kerev yehude mizraḥ-ʾeropah (Tel Aviv: Open University, 2000), 3544Google Scholar. See Fishman, David E., The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. In many religious books in Yiddish, such as Brantshpigl (1596), Tsene-rene (1616), and Lev-tov (1620), the title page includes explicit statements that they are intended for women, and sometimes that they are also for uneducated men (“men who are like women”). See Seidman, Naomi, A Marriage Made in Heaven: The Sexual Politics of Hebrew and Yiddish (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 1139Google Scholar; Weissler, Chava, “‘For Women and for Men Who Are Like Women’: The Construction of Gender in Yiddish Devotional Literature,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5, no. 2 (1989): 724Google Scholar. Much later, in the twentieth century, there was a deliberate use of Yiddish in publishing hasidic texts, so that they would be more accessible to women. This phenomenon is found especially in Chabad but also in other hasidic dynasties. In Satmar, for example, given the stricture against study of loshn koydesh for women, ostensibly because of the rabbinic warning against teaching women Torah (B. Sotah 20a), but more likely so that they would not have access to Zionist literature, a new genre of Yiddish books of religious instruction for girls has evolved. In addition, a more recent phenomenon is the creation of a library of story books in Yiddish for Satmar (and other) hasidic girls. This is a significant area of inquiry, but cannot be treated in this article. For more on Yiddish and women in modern Hasidism see Loewenthal, Naftali, “Women and the Dialectic of Spirituality in Hasidism,” in Within Hasidic Circles, Studies in Hasidism in Memory of Mordecai Wilensky, ed. Etkes, I. et al. (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1999), *42–*52Google Scholar; , Loewenthal, Communicating the Infinite: The Emergence of Habad School (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), 200205Google Scholar; Rapoport-Albert, Ada, “From Woman as Hasid to Woman as ‘Tsadik’ in the Teachings of the Last Two Lubavitcher Rebbes,” Jewish History 27, nos. 2–4 (2013): 435–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; , Rapoport-Albert, Hasidic Studies, Essays in History and Gender (Liverpool: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization in association with Liverpool University Press, 2018), 439n43Google Scholar.

5. Chava Turniansky has demonstrated that the distinction between loshn koydesh and Yiddish is not one between holy and secular but rather between texts for the educated or the masses. The addressee is the defining factor in determining the language of the composition. See Turnianksy, Chava, Language, Education and Knowledge among East European Jews [in Hebrew], unit 7 of Polin, The Jews of Eastern Europe: History and Culture (Tel Aviv: The Open University of Israel, 1994), 6176Google Scholar. See also Tsippi Kauffman, “Theological Aspects of Bilingualism in Hasidic Society” [in Hebrew], Gal-Ed 23 (2013): 155–56. Concerning prayer books in Yiddish from the start of the eighteenth century, and popular Yiddish books on topics of correct behavior and ethics, see Gries, Zeev, Conduct Literature (Regimen Vitae): Its History and Place in the Life of Beshtian Hasidim [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1990), 1121Google Scholar.

6. Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, 1:189–92. Weinreich discusses the special connotations of the word rebbe in hasidic society, the use of the second-person singular between members of the same hasidic group in contrast to the accepted Yiddish usage of the second-person plural, and more.

7. The literal translation of shayne yidn is “beautiful Jews.” The term kle kodesh, which is commonly used within religious society in Israel, derives from the Yiddish klekoydesh. See Weinreich, Uriel, Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary (New York: Yivo, 1968), 581Google Scholar; Niborsky, Yitskhok, Verterbukh fun loshn koydesh shtamike verter in yidish (Paris: Bibliothèque Medem, 2012), 218–19Google Scholar.

8. Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, 1:230. Regarding high and low registers of Yiddish, see the concept of “component consciousness,” which Weinreich developed, ibid., 2:656–57.

9. Ibid., 1:188–96. The chapter “The Language of the Way of the Shas” (ibid., 1:175–274) is devoted to this topic.

10. Ibid., 1:240–41. See, for example, the extensive Hebrew component in the sermons of R. Aharon of Karlin, in his book Beit Aharon, as well as those of Chabad rebbes R. Yosef Yiẓḥak Schneerson, in his books Likute diburim, and R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson's Likute siḥot and Siḥot kodesh (a massive literary corpus in its own right). The framework of this paper does not allow for an examination of instances of this phenomenon. However, among the many examples are the following quotations from sermons by Schneerson, R. Yosef Yiẓḥak, Likute diburim (Brooklyn: Kehot, 1992)Google Scholar (Yiddish edition), likut 7, Festival of Shavuot, 1934. In the following translations, words in the loshn koydesh are indicated using italics: “In Hasidism there are pieces of advice about a number of matters, both in matters of moḥin [intelligence] and in matters of midot [morals] … one of the things that our people and upright scholars must become accustomed to is ẓiyur [imagery]” (p. 314); “In every generation the hasidic farbrengens were one of the supporting pillars in the edifice of hasidic education and guidance” (p. 318). His Yiddish is characterized by an extensive Hebrew component and differs from customary literary Yiddish. Every sentence is half Hebrew, to the extent that it is unclear whether the Hebrew is a linguistic component of the Yiddish or vice versa! Concerning the Hebrew component in spoken Yiddish in modern Israel, see Assouline, Dalit, Contact and Ideology in a Multilingual Community: Yiddish and Hebrew among the Ultra-Orthodox (Boston: de Gruyter, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; , Assouline, “Verbs of Hebrew Origin in Israeli Haredi Yiddish,” in Hebrew: A Living Language [in Hebrew], ed. Shahar, R. Ben, Toury, G., and Ben-Ari, N., vol. 5 (Haifa: Ha-kibbutz Ha-meʾuḥad and the Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, Tel Aviv University, 2000), 2745Google Scholar; Isaacs, Miriam, “Yiddish in the Orthodox Communities of Jerusalem,” in Politics of Yiddish: Studies in Language, Literature, and Society, ed. Kerler, Dov-Ber (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1998), 8596Google Scholar; , Isaacs, “Yiddish ‘Then and Now’: Creativity in Contemporary Hasidic Yiddish,” Studies in Jewish Civilization 9 (1998): 165–88Google Scholar; , Isaacs, “Contentious Partners: Yiddish and Hebrew in Haredi Israel,” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 138 (1999): 101–21Google Scholar; , Isaacs, “Hebrew-Yiddish Bilingualism among Israeli Hasidic Children,” in Issues in the Acquisition and Teaching of Hebrew, ed. Feuer, Avital et al. (Bethesda: University Press of Maryland, 2009), 139–54Google Scholar. See also further articles in Isaacs, M. and Glinert, L., eds., Pious Voices: Languages among Ultra-Orthodox Jews (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1999)Google Scholar.

11. Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, 1:219–23.

12. In hasidic sermons we encounter words such as meyage zayn or mekhabe zayn, which are not found in general Yiddish usage. Sometimes these expressions developed from proximity to Hebrew verses, such as Song of Songs 8:7, “Many waters cannot quench [lekhabot] love.” The verse uses the verb lekhabot, and, in order to maintain the language of the original verse, the Yiddish preacher uses the same root: mekhabe zayn. This phenomenon can be found until the present day in Yiddish-speaking ultra-Orthodox societies. For a list of verbs in the verbal stems hiphʿil, paʿil, and hitpaʿel that have been introduced into the language, see Dalit Berman-Assouline, “Yidish ḥaredit, loshn-koydesh ve-ʽivrit yisraʼelit: Tofaʽot leksikaliyot shel mifgash ben leshonot” (MA thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2000), 63–66. A number of newly introduced verbs are: maklit zayn, masrit zayn, mekazez zayn, and zikh mitḥamek zayn.

13. For a more detailed discussion see Reiser, Daniel and Mayse, Ariel Evan, Sefat ʾemet be-sefat ha-ʾem: Derashotav shel R. Yehuda Arye Leib Alter be-yidish (Jerusalem: Magnes, forthcoming, 2020)Google Scholar.

14. See Ariel Evan Mayse, Speaking Infinities: God and Language in the Teachings of Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezritsh (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming).

15. Zalman, R. Shneur of Liady, Torah ʾor (New York: Kehot, 1992)Google Scholar, parashat mishpatim, 78b. Concerning the relation to Aramaic as a second holy language, see Yehudah Liebes, “ʿIvrit ve-ʾaramit ke-leshonot ha-Zohar,” http://liebes.huji.ac.il/files/ivrit.pdf. Kauffman, in “Theological Aspects,” 148–52, claims that hasidic literature, until the twentieth century, does not directly discuss the status of Yiddish. Moreover, there are no written sources that endow Yiddish with any status of holiness. In her opinion, this is unsurprising, because “as long as Yiddish did not compete with any other alternative vernacular, such as Hebrew, upon its revival, and English, upon the migration of Yiddish speakers from eastern Europe across the sea, there was no need to discuss its holiness or to justify its use” (ibid., 152). By contrast, the source to which we refer demonstrates that the students of the Maggid of Mezritsh already discussed the status and sanctification of Yiddish.

16. Kauffman, “Theological Aspects,” 148. Writing within the context of Chabad Hasidism, Naftali Loewenthal claims that the dissemination of hasidic teachings in Yiddish accorded Yiddish a status of holiness that did not exist before the advent of Hasidism. See Loewenthal, Naftali, “Hebrew and the Habad Communication Ethos,” in Hebrew in Ashkenaz: A Language in Exile, ed. Glinert, Lewis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 167–68Google Scholar.

17. Katz, Dovid, Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish (New York: Basic Books, 2004), 157–63Google Scholar.

18. Katz, Dovid, Yiddish and Power (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 203–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. Ibid., 205. Regarding the first component, see Natan Ziskind, “ʿIyyunim be-toldoteyah shel yidish,” Ḥuliot 6 (2000): 385–95. Ziskind (ibid., 393–94) discusses how the Jewish population in eastern Europe was rooted in a multilingual world, where Yiddish was one language among many different ones in the Slavic space. These Jews did not feel any significant pressure to assimilate linguistically, and Yiddish formed a critical component of their Jewish identity vis-à-vis other ethnic or religious groups, which adopted other languages. At any rate, we can understand from his remarks the importance of Yiddish and its status among eastern European Jews in general, and Hasidim in particular, as a form of religious and cultural identity.

20. See Rosman, Moshe, Founder of Hasidism: A Quest for the Historical Baal Shem Tov (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 159–86Google Scholar.

21. For a detailed discussion see Mayse, Ariel Evan and Reiser, Daniel, “Territories and Textures: The Hasidic Sermon as the Crossroads of Language and Culture,” Jewish Social Studies 24, no. 1 (2018): 127–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. Roskies, David, A Bridge of Longing: The Lost Art of Yiddish Storytelling (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 2931Google Scholar.

23. Ibid., 31.

24. Ibid.

25. On the comparison of the hasidic sermon to the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, see Sagiv, Gadi, Dynasty: The Chernobyl Hasidic Dynasty and Its Place in the History of Hasidism [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2014), 182200Google Scholar; Green, Arthur, “The Hasidic Homily: Mystical Performance and Hermeneutical Process,” in As a Perennial Spring: A Festschrift Honoring Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, ed. Cohen, B. (New York: Downhill Publishing, 2013), 237–65Google Scholar; Idel, Moshe, Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 473–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Among Chabad Hasidim, the sermons given by ẓaddikim are known as DA”Ḥ, the first letters of the words divre ʾElohim ḥayim (the words of the living God). This title was given to sermons already in the days of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady, the founder of Chabad Hasidism. See Etkes, Immanuel, Baʿal Ha-tanya: Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady and the Origins of Habad Hasidism [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2011), 889Google Scholar.

26. The writers of the Haskalah identified this conception on the part of the Hasidim and consequently endeavored to demonstrate the source of their linguistic sin—the ẓaddik and his defective language. For an example of this type of maskilic criticism, see Josef Perl's Megale temirin, Meir's, Jonatan edition, Sefer megale temirin (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2013), 3538Google Scholar. Perl himself attempted to imitate the defective language of the ẓaddikim. See , Meir, Imagined Hasidism: The Anti-Hasidic Writings of Josef Perl [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2013), 7778Google Scholar.

27. Concerning Rabbi Akiva Schlesinger, see Shachrai, Alter Yaakov, Rabi ʿAkivaʾ Yosef Shlesinger [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1942)Google Scholar; Silber, Michael, “A Hebrew Heart Beats in Hungary: Rabbi Akiva Joseph Schlesinger—Between Ultra-Orthodoxy and Jewish Nationalism” [in Hebrew], in A Hundred Years of Religious Zionism: Figures and Thought, ed. Sagi, Avi and Schwartz, Dov (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2003), 225–54Google Scholar; Salmon, Yosef, “Akiva Yosef Schlesinger: A Forerunner of Zionism or a Forerunner of Ultra-Orthodoxy,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 15, no. 2 (2016): 171–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. See Silber, Michael K., “The Emergence of Ultra-Orthodoxy: The Invention of a Tradition,” in The Uses of Tradition: Jewish Continuity since Emancipation, ed. Wertheimer, Jack (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992), 2384Google Scholar. Much of the significance of Schlesinger is his role in the 1865 pesak din of Michalowce. The first of the nine articles of this halakhic decision is “not to preach in the language of the nations of the world [i.e., German or Hungarian etc.].” Instead, the sermon in a synagogue must be given in the “language of Judaism” (i.e., Yiddish). See ibid., 50–59.

29. Hatam Sofer's Last Will and Testament,” trans. Weiss, Dov, in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, ed. Mendes-Flohr, Paul and Reinharz, Jehuda (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 196Google Scholar.

30. Shlesinger, Akiva Yosef, Lev ha-ʿivri (Ungvar: 1865), 1:20–22Google Scholar.

31. Bamidbar Rabbah 13:20.

32. Shlesinger, Lev ha-ʿivri, 21b.

33. On occasion this conservatism even pushed aside Hebrew. See Parush, Iris, “Another Look at ‘The Life of “Dead” Hebrew’: Intentional Ignorance of Hebrew in Nineteenth-Century Eastern European Jewish Society,” Book History 7, no. 1 (2004): 171214CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Parush argues that during the nineteenth century, Orthodox society in eastern Europe intentionally prevented its members from obtaining an education in the holy tongue to safeguard the youth from Hebrew maskilic literature, thus avoiding its detrimental and undermining influences on traditional society.

34. See also Katz, Yiddish and Power, 214–23.

35. Israel Bartal, “From Traditional Bilingualism to National Monolingualism,” in Glinert, Hebrew in Ashkenaz, 141–50.

36. Bartal, Cossack and Bedouin, 37. Emphasis in the original.

37. Concerning the war of languages between Hebrew and Yiddish at the beginning of the twentieth century see Reiser, Daniel, “Ha-gevirah ve-ha-shifḥah: Be-ʿikvot veʿidat Tsernovits 1908,” Segulah 46 (2014): 3845Google Scholar. Regarding the various Yiddishist movements see Moss, Kenneth B., Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In particular, see 29–30, 54, 310n15, 325n15 on the battle between Yiddishists and Hebraists regarding which language should take precedence.

38. Teitelbaum, Yoel, Ve-yoʾel Moshe: Maʾamar leshon ha-kodesh (New York: Sender Deutsch, 1961), 401–53Google Scholar.

39. “Admor” is a title used for a hasidic master, the leader of a hasidic court.

40. Schneerson, R. Sholem Ber, “Leshon ha-kodesh ve-ha-dibur bah,” in Migdal ʿoz: Maʾamare torah ve-ḥasidut meʾet rabotenu ha-kedoshim nesiʾei ḤaBaD, ed. Mondshein, Yehoshua (Kefar ḤaBaD: Machon Lubavitch, 1980), 1718Google Scholar. See also Teitelbaum, Ve-yoʾel Moshe, 418–21.

41. Schneerson, Migdal ʿoz, 18–19.

42. Ibid., 21–22. Concerning the feeling of theological and political threat, see also Ve-yoʾel Moshe, 427: “And how wretched must be the dough when the baker himself testifies to it, that the great professor among them who studied history of Hebrew literature himself wrote that this language has been made to gore the pious.” The ruling against it is found on p. 429: “Thus, one must devote himself to avoid this [speaking Hebrew] even more than objects of idolatry.” On ultra-Orthodoxy's opposition to Modern Hebrew see Brown, Iris, “From Ideology to Halakhah: Ultra-Orthodox Opposition to Modern Hebrew,” Studies in Judaism, Humanities, and the Social Sciences 1, no. 2 (2018): 3358Google Scholar.

43. Bartal, Cossack and Bedouin, 39–40.

44. See also: Glinert, Lewis and Shilhav, Yosseph, “Holy Land, Holy Language: A Study of an Ultraorthodox Jewish Ideology,” Language in Society 20, no. 1 (1991): 5986CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45. Ve-yoʾel Moshe, 427: “Their impure language, which they call Hebrew,” 428: “It [Hebrew] is despised and abominable and impure. It should be ‘cried out: impure impure’ [Leviticus 13:45]—and it is worse by thousands and multitudes of levels than the rest of the languages of the nations.”

46. Concerning Jewish migration from eastern Europe following World War I, see Polonsky, Antony, The Jews in Poland and Russia 1914–2008 (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2012), 3:5–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zechlin, Egmont, Die Deutsche Politik und die Juden im Ersten Weltkrieg (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969)Google Scholar; Schuster, Frank, Zwischen allen Fronten: Osteuropäische Juden während des Ersten Weltkrieges 1914–1918 (Cologne: Böhlau, 2004)Google Scholar. Regarding the flow of Hasidim from Galicia and Bukovina to Vienna, see Ungerfeld, Moshe, Vina (Tel Aviv: Nahum Dreemer, 1946), 120–24Google Scholar; Rechter, David, The Jews of Vienna and the First World War (London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2001), 67100Google Scholar; Heschel, Abraham J., “The History of Hassidism in Austria,” in The Jews of Austria: Essays on Their Life, History, and Destruction, ed. Fraenkel, J. (London: Vallentine, 1967), 354–55Google Scholar. Regarding the impact of this migration on hasidic geographic space, see Wodziński, Marcin and Gellman, Uriel, “Towards a New Geography of Hasidism,” Jewish History 26, no. 2–4 (2013): 171–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47. On the process of urbanization that occurred among the hasidic courts following World War I, and the challenges this posed to them, see Wodziński, Marcin, “War and Religion: or, How the First World War Changed Hasidism,” Jewish Quarterly Review 106, no. 3 (2016): 283312CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48. Hasidic attempts to insulate were only partially successful and Hasidism changed rapidly and significantly in this interwar period; see Wodziński, Marcin, Historical Atlas of Hasidism, cartography by Spallek, Waldemar (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018), 152–68Google Scholar.

49. Shapira, R. Chaim Elazar, Divre Torah II (Jerusalem: Or Torah Munkács, 1998), section 7, 170Google Scholar.

50. Sarah Schenirer, “Yidish un yidishkeyt,” Beys Yankev Zhurnal, Warsaw-Cracow-Lodz, 1931.

51. Schneerson, R. Menahem Mendel, Torat Menaḥem, vol. 17 (1955/6), third part, 95Google Scholar. More on the Lubavitcher Rebbe's approach to Yiddish and his radical project to recast Yiddish as the “language of redemption,” see Eli Rubin, “A Linguistic Bridge between Alienation and Intimacy: Chabad's Theorization of Yiddish in Historical and Cultural Perspective,” In geveb (January 2019).

52. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “Vegn yidish,” Tog morgen zhurnal, Feburary 24, 1961. Reprinted in Fishman, David Eliyahu, ed., Droshes un ksovim me'otsar harav: Geklibene ksovim fun harav Dov Halevi Soloveytshik (Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 2009), 321–22Google Scholar. On Soloveitchik's Yiddish see Ariel Evan Mayse, “Yokhed ve-tsiber: Individual Expression and Communal Responsibility in a Yiddish Droshe by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik,” In geveb (February 2019).

53. Gershom Sholem regarded Roth as a sui generis mystic. See Sholem, , Devarim be-go: Pirke morashah ve-teḥiyah (Tel Aviv: ʿAm ʿOved, 1990), 76Google Scholar.

54. On the kabbalistic notion of uplifting the sparks see Jacobs, Louis, “The Uplifting of Sparks in Later Jewish Mysticism,” in Jewish Spirituality: From the Sixteenth-Century Revival to the Present, ed. Green, A. (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 99126Google Scholar.

55. B. Megillah 6b.

56. Roth, Aharon, Kontres ʾahavat ha-boreʾ, ma'amar ẓahali ve-roni (Jerusalem: Bet Yetomim Diskin Print, 1942), 404Google Scholar. See, as well, Tamir Granot, “‘Galut Yisraʾel be-ʾereẓ ha-kodesh’: Ha-yidish ve-ha-mivtaʾ ha-ʾashkenazi be-pesikah u-be-hagut ha-ḥaredit be-zamenenu,” Mayim me-delav 18 (2008): 371–402.

57. Miriam Vinshtok, “Mame loshn,” 9, supplement to Hamodiʿa, 18 Tammuz 1999.

58. See, for example, the poem by Bunem (Bini) Heler, “Mayn shvester khaye” (My sister Ḥaya), which sanctifies Yiddish as the language of the murdered (in this case his sister who cared for him in his childhood and now sits next to God): “For her I write in Yiddish my songs / in the worst days of our time / for God alone she is an only daughter / she sits in heaven by His right side.” In his poem “Yiddish, My Beloved Language,” Heller depicts the role that Yiddish assumed after the Holocaust: “I carry you on my lips / You live and your blood still burns / there will yet remain enough for a remnant—of madness and horror / I carry you with me in the world, searching for a place where you can / tell the story of the destruction / in Jewish-Yiddish letters to impart.” Regarding this, see http://www.yadvashem.org/he/articles/general/yiddish-after-holocaust.html. On the holiness of Yiddish following the Holocaust among Orthodox and non-Orthodox circles, see Fishman, Joshua A., “The Holiness of Yiddish: Who Says Yiddish Is Holy and Why,” Language Policy 1, no. 2 (2002): 123–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59. During my studies at Yavneh High School in Haifa, when we shared the school building with the Talmud Torah Yahel Yisraʾel of Ḥaside Seret-Vizhnitz in 1993, I saw posters in which the rebbe, R. Eliezer Hager, called for the Hasidim to speak only Yiddish among themselves, claiming that this was the tradition of the holy ancestors, and citing the verse “Do not forsake your mother's teaching” (Proverbs 1:8).

60. Wosner, Shmuel Halevi, Responsa shevet Halevi (Bene Berak: 2002), part 10, paragraph 237Google Scholar.