Buried Treasure
Divine Meaning Locked In Divine Code
If you’re just joining our Language of Life series now, here’s what you need to know:
Although Diaspora Jews are, in general, a highly literate demographic, we are as a whole, disturbingly il-literate in the Hebrew language of the Torah. Even if many of us can technically pronounce these words, way too many of us don’t know what we’re saying (read more here).
At the same time, it happens to be that Hebrew is so intrinsically packed with meaning that Jewish law permits even the clueless to read prayers and Torah in Hebrew. This is based on a premise that that our subconscious mind sufficiently absorbs the meaning of Hebrew even when it passes through our conscious mind with barely no comprehension (read more here).
This said, mindlessly parroting Hebrew is not the goal. Nor is this a long-term stepping stone on the way to a more meaningful Judaism. Thinking adults will naturally seek meaningful experiences. If their minds are not engaged in the meaning of Judaism when they’re literally reading it, they will eventually look for meaning elsewhere.
“Thinking adults will naturally seek meaningful experiences.
”If their minds are not engaged in the meaning of Judaism when they’re literally reading it, they will eventually look for meaning elsewhere.”
In this series, we are moving towards a richer understanding of what Hebrew is and how we can get much more out of it. But first, we want to address the normative practice of using Hebrew without comprehension.
What makes the Holy Language holy?
What is it about Hebrew that makes it “magically” meaningful to us even when we utter it without understanding?
And as great as it might be to somehow absorb Hebrew’s meaning subconsciously, how can we begin to more consciously experience its meaning?
We should first appreciate that there is a great deal of meaning around us that is effectively dormant, registering only in our subconscious.
Most moviegoers don’t realize how much of their experience watching a film is determined by the camera’s angle, the framing of the shot, the lighting, the nature of the cuts, and perhaps most significantly, the soundtrack. An amateur audience is unaware of how these details were carefully chosen by filmmakers to convey large amounts of the meaning in their films.
Most consumers of art, in general, are unconscious of the conscious creative choices that went into the art they enjoy.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of going to an art museum with a skilled guide, it can feel like a revelation. The Louvre in Paris determined that the typical visitor would spend no more than 15 seconds looking at a piece, and the Met in New York found the average viewing time to be 27 seconds. Until I was taught how to look at art by a museum guide, I don’t think I would make it to either of those benchmarks. I was more focused on “covering ground,” and then congratulating myself for having “seen” the famous paintings the museum was known for. I was content with this superficial contact with “meaningful pieces of art” even if I couldn’t tell you what they actually meant.
Human beings gravitate towards meaning even when they don’t know what it means. If they know there is meaning somewhere, they want to be close to it, and absorb it through osmosis if they could.
“Human beings gravitate towards meaning even when they don’t know what it means.”
If they don’t know it’s there, however, people are capable of walking straight past brilliance, barely noticing it. In 2007, virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell did an experiment after having just sold out Boston’s Symphony Hall. He busked at a Boston metro station wearing a baseball cap, playing his $3.5 million Stradivari violin, handcrafted in 1713. Barely anyone stopped to listen to him. At some point, one woman happened to recognize him, and because she stopped to listen, a handful of others stopped to listen for a bit as well, but that was it.
In a fancy music hall, with everyone dressed up, even amateurs know that they should should listen carefully to classical music, even if they are not connoisseurs themselves. But in a busy metro stop, most people don’t even think to stop and listen.
The problem is meaning doesn’t jump out and grab us. Very little gets into our brains through osmosis. We’d like for it to, but it doesn’t. Meaning must be drawn out. It must be decoded. All of us need help unlocking new codes.
A guide in the Prado Museum in Madrid taught me to follow the lighting and shadows in paintings, and trace where the characters’ gazes were pointed at. He brought to my attention subtleties in people’s expressions. He encouraged me to consider the physical force and intent in artists’ brush strokes, and what emotions the paint may have been applied with.
With every lesson in art appreciation, he was unlocking a code for me, allowing me to not just look at the art, but through the art, to the soul of the artist.
99.9% of the meaning latent in Hebrew is locked away for so many Hebrew users.1
Just this week, two students of mine told me that although they don’t really know what they’re saying, they prefer to read the prayers in Hebrew rather than in English translation. When I encouraged one of them to read in English to at least know what he was saying, he responded, “Rabbi, I can’t daven (pray) in English — it feels ‘so not Jewish’ — I’d rather not daven it at all.”
I’ve heard this many times before from traditional-but-not-fully-observant Jews.
What are they sensing in Hebrew that they aren’t getting in English?
It seems that they prefer the intuitive feeling of ancient mystical meaning on their lips in spite of their inability to decipher it. They sense that there is a buried treasure of meaning there and are happy just knowing it’s there. Perhaps the thought of actually reaching that treasure feels insurmountable to them. It’s too ancient and too mystical for them ever really get it, but meaningful enough to stay close to it.
Every language is a code.
Once we become fluent in a language, it becomes harder to appreciate how much and how fast our brains are decoding. As I observe my younger children learn to speak, read, and write in English and Hebrew, I’ve paid attention to how they slowly crack the code, and I’ve gained great respect for the process (and those teachers who have the patience and wisdom to support the process).
What makes Hebrew different from other languages is simple:
The Hebrew of the Torah — its code and its content — is Divine.
“What makes Hebrew different from other languages is simple…[it’s] Divine.”
While it is perfectly reasonable for you to not naively accept this assertion because I said it, I invite you to find the will to explore it — if only as a thought experiment:
What would it look like for an entire language to come from a Single, Benevolent, Infinitely Intelligent Source (as opposed to a human-made language cobbled together over centuries by lots of people in one part of the world communicating with one another in speech and writing, thereby shaping it over time)?
A language created by God would have to be perfect as a code — it would have to perfectly encode meaning:
Its letters would not be merely phonetic. The shape of the letters would also carry meaning.
Additionally, the order and structure of the alphabet would have to be significant and carry meaning as well. The first letter should be intentionally the first letter, and the second letter intentionally the second letter, and so on.
The names of the letters should be significant, not arbitrary.
Letters should combine with one another in an algorithmic way. All words that start with the same letter should share some essential meaning. All words that start with the same first two-letter combination should be even closer in essential meaning, and so on.
The rules of grammar should be more than just efficient — they should themselves express meaning by representing the way concepts interconnect.
Additionally, this language would have to be the perfect code for representing the wisdom of the Torah, which was given in Hebrew.
In summary: a language that was naturally forged through the natural hodgepodge of a society and its culture should possess idiosyncrasies that are a function of that hodgepodge, but a language that emerged from God should be maximally meaningful, and perfectly reflect the core truths of life.
These are bold claims, but they are the ancient claims about Hebrew as the Holy Language — the language of life. Next time, we’ll finally stop just talking about Hebrew, and start actually learning Hebrew. We don’t want to blindly walk by its genius.
I call them “users” not “speakers” precisely because they don’t know what they’re saying. I cannot in good conscience put on my resume that I “speak” a language if all I can do is mechanically read the words off a page.
Rabbi Jack Cohen,
I appreciate this explanation, not just because of my own thoughts…..
It might be appropriate to mention my Grandfather’s suggestion every Friday night,
“Let’s go back to the Original (Language).”
This has propelled me to learn Hebrew Prayers
By attending a Synagogue and sharing computer assisted learning from Israel with young students.