‘Culture Shock’: The Hebrew word for ‘culture’

As the Hebrew language was being revived from its dormant state in the late 19^th century, Hebrew writers were borrowing the word ‘culture’ from English and the Slavic languages, albeit with a Polish-Russian flavor: קוּלְטוּרָה (kooltura).

Then came Polish-born historian and linguist Rabbi Zeev Yabetz (1847-1924) and decided it’s time for a Hebrew word for ‘culture.’

Based on his extensive knowledge of Jewish sources, he reached back into last week’s parsha, Matot, finding an obscure word whose meaning is uncertain. In fact, it’s a hapax legomenon, meaning it appears only once in the entire Bible, but in that one instance – it has a very negative connotation.

He chose a word appearing in the drama involving the tribes of Reuben and Gad, who owned a lot of cattle, and asked Moses to stay in Transjordan area and not enter the Land of Canaan. Moses explodes with anger, subjecting them to a lengthy diatribe about how sinful their request is. And he accuses them:

וְהִנֵּה קַמְתֶּם תַּחַת אֲבֹתֵיכֶם תַּרְבּוּת אֲנָשִׁים חַטָּאִים”  (במדבר, 32:14)”

 “Now here, you have arisen in place of your fathers, a brood of sinning men”

(Numbers 32:14, Professor Everett Fox, Shocken Bible)

This unique word, תַּרְבּוּת (tarbut), translated here as ‘brood,’ comes from the root rav, “many” which we find in several words:  הַרְבֵּה,  רוֹב, מַרְבִּית, לְהַרְבּוֹת  – all having to do with a large quantity or a majority of something. So the original meaning of this word is ‘a large group of people.’

Rabbi Yabetz plucked the word תַּרְבּוּת and offered it as the Hebrew word for ‘culture.’ In doing so, he flipped the meaning from negative to positive, but still maintained the connection to ‘many’ since culture is, essentially, the aggregate of many customs, traditions, and values of a particular group of people.

In Mishnaic literature – the meaning of the word broadened, but the negative connotation remained. In those sources, we find the phrase

יָצָא לְתַרְבּוּת רָעָה

as an expression meaning someone who left a Torah way of life usually in favor of heretic or  pleasure-seeking lifestyle. For example, after Elisha ben Avuya became a heretic, the Talmud uses this phrase about him, meaning he had ‘gone astray’ (Chagigah 15a).

It’s quite shocking that Yabetz, a brilliant scholar of Jewish studies, chose a word with such negative connotations.  This begs the question: why did Yabetz choose a word associated with sinning people? Couldn’t he find other, more positive words?

I think he liked the sound of tarbut (it does have a soft and French-y quality) and he assumed, correctly, that being such an esoteric word, people won’t recognize its original context.

But perhaps there is a deeper message here: Culture is no guarantee for decency or morality. Throughout history, there were ‘cultured’ sinning people, committing terrible crimes despite their advanced culture.

This phenomenon continues to this very day. People from many societies, including ours, have found ‘cultured’ ways to justify horrible actions that deprive other people of their most basic rights.

We must always remember to first and foremost behave morally and justly, and if that is part and parcel of our culture – only then has culture turned into a positive endeavor.