Eliezer Ben Yehudah’s Day

On January 7th, 2025, the Eastern Orthodox Church and all Oriental Churches of Jerusalem , primarily located along an axis stretching from the Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia) down through ancient Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Egypt, and Ethiopia, celebrate the Nativity or birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

Other Christians who follow the old Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar, also celebrate the Nativity on this date. For example, in the pre-Revolutionary Russian Empire, January 7th corresponded to December 25th. To this day, the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, the Russian Orthodox Church, and some other churches still adhere to this calendar. Meanwhile, the Western Churches celebrate the Theophany, the revelation of Jesus at the Jordan River.

The 165th anniversary of the birth of Eliezer ben Yehuda, born Eliezer Perlman in Luzhky on the 21st of Tevet 5618, according to the Jewish calendar also falls, every year on this January 7th day.

He was a visionary, with an innate sense of the importance of the Jewish family and education. This makes him a dominant figure in addressing many of the challenges faced by Israeli society today. Like most of those who started envisioning the Jewish State of Israel, he was born in the Russian Empire. Despite the difficulties of his time, he managed to attend a Russian gymnasium (high school). From the very beginning, the revival of the Jewish State in Eretz Israel was rooted in Russian and Slavic, Yiddish and Talmudic cultural worldviews/ Welanschauungen (miropriyatie – мероприятие).

On this Tuesday, January 7th, 2025 / December 25th, 2024 (New Year is celebrated on January 13th-14th), we commemorate the civil birthday of Eliezer Ben Yehuda. By 1858, people in Jerusalem were speaking Hebrew, and it was widely written in a manner that may have seemed either “awkward or overly sophisticated.” Interestingly, the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, part of the Moscow Synod (the Moscow Patriarchate was re-established after the Bolshevik Revolution), was led by Father Levinson, whose Hebrew translation of the Divine Liturgy is a fine example of respectful rabbinic word choice and spiritual coherence. The language is beautiful, but it doesn’t always match the contemporary “colloquial speech”, which is, however, typical for religious texts.

When Eliezer Ben Yehuda was born, Hebrew was a semi-revived language in Jerusalem. Some authors have suggested that Hebrew should not even be considered a Semitic language, but rather a reworked “Judeo-Sorbian” dialect—a Slavic language searching for its Semitic roots (P. Wexler, The Schizoid Nature of Modern Hebrew).

It is true that most of the early Hebrew speakers were native Yiddish and Russian speakers, with some influence from Ukrainian, Polish, and Belarusian. In fact, we must also consider the important number of local and Oriental Jewish Hebrew speakers. This infused the vernacular with a certain flavor that greatly influenced the development of Modern Hebrew. Hebrew “slang” dictionaries show the significant impact of Russian or Slavic expressions that entered Hebrew via Yiddish.

This mental imprint is particularly significant because of the Jewish exodus from the Slavic cultural world to Israel since the 1880s. In December 1890, Eliezer Ben Yehuda founded the Hebrew Language Council, which later became the Hebrew Academy. By the time of the so-called “Biblical generation” (1881-1921), he was able to benefit from the aliyah of well-educated, motivated young people from Russia, for whom it was normal to challenge history and adopt Hebrew as their home language (J. Fellman).

Indeed, on November 29, 1922, the British Mandate authorities recognized Hebrew as the national language of the Jews in Palestine. Eliezer Ben Yehuda passed away a month later, shortly after receiving his first financial support from European Jews (Alliance Israélite Universelle).

Nevertheless, the endeavor was, and remains, prophetic.

Ben Yehuda, along with many other Jews in the country, believed that parents could speak to their children imperfectly, and in return, the children would teach their parents correct Hebrew. The verse “Veshinantam levaneycha – ושננתם לבניך” (Deuteronomy 6:7)—”you shall teach them to your children”—and “vedibbarta bam – ודיברת בם” (“and you shall speak of them…”) became a real and practical method for any Jew to make Hebrew a living language.

This focus is more significant now than ever. True, this remarkable and exciting undertaking was also a mental, psychological, and spiritual challenge. Why? Because Hebrew had to move beyond its role in the synagogue dialogue with God and be reintroduced into the everyday educational life of the Jewish people in places like the shul, shtib, and cheder (places of study and prayer).

Thus, Hebrew overtook Yiddish and the vernacular Talmudic language in traditional education. When I first arrived in Israel, some groups only spoke Yiddish, but today their children prefer to speak Hebrew. Yiddish culture is reconnecting in a lively way with the very essence of God’s words. Any simple Jewish Israeli child—and at times the foreigner living among them —speaks the Tanakh and the Talmud, which deepens misunderstandings with other monotheistic traditions.

Hebrew is biblical Vulgata in Rome, Greek in Moscow and Athens, and English in New York or the renowned King James Translation. Luther’s “Bibel” shaped the Hochdeutsch German language a mental way of approaching the Scriptures.

There is a profound estrangement when it comes to accepting and using the Talmudic roots of the Gospel. We still need to rediscover the works of Daniel Chwolson, who taught Hebrew and Judaism at Orthodox and Catholic academies in 19th-century  at Saint Petersburg.

It is also worth noting that on January 8th / Tevet 8th, 5785, Judaism remembers as a “catastrophe” the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek by the Seventy Jewish Sages of Alexandria. This version remains the official text of the Bible for Eastern Rite Byzantine Churches and most Eastern Orthodox would read the Hebrew text (not that often the aramaic version of Onkelos) but not quote the original text. They do focus on the Greek version and the interpretations of the texts.

The revival of Hebrew relied on teaching methods backed by the Alliance Israélite Universelle since 1882. Every teacher was “an academic,” though without proper tools, yet fully dedicated to upgrading spoken Hebrew. This inspiring strength is now largely absent, which significantly impacts Israeli educational priorities. Teaching through creativity forms the foundation of the Mishnah and the Talmud. Education, especially studies, is essential within a Jewish community.

The Russian First Aliyah immigrants were highly educated, much like the immigrants today from the former Soviet Union. However, they do not receive, at present, the same support or opportunities as those who arrived in more challenging times. There are exceptional Hebrew teachers, particularly in Ulpan programs, whose vocabulary, sentence structure, and search for new words are impressive. The same is true for the development of Icelandic, with its “nýorð—new words”.

The third step in the revival of Hebrew was to require families to speak it exclusively at home. This was a natural consequence of an educational system.

According to the tradition, before sending children to school, mothers would bake honey cakes shaped like the Hebrew alphabet. Ben Yehuda reversed this process, hoping to accelerate the language’s revival: “Son of man, eat this scroll… it was as sweet as honey in my mouth” (Ezekiel 3:1). What had once been part of the synagogue and the community’s spiritual life had to extend to every home, family, and individual. This also required a strong sense of responsibility, “fatherhood,” and a commitment to fulfilling the task.

But the phrase “devash lematoq – דבש כמתוק” (“sweet as honey” or “honey to sweeten”) refers to the faith of Israel, and this must be considered, even as non-believers speak Hebrew. It reflects something of the immeasurable presence and communion that covers all ages and places.

The 165th anniversary of Ben Yehuda’s birth is akin to the shmittah year, a time of remission, which raises numerous questions… Where are we headed with Hebrew? Computer keyboards can’t even handle the letters properly, just as Arabic keyboards a face similar challenges.

This is a unique spiritual and human experience. Hebrew—even when it is not known or spoken—has unconsciously been the native language of every Jew “in the background, by a memory process, manifesting in various ways in psychology, human attitudes, reflections, beliefs, trade, and creativity. It must be handled with care and not used to exclude others. Hebrew does not “frame” people; it requires “border ropes” (cf. Talmud) to breathe and continue its journey.

Just as Christian monasteries have enclosing walls or “closures,” the revival of Hebrew parallels Paul’s statement about the “resurrection” (Romans 11:25).

This is why Hebrew continues to challenge the Churches. It is futile to pretend to use a language or attempt to make it an instrument of conversion. In the Churches, Jews have often been denied their “Father’s tongue – שפת האב” for some obscure reason that there should be no distinction between Jews and non-Jews in Jesus of Nazareth. This only pre-supposes that all are equal.

The child born these days in Bethlehem, the city of David, never used Hebrew for national purposes (he is never a “nationalist” as this is largely traced in the Gospel). New insights into the Talmud and its importance were “unintentionally” proposed by Eliezer Ben Yehuda. He could not avoid doing so.

It would be fascinating to examine one day the positive Christian-linked influences of Judaism that allowed Eliezer Ben Yehuda to break so decisively with any safe Hebrew tongue. We need such inspired individuals and people. He benefited greatly from the vast library of the Dominican Fathers in Jerusalem while creating new words, expressions, and his Thesaurus of the Hebrew Language.  But Hebrew/presentday Israeli [Hebrew] ( as defined by linguist Gila’ad Zukerman) must be part of the Church without being captured or replaced by non-Jews. It also expresses the incarnation of the Word and may mark belief in the resurrection, Just as Syriac Aramaic does.

Ultimately, the revival or “rebirth” of the Hebrew language as Modern “Israeli” speech is universal, like any linguistic tool. Israeli Hebrew is evolving, dynamic… and remains deeply “Jewish.” It is extremely difficult for non-Jews to master this new Hebrew. I know many non-Jewish Hebrew speakers who speak it fluently. However, the soul, the “neshama yetara” (נְשמה יתרה), continues to resonate not just with the Bible or the Psalms, but with the Oral Tradition and the Talmud, which are largely denied by non-Jewish and Christian or Islamic communities.

When European Catholic monks published the the Hebrew Bible, they “seized” it, acquired it, and believed it was their own. They thought that the language could transcend the “curtain of estrangement,” much as when Paul of Tarsus states that the “Kaporet/curtain was torn from top to bottom in the Temple, removing the wall of separation between Jews and non-Jews” (Matthew 27:51, Ephesians 2:14). This tends to suggest that a person, whether Jewish or Gentile, believe in Jesus of Nazareth according to the same patterns. This definitely cannot be the case.

There is a particular Israeli way of using this “Israeli Hebrew”. One Greek monk once asked me, despite speaking excellent Hebrew at all levels, if I could teach their community Talmudic words, sayings and expressions. He added, “We know the language, sometimes very well, but we feel that we don’t use the same words, the same meanings as the Jews do in everyday Hebrew or in the way they think and describe their opinions.” Well said.

This separation, this rift, makes sense in the current context. It contributes to the difficulties we face today and possibly over a long-term period.

These days, as we celebrate Eliezer Ben Yehuda’s birth, intriguingly coinciding with the “feast of the Nativity” in Belarus, we must remember his fervent efforts to make Hebrew a living language—a prophetic task that should not be forgotten from our calendars. It remains as prophetic as any tool that allows humans to express the deep speech of their souls.