By Larry Kaufman
A recent discussion in these precincts about Lashon Hara, intended to present a Jewish "take" on permissible and impermissible political discourse, gave rise to a peripheral discussion about the propriety of using words and phrases from languages other than English.

That article provided a literal translation of lashon hara as "the bad tongue," and provided as English explanations defamation, character assassination, or 'bad mouthing." The subsequent discussion suggested another meaning, malicious gossip.

As a relatively new entity, this blog had not previously articulated any "rules of the road," but the discussion provoked messages from the blog managers at the Union for Reform Judaism reminding bloggers the Union is not and cannot be in the business of endorsing or supporting candidates, and that the blog exists to look at the world through a lens of Reform Judaism. I propose an additional rule - we should follow the minhag (custom) that prevails on the Union list-servs, and translate expressions from languages other than English.

We RJ bloggers who use Hebrew terms have already been following that practice, with the tacit understanding that it's kosher to assume our readers have a basic vocabulary in the language of the synagogue - Shabbat, kiddush, kaddish, et al. (Et al is the Latin abbreviation for and others.) Supplying translations is a courtesy that is not typically extended in secular writing when a foreign-language term is used. Note, too, that in the context of this blog devoted to Reform Judaism, I do not consider or refer to Hebrew as a foreign language - it is the universal language of Judaism that binds English-speaking, Yiddish-speaking, Spanish-speaking, Ladino-speaking and other-speaking Jews, across time as well as space. They even used it in Pittsburgh in 1885!

Educated readers recognize that the purpose of any writer is to communicate, and the writer's choice of any word or phrase that may not be universally familiar is nonetheless purposeful. Most frequently, when the term is not English, it's been selected because there is no precise English equivalent, and because the writer pays his readers two compliment s: first, assuming they can cope with le mot juste, or as we might say in Hebrew, lashon tova, good language; second, assuming they are reading in order to expand their knowledge and broaden their horizons.

Lashon tova, good language, recognizes that language is both dynamic and complex. All languages are comprised not just of words, but also of idioms, figures of speech, and grammatical conventions. Prescriptive grammar is the province of Miss Nelson, your eighth grade teacher who told you not to end a sentence with a preposition, leading to the famous rejoinder, "This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put." Descriptive grammar, as they taught us at the University of Chicago, is a reflection of the way the language is used by the educated leaders of society. Your use of language tells people who you are, in more ways than one.

I make no bones about admitting that I am NOT Joe Six-Pack (although I was once a hockey dad and am now a hockey granddad). As a Reform Jew, I am heir to the privileges of the Enlightenment, which includes the privilege of living in two worlds. I did not have to forsake my Jewish heritage to claim my share in the culture of Western civilization. I am proud to have been educated at a prestigious university, where I learned about nuances, distinctions, and precise communication. When I use a Hebrew term, or for that matter a Yiddish term, I am not only communicating my verbal message more precisely, but also the additional symbolic message to my reader or auditor that we are members of the same club.

When I'm talking to my club members, they know I mean something different if I talk about davening than if I talk about praying. While "praying" might be used as a translation for davening, "reciting sotto voce the prayers printed in the siddur" is more precise. If we address the Divine using our own thoughts and our own words, whether silently or not, we are surely praying, but we are not davening. And when we pray in gratitude for the food we have just eaten, we aren't davening, we're bentshing. (As I remember the Maxwell House Haggadah of my youth, it rendered Rabotai nevorech as Gentlemen, let us say grace.)

As I write, we are approaching Shemini Atzeret-Simchat Torah, and if you read this before the holiday is over, I wish you chag sameach, a happy holiday, or, if you prefer, gut yomtov. But for the past week, my greeting has been moadim l'simchah, the conventional although less well-known salutation for the intermediate days of the two Festivals that have intermediate days, Sukkot and Passover (Pesach). (Among cognoscenti, we could refer to the intermediate days as chol ha'moed, the ordinary or non-sacred days of the fixed occasion.) Is this distinction between sacred and non-sacred days really necessary? Why not simply say Happy Holiday and be done with it? All we lose is precision, recognizing, respecting, and perhaps teaching the difference between kodesh and chol, holy and ordinary. Will the scoffer who dismisses the distinction between chag sameach and moadim l'simchah turn around and wish his Christian neighbor a happy Christmas and a merry New Year?

Yes, we have to know our audience before we use foreign language terms without explaining them. My friend Alan, the English professor, tells about finding references in several term papers one semester to the fantasy echo. Not having the slightest idea what the fantasy echo was, he questioned one of his students, who cited one of Alan's lectures as the source for the term. Turns out in discussing late Victorian literature, he had used the French fin de siècle (end of the century) and the students had done their best with it!

Whether we're using English or some other tongue, language is not static. A word may take on a new meaning in a limited milieu, and the new meaning may spread, sometimes in the process rendering the earlier meaning obsolete. In my 1953 Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, gay only means merry. Somewhere along the line, it became an insider code word for male homosexual, and by 1981, the code definition had made its way into the dictionary as the fourth among several mainstream definitions. Today the idea of merriment seems to have been totally lost.

Speaking of in-group code words, as a Facebook newbie, I'm learning the difference between friends and Friends. A Friend is someone who has agreed to allow messaging between your Facebook page and his or hers. I have Facebook friends whom I wouldn't know if they bumped into me on Michigan Avenue. But Facebook always notifies me when one of my Friends acquires a new Friend. Thus I was delighted to read recently that Susie Ginsburg and Aaron Ginsburg (not their real names) are now Friends - delighted because Susie and Aaron have been married to one another for over thirty years. As my grandmother would have said of their Friendship, Sheyn tzeit, it's about time.

Just as Friends has a precise meaning on Facebook somewhat different from the street meaning of friend, so too Outreach has a precise meaning in the Reform movement different from its dictionary definition. Reform uses the term Outreach for activities and programs designed to welcome non-Jews into our congregational families. As a verb, outreach means extending your arm farther than the other guy. As a noun, the term might be applied in other religious circles for pursuing the unaffiliated, or seeking to extend geographic coverage, or for bringing members from the fringe into the inner circle. One of my listserv colleagues recently asked about using outreach to refer to establishing dialogues with other faith communities, instead of the established jargon, Interfaith. He was seeking precision, reserving "interfaith" for marriages between a Jew and a non-Jew. To my mind, interfaith still works in both contexts, and rather than precision, limiting the word gives us a distinction without a difference. But in the context of lashon tova, we reach out to Catholics or Muslims to get to know one another better - but reaching out is not Outreach, because the end point of Reform Outreach is bringing in.

As the presumptive coiner of the phrase Lashon tova (I don't recall having encountered it elsewhere), I can follow the Humpty-Dumpty precept - When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less. As a second layer of meaning, superimposed on precision, I choose it to include using language benevolently. Even when I disagree with or challenge the positions taken here by those who blog and those who comment, I hope my words come across as lashon tova. And if anyone objects to my use of Hebrew, Yiddish, French or Latin in the process, honi soit qui mal y pense.

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