Nearly every Sunday when I was a little boy learning in Bnei Brak’s only cheder our class would march in procession to the home of the Chazon Ish ztz”l. It was our good fortune that our rebbi was the legendary Rav Tzvi Kagan ztz”l who was close to the Chazon Ish. Even that at tender age we boys were aware of what a great personage we were visiting and we were filled with awe at the prospect of spending a few moments with him. Almost every week we had the privilege of being tested by the gadol hador on what we’d learned the week before.

And the bechinah was conducted in Ivrit.

This fond childhood memory came back to me as I followed the debate playing itself out on the pages of our Inbox regarding the use of Yiddish in our children’s schools an offshoot of the discussion about youth on the fringe. One letter in particular mentioned that the Chazon Ish ruled that in Israel schools should teach in Ivrit.

I heard the details of that decision from Rabbi Schneidman himself. He was rosh yeshivah of Tiferes Tzion the first yeshivah ketanah of Bnei Brak which was founded under the direction of the Chazon Ish. The rosh yeshivah told me the following story when I was asked to collect material for the Chazon Ish’s biography Pe’er HaDor.

One day in 1945 a man arrived from Jerusalem with his two sons in tow asking to have them admitted to the yeshivah. It quickly became clear to the rosh yeshivah that this Jew was from an Arabic-speaking country and that his sons surely weren’t Yiddish speakers. He gave the father a gentle hint that since the learning in the yeshivah was conducted in Yiddish this would not be a suitable place for his sons. The man understood the hint and he and his sons took their leave.

A short while later the rosh yeshivah was informed that the Chazon Ish wished to see him. Of course Rabbi Shneidman went straight to the Chazon Ish who asked him why he wouldn’t accept the two Yerushalmi boys. The rosh yeshivah was surprised at the question since the answer seemed obvious and he delicately reminded the Chazon Ish that the learning in the yeshivah was in Yiddish. He was bowled over by the Chazon Ish’s answer:

“Then start teaching in Ivrit.”

That very week when the Chazon Ish came to the yeshivah to test the talmidim he conducted the bechinah in Ivrit. The two Sephardi boys from Jerusalem were accepted and turned out to be fine students.

That is the story behind the Chazon Ish’s Ivrit revolution and it was due to that incident that my classmates and I were tested by him each week in Ivrit.

Rabbi Schneidman went on to tell me that he and the heads of other institutions outside of Jerusalem had been concerned for some time with this issue of what language to use for teaching. On the one hand it was surely correct to preserve the tradition of generations and teach in Yiddish especially because it was a distinctively Jewish and therefore sanctified language. On the other hand they saw that many potential students in the New Yishuv were kept out of their yeshivos because of the language issue. Their dilemma had been solved when the Chazon Ish laid down the law.

Of course some objected vehemently to the Chazon Ish’s decision. A delegation from Jerusalem showed up at his house to protest this breach in the wall of staunch opposition to the Zionists and their language.

The Chazon Ish responded that in the struggles of our times we cannot use outdated weapons from the time of Turkish rule.

Ideologically those who opposed teaching in Ivrit were justified in their position. Eliezer Ben-Yehudah who was largely responsible for the revival of Hebrew as an everyday spoken language stated clearly in his writings that through the secularization of the holy tongue he would succeed chas v’chalilah in secularizing the Jewish Nation itself. For example the word “chashmal’ as it appears in sefer Yechezkel is the name of an angel whereas in modern Hebrew it is the word denoting electricity. This is just one example of the man’s systematic effort to drain the kedushah out of the Hebrew language.

Indeed the gedolim of Jerusalem fought fiercely against Ben-Yehudah and his secularization of the Holy Tongue. Yet the moment the Chazon Ish encountered an instance where two boys couldn’t be admitted to a yeshivah because of the language barrier he ordered the rosh yeshivah on the spot to switch over to Hebrew. With this ruling he laid down a vital principle: Torah study is our highest priority and if clinging to Yiddish as a sacred value in the war against secularism will prevent two Jewish boys from learning then we must dispense with Yiddish.

In effect the Chazon Ish ruled that Ben Yehudah’s secularized language would actually be used against him for the purpose of increasing the Torah study he hoped to eradicate. And today Eretz Yisrael is full of talmidei chachamim despite the fact that they learned their Torah in Ben-Yehudish. Presumably the heads of institutions in the Diaspora where Torah is taught in English were motivated by similar concerns.

They Never Changed Their Language

Although one letter-writer opined that clinging to Yiddish is a merit on a par with that of our ancestors in Egypt refusing to change their language the Chazon Ish’s ruling is that if in a given situation clinging to Yiddish is liable to decrease Torah learning then Yiddish must be replaced with the local vernacular be it English French Arabic Chinese or even the Ivrit of the secular Zionists.

True chassidishe institutions around the world have managed to preserve the use of Yiddish as the language of learning because for these communities Yiddish is the mother tongue spoken in the home and in all sorts of everyday dealings. It comes naturally to their children to learn in Yiddish and they understand what they’re being taught. Also children in Eretz Yisrael who learn in Yiddish even if Yiddish isn’t their mother tongue have the advantage of being able to read the Yiddish teitch of the parshah because of their familiarity with the Hebrew characters — my own grandchildren included.

But for many Jews around the world Yiddish is not spoken in the home or on the street. In these cases why are cheder children required to learn Chumash in Yiddish? I experienced this first-hand when I was sent to teach in São Paolo Brazil. One of my duties was to teach in a cheder where the learning was conducted in Yiddish at the insistence of the parents who wished to continue the tradition of their fathers. They didn’t consider the fact however that their children didn’t understand a word of Yiddish and they were baffled at being forced to learn this way.

The struggle was too much for some of these children and they began to hate learning Chumash. We would learn the pasuk in the Chumash which they couldn’t understand at all and then they would have to drill the teitch the Yiddish translation which they also couldn’t understand so I would then explain it to them in Portuguese. It was as if we were using Chumash as a means of teaching them Yiddish. Of course their knowledge of Chumash was quite vague. Surely the Chazon Ish’s ruling to teach in the local vernacular would have been applicable to such a case.

For those who would uphold Yiddish under all circumstances please allow me a few words. Sadly historical fact has not borne out the idea that Yiddish forms an effective barrier against youth straying off the path. Aside from the fact that in our times Yiddish-speaking communities have also been affected by this plague we should keep in mind that in prewar Europe too there were plenty of apikorsim and scoffers who grew up speaking Yiddish. The leading writers spawned by the Haskalah whose names I won’t mention all wrote in Yiddish. There was even a heretical Yiddishist movement in Poland that fought against the new Ivrit of the Zionists.

The solution to the problem of our youth falling away does not lie in a language but in our way of transmitting the Torah to our children. How can they sanctify something they don’t understand?

Food for Thought

Spirituality is like a bird. If you cage it in too much it is stifled. If you if you let down all guards it flies away

(Rav Yisrael Salanter)