One of the pleasures that redound to columnists for a quality publication like Mishpacha is the opportunity to receive a great deal of positive feedback from readers. The very varied backgrounds and communal affiliations of those expressing their appreciation is both eye-opening and heartening.

I find it ironic to hear someone speak for example about chassidim as an unlettered monolith incurious about anything beyond their very narrow frame of reference. Based on the number of times I’ve been approached by appreciative readers in full chassidish regalia I know that it is in fact the speaker’s own blinkered view of the world that is unwittingly on display.

The most appreciated sort of feedback about one’s writing of course is that which includes kind words for both its form and content. To be told that what you write is carefully argued and thought-provoking or that it spurs family discussions of Jewishly important topics is wonderful.

But it’s also very rewarding to hear how much readers value the time and effort one puts into practicing the writing craft itself. And a craft it certainly is. Working with raw materials — words chosen from one’s fund of vocabulary and tools of the trade such as word order sentence structure punctuation etc. — the wordsmith sees his creation take form just one of a seemingly limitless number of possible combinations of words each with a subtly different effect on the reader’s mind and heart.

This is not to say I haven’t come across individuals who gripe about the use of what they call “big words” in this space; I have. Such folks don’t of course really mean big words in the literal sesquipedalian sense. They’re referring to words that might in fact be quite small but are simply unfamiliar to them.

But whether a writer chooses to use more or fewer of such words is really beside the point because that isn’t what makes or breaks good writing. An essay marred by fractured syntax subject-verb disagreement and sloppy punctuation can’t be salvaged by liberally seeding “big words” throughout it. By the same token a sparely worded sleekly structured essay is a pleasure to read and savor whether or not it’s bejeweled with multisyllabic verbiage.

Still there’s an importance to increasing one’s storehouse of words apart from its ability to make one a better speaker and writer. I enjoy using the words I know and learning new ones. And while I’ll admit to taking a certain puckish pleasure in including words that I know will gladden some and madden others I use the words I do simply because it’s both enjoyable and effective to do so. The more words I know the more of reality I can describe accurately and vividly and thus the more I can use the Divine gift of language to edify entertain and inspire myself and others. An expansive vocabulary is a gateway to chochmah.

In our house when someone mentions a word whose meaning I don’t know I get up and fetch my trusty Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary. We had a good laugh some years back when one of our kids after being a guest in Yerushalayim of my Mishpacha neighbor Yonoson Rosenblum told us he does the same.

I’ll now rest my case and let leading educational critic E.D. Hirsch writing in this month’s City Journal have his say about the value of vocabulary:

[T]here’s a positive correlation between a student’s vocabulary size in grade 12 the likelihood that she will graduate from college and her future level of income. The reason is clear: vocabulary size is a convenient proxy for a whole range of educational attainments and abilities — not just skill in reading writing listening and speaking but also general knowledge of science history and the arts.…

Studies have solidly established the correlation between vocabulary and real-world ability. Many of these studies examine the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) … an entrance requirement and a job-allocating device. The exam consists of two verbal sections (on vocabulary size and paragraph comprehension) and two math sections. The military has determined that the test predicts real-world job performance most accurately when you double the verbal score and add it to the math score.…

Of course … people with similar vocabulary sizes may vary significantly in their talent and in the depth of their understanding. Nonetheless there’s no better index to accumulated knowledge and general competence than the size of a person’s vocabulary. Simply put: knowing more words makes you smarter.…

So delight or grimace as you choose at the appearance here of words like “sesquipedalian.” But at least look it up and share the inside joke.

YOU’RE IT! A Wall Street Journal story this week provides a great opportunity to present the “Three Ways to Read the Newspaper Jewishly.”

It’s about ten high school buddies now in their 40s who — are you sitting? — have been locked in a game of “tag” for nearly two decades. They’d spent their school years chasing each other around campus and at a reunion eight years later they decided to revive the game for the entire month of February each year with the last fellow tagged staying “it” for the year. Patrick Schultheis the lawyer among them drafted a “Tag Participation Agreement” outlining the rules such as no tagging the player who just tagged you.

With the ten living all around theUnited States there are no geographic restrictions. Players get tagged at work at home or on the street. They form alliances employ spies and travel far and wide in pursuit of a tag:

 “You’re like a deer or elk in hunting season” says Joe Tombari a high school teacher inSpokane who sometimes locks the door of his classroom during off-periods and checks under his car before he gets near it.…

Every February Mr. Schultheis’s office manager provides security detail…. Mr. Tombari once tried to talk his way past her. “She knew it was tag time” he says. “I wasn’t allowed in. Nobody got in to see him.”

The aforementioned Mr. Tombari was once lured out of his home by a friend asking him to come see his new car. As he and his wife approached it Sean Raftis who was “it” and had flown to California from Seattle leapt out of the trunk and tagged Mr. Tombari whose wife was so startled she fell backward and tore a ligament in her knee. “I still feel bad about it ” said Raftis who is now a priest inMontana. “But I got Joe….”

Whatever else it may be it’s a great story. But shifting into Jewish writer mode one way to approach this tale is to clamber up to a high moral perch and hold forth on the pathetic scene of adults expending their time money and effort on a child’s game literally. Shifting into high moralistic gear this then becomes a microcosm of contemporary society’s trivial pursuits as a whole with their unstated goal of “whoever dies with the most toys wins.” Sound familiar?

But beating up on hapless subjects to make an overly obvious point doesn’t feel right and I don’t think discerning readers appreciate it either. It’s too easy too smug and too stale.

I trust readers know I’m not averse to drawing upon a story or current event to make an incisive even pungent observation. But I at least try to see to it that the point is an important and not altogether obvious one or is made in defense of someone or something noble that is under attack — not as a mere exercise in “there they go again.”

Next one could I suppose wax eloquent about this story exemplifying the youthful exuberance that l’hadvil a Jew needs to keep his avodas Hashem fresh and vibrant in the spirit of ki na’ar Yisrael va’ohaveihu (Hoshea 11:1). But while the point is a true one it seems forced and given the context a tad too charitable. These are after all grown men flying across America to tag other grown men.

So what’s left? Perhaps to indeed note the vacuity the frivolousness of the protagonists — and then pivot inward to query whether viewed through a Divine lens we don’t sometimes seem equally silly in what we with all that we know about meaningful living spend our time and energy pursuing. Don’t we?

And oh there’s always that fourth option one that a writer ought never to forget he has: keep quiet.