“There is a God!” shout soccer fans as their team scores a goal.  A commonplace phenomenon in Israel, such exclamations present a conundrum for scholars of Hebrew.  Is this holy or secular language? “Hebrew is one language with many uses,” concludes writer Avi Katzman.

Katzman was responding to a film entitled Langue sacre, langue parle by Nurith Aviv, in which prominent cultural figures present their views on the sacred and the secular in Hebrew -  as part of a one-day seminar at the Mandel Leadership Institute focusing on the role of lashon ha-kodesh ["the holy tongue"] versus the secular Hebrew spoken in modern day Israel. 

The seminar, “Holy Language-Secular Language” – whose name was inspired by the title of the film – brought together Mandel Leadership Institute fellows from various frameworks: the School for Educational Leadership, Jerusalem Fellows, and the IDF Educational Leadership  program.  They, together with Mandel faculty members, were asked to address various questions about the role of lashon ha-kodesh (Should it have a place? What does it sound like? How should it be learned and taught?) based on personal reflection as well as professional and learning experiences that introduced them to a Hebrew that combines both the sacred and the secular.

Dr. Daniel Marom, director of Mandel’s Visions Unit which organized the seminar, focused on the “language war” in the early years of Zionism.  Discussions sometimes ignored the fact that a debate raged not only between proponents of Hebrew as opposed to other languages, he noted, but also among the champions of Hebrew regarding the nature of the language they were proposing.

Dr. Daniel Marom: Language creates meaning

This debate dealt with philosophical issues regarding the role of language in the lives of individuals, society, and the nation; the place of language in the educational priorities of the “new Jew”; the uniqueness of Hebrew; and the challenges of life in Hebrew in the modern world.

The conception of Hebrew that won out was goal-oriented, economical, practical, and easy - a working tool that facilitated the efficient accomplishment of the tasks at hand, a language needed to lay the foundations for a sustainable, sovereign Jewish state.  Nonetheless said Marom, the significant achievements of this type of Hebrew came  at the expense of elements that are rooted in lashon ha-kodesh:  a spiritual-cultural approach to life, encouragement of discourse with “the other,” and an Israeli identity based on interaction with the classical Jewish texts.

Hebrew as a Practical Language
 
Participants broke into small groups to hear presentations about efforts to promote the integration of the sacred and the secular in Hebrew. The “Lexicon of Life” project - a dictionary of various kinds of Hebrew - was presented by linguist Ruvik Rosenthal. The “Jerusalem Babylonian” project – a program that enables American and Israeli Jews to study together despite their different languages - was presented by Naama Shaked and Moshe Lorberbaum. Daniel Marom and Dafna Yizrael presented the “Word of the Week” project, a curriculum unit developed by the Visions Unit to teach small children lashon ha-kodesh.
 
In a special session devoted to Arabic – in recognition of the fact that Israelis from diverse linguistic and religious backgrounds can cooperate in promoting language education in all sectors - Dr. Michal Schleifer and Hawala Sa’adi presented “A Dictionary of Written and Spoken Words in Arabic,” a project developed at the Center for Educational Technology. 
 
The seminar concluded with segments from the Ha-mevin Yavin [Those who understand will understand], a performance featuring Jerusalem Fellow Amichai Lau-Lavie and the members of the Israeli Storahtelling troupe. Linking modern language and sacred text, the play exemplified the fruitful symbiosis between lashon hakodesh and modern Hebrew. 


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