Hello - I realize this is a bit short word-count wise, but truthfully I couldn't think of what else to say.

This is probably the hardest cultural learning post to write. As I said, one of my focuses for this course is religious Hebrew. I had a death in the family this past week, so have been familiarizing myself with the mourner’s kaddish (below) as well as other Jewish laws around death and mourning.

One thing that attracted me to Judaism as a religion was the lack of a focus on the afterlife as a motivator for action. In Judaism, you’re compelled to be a good person because that’s what you should do, because you’ve been given a responsibility to care for the world and all its blessings, and so what choices you make that impact the good of others and the whole is what’s most important, rather than a threat of punishment if you don’t live up to rules set for you. In my now multiple years of attending regular Shabbos service, the idea of an afterlife hasn’t been mentioned once. Even in the case of the Mourner’s Kaddish, it’s a prayer of praise rather than of true sadness.

To that end, I find the Jewish idea of death extremely comforting. The best way to remember those who are now gone is to honor what you learned from them by living a life with the virtues they’d want you to live. It’s encapsulated best in this phrase, which Jewish people say to each other when one has passed: may their memory be a blessing. (זיכרונה לברכה zikh-ron-ah liv-rak-ha).

I’m very excited to say that I was able to see Fiddler on the Roof when it came to the Altria this week! My Fiddler plot summary is below.

Fiddler on the Roof features Tevye, a Jewish milkman. The show opens with the song “Tradition”, where he explains the customs in the town of Anatevka. At his house, Tevye and his wife Golde prepare for the Sabbath with their five daughters. The matchmaker Yente arrives and says she may have a match for the eldest daughter, Tzietel. The sisters Tzietel, Hodel, and Chava discuss the excitement of the possibility of marriage – and the risks. Meanwhile Tevye in the barn asks G-d why he couldn’t have been a rich man, then finishes his deliveries for the day. While in town he meets the student Perchik, who offers to tutor his daughters. They have him and Tzietel’s friend Motel over for Shabbos dinner. When he arrives home, Golde informs him he must meet with Lazar Wolf; Lazar Wolf wishes to propose to Tzietel, though Tevye mistakenly assumes he wants Tevye’s newest milk cow. They agree to the bargain and celebrate at the local tavern. On his way home, the Russian constable stops Tevye and warns him of an upcoming “demonstration”.

The next day, Tzietel and Motel protest Tziedel’s engagement to Lazar Wolf, as they’ve given each other a pledge of love to marry. Tevye eventually agrees, as he doesn’t value tradition over his daughter, and pretends to have a wild dream featuring a curse from Lazar Wolf’s late wife, Fruma Sarah, to convince Golde to marry Motel. They are married in a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, which is interrupted by a small pogrom from the Christian majority in town. This closes Act 1.

Act 2 opens and many months have passed. Meanwhile, Hotel has fallen in love with the revolutionary Perchik, who’s soon to leave to Kiev to support the revolution. She and Perchik ask Tevye only his blessing, not his permission, to marry. Tevye struggles with this, but accepts it, because once again he does not value this tradition over his daughter’s happiness and knows that they will take care of one another. Perchik leaves and is later arrested and sent to Siberia. Hodel decides to go to him, and Tevye sees her off on the train, with the promise that she will marry under a canopy, aka that they will uphold their Jewish values and bring them into their new lives.

Lastly, Chava, the middle child, has fallen in love with Fyedka, a non-Jew who lives in their town. She pleads with Tevye to accept them, but this is the one violation of tradition he will not, “cannot” allow. Chava and Fyedka elope at the Christian church, and Chava is disowned by her family.

Trouble continues brewing until ones day the constable tells all Jews that they have three days to leave Anatevka. They’re off to the far corners of the world – other parts of Russia, Israel, America. Everyone prepares to leave as they reminisce about the town that they’ve called home for so long. Chava and Fyedka come to say goodbye and make peace. Tevye refuses to look at Chava, but has Tzietel wish her well before they all depart, the fiddler playing as the show draws to a close.

Okay, so, my plot summary of the show took a very long time, but it’s like a three hour show without cuts. This was an interesting deep dive into some Jewish culture that I might not’ve otherwise known about yet – particularly after watching the gendered dancing at the wedding, I looked up a lot of Orthodox wedding traditions and learned about what it takes to be formally married as an Orthodox Jew, what vows are shared, what traditions are typical and why, such as the canopy and the breaking of the glass. I think the show does an amazing job making it close to home for Jews and still enjoyable for people who don’t understand any of the references, especially as I find myself somewhere in between.

So far, I think the first couple weeks of Hebrew learning have been going well! I have been working with my Israeli language partner Pazit over iTalki. We spent the first week going over my goals for the semester as well as all prior knowledge that I have. Unfortunately, the answer to that is not much, just what I know from religious service / have picked up from being around the Jewish community. I can recognize some common phrases, greetings, and holidays, but am overall not educated in the language of Hebrew. Our knowledge bases don’t really match up, as I’m approaching it mostly with a religious background and my tutor is not religious, but I don’t think that’s a barrier; I’ll simply be learning from a different point of view. My focus was originally supposed to be Biblical Hebrew, but upon further conversations with my tutor and my rabbi, it will be easier to focus on Modern Hebrew and put Biblical Hebrew on the backburner until I have better fluency.

So, given where I’m currently at with the language, we’re going to start with the beginning: the alphabet. I purchased a Hebrew writing language book to practice the different letters, which I’m going to supplement by making flashcards, both so I can easier recognize the letters on sight, but so that I also can get practice writing them. I’m admittedly having a bit of memorizing the letters, but I’m also still in the first part of really learning them. I’m going with the philosophy that “a steady base is what I’ll build the rest of the language on”.

As well as this, an English / Hebrew dictionary should be delivered by Amazon later this week, so I’ll be able to use it as a reference when learning new words and phrases, or when I find new words that I’m unfamiliar with.

Once again, I’ve been spending this month learning new vocabulary. This time, it’s been more focused on greetings, introductions, things I will use in my daily life. I’m a huge cook, so I took to my pantry labelling things in Hebrew, and now have many common cooking ingredients memorized. I might not always remember the word for shirt (חולצה) but I certainly know the word for garlic (שום). It was a good reminder of the effect of immersion, because while I was clearly not completely immersed, that’s some of the vocab I can easiest call to mind because of the number of times I saw it. Another fun fact pertaining to food: I’m deathly allergic to several different foods, so I also made sure they were top of my list to memorize! If I do get to travel to Israel, I’ll most have to worry about nuts (אגוזים eh-go-zEEm) and peanuts (בוטך bot-en) as they’re a super common food group.

I’ve continued to work on vocabulary lists with Maddie, and we’ve now covered the entire Hebrew calendar as well as basic numbers. I went through my Google calendar and customized it to include the Hebrew names and when they start, as well as all Jewish holidays. This is where I got the idea to do my final cultural project about Passover, or Pesach (פסח), as well as the ritual surrounding it. I’ve also started listening to pop music in Hebrew, and while I can’t really understand it, I do feel jolts of excitement when I understand a phrase here and there. It makes for great background music while doing homework, and I’m certain “Israeli Pop” is going to wind up in my Spotify Wrapped. That being said, I do recognize and can sing along to several simple tunes from religious service, and I feel like that has really helped me with my pronunciation for those texts. Music has been a great tool for my learning, and I’m excited to utilize it more when I can.

As for a less successful experience… It was advised to me to watch some children’s programming like Shalom Sesame to gain a good understanding of different basic Hebrew concepts, and I tried, I really did, but I found a lot of the children’s TV grating and slow. While it might’ve been helpful, I found it too annoying, so did not end up using it as a resource.

I’m rather unsure of my next step yet. I want to continue learning vocab, but I feel that I haven’t really learned much about grammar. While I can struggle through simple readings, I’m sure all my writing beyond those same simple sentences would be atrocious. Since Maddie is familiar with the religious text I’d like to learn, I’d also like to review them with her, as I know the sound of the prayer from the repetition of saying them in services, and I know their meaning because I know the English translation, but that’s clearly not the same thing as understanding the actual Hebrew.

Given that one of my primary interests in Hebrew is its religious significance, many of my cultural posts will likely be about religious holidays that take place and how I honored them. Those, as well as regular Shabbos services, are my primary exposure to Jewish culture, and Hebrew being used in the real world rather than academically. To begin, in the Hebrew calendar days end at sundown, so holidays start in one day and end in another by the Gregorian calendar. For example, Shabbat starts on Friday evening at sundown and ends Saturday evening at sundown, so when I refer to a holiday as taking place over multiple days, that’s what it’s referring to.

January 16-17^th was Tu Bishvat, the “New Year for the Trees” in the Jewish calendar. It occurs on the 15^th day of the month of Shevat. Historically, the fruits that ripened from Tu Bishvat onward were counted for the following year’s tithes, though in modern times it’s kind of treated like an Earth Day. The day is spent raising ecological awareness, and trees are planted in celebration. I unfortunately was unable to plant a tree as I had rehearsal, but I planted a rosemary bush in a pot that lives in my living room! It was a lovely addition that’ll come in handy over the next few months.

I also made a traditional meal (or at least, the best I could do on an Aldi budget), which includes the foods wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates. Though I missed dates and barley, I had a lovely meal of Fig Newtons (wheat and figs), grapes, pomegranate juice, and ratatouille (olives in the sauce, and raising livestock is one of the primary polluters in many regions, so figured it’d be best to stay veggie-friendly.)

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I also attended UR Hillel’s Tu Bishvat discussion on how Judaism relates to the environment, which I found fascinating. This talk was led by Josh Jeffreys, the Jewish Chaplain on campus. In essence, Judaism is intrinsically tied to the environment. Everything, from the set up of the calendar (follows the lunar cycle, day is defined by the sun, holidays follow agricultural seasons) to practices we celebrate every week (blessing the bread we eat, wine we drink, resting on Shabbos, just as the earth can’t handle constant farming or it’ll wear itself out) are all tied to the earth. It raises the question: what is Judaism in the diaspora? To some people, it means that you cannot properly practice Judaism outside the land of Israel. To others, and to me, it means that you have a responsibility to treat the land around you just as the lands of Israel that you have a named duty to.

In a world dealing with climate change, a world literally on fire, this becomes more complicated. There are a million other issues you can dedicate yourself to with the same logic. Try as we might, not everyone can be a champion for everything; they’d burn out, hard. Just as we must take care of the earth, so we must take care of ourselves. So, the key is finding that balance; doing what we can to leave a better tomorrow, while also taking care of ourselves. And as shown by the prayers mentioned above, we have a responsibility to the world around us, as well as finding comfort in it.

So, this cultural reflection is coming late, but there wasn’t a holiday until March 16-17^th. (And yes – these dates meant that Purim shared part of its celebration date with St. Patrick’s Day.) Purim is my favorite holiday for none of the reasons you’d expect: it was the first one I ever got to celebrate properly. I started my journey with Judaism shortly before lockdown in 2020, and one of the things that drew me to Judaism – its sense of community – was of course impacted by the lack of ability to gather in person for services and holidays.

Purim celebrates the story of Esther, the wife of a Persian king who hid the fact she was Jewish. The story goes like this: Esther is crowned King Ahasuerus’ queen after winning a beauty contest. She is advised by her uncle, Mordecai, to not reveal that she is Jewish to her husband. He discovers a plot to kill the king and thwarts it, granting him the king’s favor. Haman, the king’s vizier, has a run in with Mordecai and then seeks to destroy all Jews. Haman puts this plan in place, and Mordecai begs Esther to entreat the king for her people, citing Haman as the mastermind of the scheme. The king grants Esther’s request; Haman dies, and his forces are used to kill those who were going to kill Jews.

Now, when looking at it historically, we can see that there probably wasn’t a genocide of Persians, and it’s likely just a fable meant to teach us a lesson, which adds some levity to the story. It’s also much lighter when you look at the celebrations for Purim; the notion that everything is upside-down is very much a part of the tradition. You make hamantaschen, a triangular butter cookie that is said to be shaped that way due to Haman’s extremely large ears (pictured below, with fig jam!). You dress in costumes and masks to hide your identity. You tell the story of Purim, often in the form of a group story, play, or song, and every time the name “Haman” is said, people shout and make noise to cover up his name. And in the theme of the topsy-turvy holiday, another tradition is to drink to the point where “you cannot tell the difference between Haman and Mordechai”, because all people have a bit of both in them.

Month two down! At the beginning of February, I switched language partners from Pazit with iTalki to Maddie, a fellow student at UR. We continued to focus on the alphabet, as I hadn’t made much progress yet. Unfortunately, it was rather slow going – while a straight-forward font like Calibri gives more distinction between letters, ones like Times New Roman make it much harder for my brain to process (in the following examples: dalet vs resh vs khaf sufit). Calibri: ך ר ד Times New Roman: ך ר ד . Admittedly, I’m doing much better than I did with my letters in kindergarten (dyslexia, am I right?), but I was disappointed that my memorization of the alef bet was taking so long. It was probably mid-February until I got it perfect every time.

In the meantime, I started learning small common words that were recognizable, and stayed away from letters I was having trouble with, such as אמא “mom”, and אבא “dad”. Since I’ve changed my focus to Modern Hebrew, we’ll be focusing on words that will occur more frequently in daily life, so started working on simple things, like colors and other basic adjectives.

After I had the alef bet down, we moved onto Hebrew vowels. Vowels normally aren’t written, which is one of the challenges for pronunciation – it’s a struggle to remember what sound is there if you don’t have a clue to it. I’ve learned that the language is very contextual, and so some words can have multiple meanings, or that the slightest stress on syllable can completely change the meaning of the word. Having the vowels there is helpful for me in terms of pronunciation, but I’m leaving them off the “Hebrew” side of my notecards since I wouldn’t have them if I just read them on a page.

Once I had learned the alphabet and the vowels, it was easier to learn new words, and Maddie would give me vocab lists each week to memorize and spell by our next session. As I had with the alphabet itself, I would write down line after line of the word I was trying to memorize, as well as make flashcards. I found that rote repetition was usually the way to go for memorization. On the other hand, this meant that I usually had the spelling down for whatever I was being quizzed on, but my pronunciation usually needed work, so Maddie and I would go over that often in our sessions, enunciating every word until I got it right.

As of right now, my plan to proceed id to continue learning new words, and to start with some basic grammar. Most of what I’ve seen of Hebrew is pretty similar to English in terms of word order, but we haven’t started working on it in our lessons, so I’m excited for that. I’m going to continue to work on growing my vocabulary throughout these processes so I can speak about (or at least understand) a variety of topics.

Unfortunately, my language learning did take a bit of a dip in the past few weeks, both for the sake of other classes and life circumstances. One of my senior capstones, a stage management independent study, reached tech / performance April 9 – 17^th, and I was not able to dedicate the same amount of time that I normally do to learning Hebrew, as I was spending anywhere between 6-13 hours in a theatre each day. It was also the week of Passover where I had to prepare (and re-prepare, and re-prepare…) a kosher kitchen, while not having roommates keeping kosher. My uncle also passed away, which while not unexpected still took a toll.

That being said, all this did present me an opportunity for language learning that I didn’t expect; I spent a decent portion of this month working on prayers, both for Passover and the other circumstances I described above. I presented the kiddush (קידוש blessing over wine, text below) for my final in 105, which Maddie and I spent multiple sessions reviewing until I had every word and every pitch correct. I presented a short version (first paragraph) during the UR Hillel Passover seder, and I’ll also be leading the prayer at this week’s Shabbat Service. It’s especially important to me that I get it right in front of them, as many of my peers have been speaking Hebrew, and hearing this blessing, their entire lives.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, יְיָ
אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ, מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם,
 בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָּֽפֶן.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, יְיָ
 אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ, מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם,
 אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֺתָיו וְרָֽצָה בָֽנוּ,
 וְשַׁבַּת קׇדְשׁוֹ
 בְּאַהֲבָה וּבְרָצוֹן הִנְחִילָֽנוּ,
 זִכָּרוֹן לְמַעֲשֵׂה בְרֵאשִׁית.
 כִּי הוּא יוֹם תְּחִלָּה לְמִקְרָֽאֵי קֹֽדֶשׁ,
זֵֽכֶר לִיצִיאַת מִצְרָֽיִם.
 כִּי בָֽנוּ בָחַֽרְתָּ, וְאוֹתָֽנוּ קִדַּֽשְׁתָּ
 מִכׇּל הָעַמִּים.
 וְשַׁבַּת קׇדְשְׁךָ
 בְּאַהֲבָה וּבְרָצוֹן הִנְחַלְתָּֽנוּ.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, יְיָ, מְקַדֵּשׁ הַשַּׁבָּת.

I also spent time reviewing the Mourner’s Kaddish. (Kiddush vs Kaddish – I told you vowels were important! Text below.) This one I don’t have down quite as well yet, but I’ve made a lot of progress on it. While this next bit is probably verging into “cultural post” territory – this prayer really helped me process the grief of passing. It’s not necessarily mourning for the dead or bemoaning that they’re gone; it’s much more focused on praise.

אבל: יִתְגַּדַּל וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא. [קהל: אמן]
בְּעָלְמָא דִּי בְרָא כִרְעוּתֵהּ וְיַמְלִיךְ מַלְכוּתֵהּ בְּחַיֵּיכון וּבְיומֵיכון וּבְחַיֵּי דְכָל בֵּית יִשרָאֵל בַּעֲגָלָא וּבִזְמַן קָרִיב, וְאִמְרוּ אָמֵן: [קהל: אמן]
קהל ואבל: יְהֵא שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ לְעָלַם וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָּא:
אבל: יִתְבָּרַךְ וְיִשְׁתַּבַּח וְיִתְפָּאַר וְיִתְרומַם וְיִתְנַשּא וְיִתְהַדָּר וְיִתְעַלֶּה וְיִתְהַלָּל שְׁמֵהּ דְּקֻדְשָׁא. בְּרִיךְ הוּא. [קהל: בריך הוא:]
לְעֵלָּא מִן כָּל בִּרְכָתָא בעשי”ת: לְעֵלָּא לְעֵלָּא מִכָּל וְשִׁירָתָא תֻּשְׁבְּחָתָא וְנֶחֱמָתָא דַּאֲמִירָן בְּעָלְמָא. וְאִמְרוּ אָמֵן: [קהל: אמן]
יְהֵא שְׁלָמָא רַבָּא מִן שְׁמַיָּא וְחַיִּים עָלֵינוּ וְעַל כָּל יִשרָאֵל. וְאִמְרוּ אָמֵן: [קהל:אמן]
עושה שָׁלום בעשי”ת: הַשָּׁלום בִּמְרומָיו הוּא יַעֲשה שָׁלום עָלֵינוּ וְעַל כָּל יִשרָאֵל וְאִמְרוּ אָמֵן: [קהל: אמן

Last on the prayer list: I broke Passover by making challah. I did not do the prayers during the making of the challah, as they’re mainly associated with married women, and I did not have the opportunity to discuss it with someone more learned than myself first. This was one of the prayers that, while I’ve never presented it, I know from the repetition of it being presented. I said the blessing over bread (below) every time I ate the challah, and it was a reminder to stay grateful for what I had, and what I had learned.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם הַמּוֹצִיא לֶחֶם מִן הָאָרֶץ

Moving forward with my language learning after UR, I look forward to growing in my vocabulary and grammatical skills. I plan on moving to a city with a larger Jewish population than the one I’m from, so I’ll hopefully be able to find more formal Hebrew language learning programs there, as well as keeping up the skills I have now with apps like Duolingo until then, as well as more immersion-type activities like listening to music in Hebrew.

Reflecting on this past semester, I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have started my learning journey with Hebrew at UR. Overall, I think I’ve done a better job at the “cultural exploring” part of that than the language learning, but I have confidence that it’ll come with time. Culturally, I was able to accomplish many things: reading through the entire Torah (in English) and gaining confidence with familiar prayers in Hebrew, attending regular shabbat service, and learning about holidays and traditions. This came with learning many new words, phrases, and customs in Hebrew to be appropriate and respectful. In my language learning specifically, I gained familiarity with the alphabet, basic grammar, months of the year and days of the week in the Hebrew calendar, colors, and numbers, as well as greetings, introductions, and other words I’ll use in my daily life.

My greatest struggle is probably reading. I’m much better at recognizing words in isolation than when combined in proper sentences, and because I only have a keyboard with an English face (and it’s not a 1 to 1 ratio sound-wise on the keyboard) I get little practice typing Hebrew. Since I mainly write it, while I can recognize words in different fonts, it definitely does slow me down, particularly for letters that look similar that I mix up more frequently in words. (Of course, I have the same problem with English, so that’s not surprising!) I haven’t reached the level of fluency to speak beyond practiced phrases, so have the least practice with it, or else I’d consider that my biggest struggle.

One of my favorite things I’ve done is learn through music. The prayer that has been the easiest for me to understand and memorize has all been because of its musical element, and it’s been amazing to listen to modern Israeli music. Even if I can’t often sing along, I truly think it’s made a difference in my pronunciation. Also, it’s just impressive! The skill of someone to be able to wrap the sound of a chet (ח) amazes me. I’ll try to continue to focus my new learning with this in mind, and work with translations of songs to help my vocabulary grow. As I memorize songs, I’ll be able to grow in my everyday vocabulary, as well as grow more familiar with modern usage of words and slang.

Interestingly, I found the article about dead languages the most helpful – since I knew Hebrew had been considered a dead language for a while, I dove into the language’s history and the revival of it as a language, starting with some basic internet articles, then a couple scholarly ones as well as several, several Wikipedia pages.

My interest has been quite piqued by modern Hebrew; originally, I was just planning on learning Biblical Hebrew, and I didn’t even know enough to know that would be a challenging idea. I want to grow my vocabulary and usage so that I can grow in skill with reading and speaking Hebrew; I’ve just expanded the scope. While practically this will likely stay on the religious side of things, my goal is still to be fluent one day.

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