The Father of Modern Hebrew- Eliezer ben Yehuda

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda – Biography excerpts

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858- December 16, 1922), is known as the father of modern Hebrew.

He was one of the earliest supporters of Zionism.
Ben-Yehuda was born in Luzki, Lithuania, in 1858 as Eliezer Perelman. His father, a 'Habad orthodox Jew, died when he was 5.

At age 13, his uncle sent him to a Yeshiva in Polotsk. The head of the Yeshiva was a secret follower of the Haskala (enlightenment) movement, and turned Ben Yehuda into a free thinker.

His uncle tried to save him from heresy, by sending him to study in Glubokoye.
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The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, and the struggle of Balkan nations for liberation, inspired Ben-Yehuda to form the idea, of revival of the Jewish people in its ancestral soil. He held that, the Jews, like all other peoples, had a historic land and language.

Ben Yehuda was also the real father of Cultural Zionism, later popularized by Achad Haam.

He enrolled in the teachers' seminary of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, where he was to be trained as an instructor, in the Miqveh Yisrael agricultural school. He attended lectures of Joseph Halevy, who had been an early advocate, of coining new Hebrew words.

Ben-Yehuda attempted to disguise himself as an orthodox Jew, in order to maintain contact with them, and learn Hebrew and propagate it. However, they soon rejected him, and he then became actively anti-religious.

Ben Yehuda gathered friends and allies in Jerusalem. In 1881, together with Y.M. Pines, D. Yellin, Y. Meyu'has and A. Mazie, he founded the "Te'hiyat Yisrael" -- the Rebirth of Israel society based on five principles:
1. Work on the land.
2. Expansion of the productive population.
3. Creation of modern Hebrew literature.
4. Science, reflecting both a national and universalistic spirit.
5. Opposition to the halukah (charity) system, that maintained the Yeshiva students of Jerusalem.
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He researched the lost Hebrew words, that the reborn tongue required; and the coinage of new ones.

He worked 18 hours a day, on his "Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew." In 1910 he published the first of six volumes, to appear before his death in 1922. After his death, his widow Hemdah and son Ehud, continued publishing his manuscript; until all 17 volumes had been published by 1959.

The dictionary lists all the words used in Hebrew literature, from the time of Abraham to modern times, scrupulously avoiding Aramaic words, and other foreign influences, that had entered biblical and mishnaic Hebrew.
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In November of 1920, he succeeded in prevailing on Herbert Samuel (British High Commissioner of Palestine), to make Hebrew one of the three official languages, of the Palestine Mandate.

Thanks to his almost single-handed initiative, this was accomplished in the space of less than 40 years.

The Name Rachel

In Kabbalah, Rachel is the archetypal figure of the Sefirah of Kingship- Malchus.

This is the Divine channel of creation; and it is most related to women and Moshiach!

Nietzsche: The Existence of the Jews

The existence of the Jewish people, is what has amazed the greatest philosophers and historians, throughout the ages; admirers and critics alike.

According to the rational order of things, Jews should not exist at all; as proven by the fact, that no other people– (nations that have suffered far less persecution than Jews) – continue to exist.
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The nineteenth century, German philosopher, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche asserted: "The Jews are the most remarkable people in the history of the world.

For when they were confronted with the question, to be or not to be; they chose, with perfectly unearthly deliberation, to be, at any price ...

They defined themselves, counter to all conditions, under which any other nation was previously able to live ...”

True Love - G-dly Space

There are two kinds of human love:
1. Intrinsic, calm love; that we feel for people, to whom we're related by birth.
2. The more intimate, fiery love; that exists in marriage.
This is why a husband-wife relationship, is very different, from the parent-child relationship.
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1. The love within a family, between relatives who are born of the same flesh, is innate. The love between a mother and child, a brother and sister, two brothers, two sisters, comes easily. Since they're related by nature, they feel comfortable with each other.

There's an innate closeness between them, so their love is strong, solid, steady, predictable, and calm. There's no distance that has to be bridged; no difference that has to be overcome.

2. The love between a husband and wife, isn't like that. Their love wasn't always there; they didn't always know each other; they weren't always related. No matter how well they get to know one another, they aren't alike.

They are different from each other: physically, emotionally, and mentally. Yet they love each other, in spite of their differences, and also because of them. But there isn't enough of an innate commonality between them, to create a casual, calm love.

Their differences remain, even after they are married; and the love between them, will have to overcome these differences.
After all, husband and wife, were once strangers. A Man, is different from a woman; so in essence, on one level they are strangers. But because of this, the love between them, can never be: casual, consistent, or calm.

This acquired love, is naturally more intense, than the love between brother and sister. When love has to overcome a difference, a distance, an obstacle, it needs energy, to leap across the gap.

This is the energy, of fiery love.
Like the opposite poles of a magnet, positive and negative; the attraction is extremely strong.

Because the gap between husband and wife, will never completely close; their love for each other, will continually have to cross it. There will be a distance, a separation; and then a bridging of distance; and then a coming back together; repeated over and over again.

But specifically, this strong feeling of distance, intensifies their desire to unite. To come together, man and woman, have to overcome certain resistances.

A man has to overcome his resistance to commitment; a woman has to overcome her resistance to intimacy. So, in coming together, husband and wife are reaching across great emotional distances, which in turn intensify their love. The absence of innate love, actually makes, the heart grow fonder.
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1. If a brother and sister were to have a fiery love, their relationship would suffer. This is not the appropriate emotion, for a brother and sister to have. Their love thrives, when it's, unchallenged, constant, and calm. Not that they can't have disagreements, but those disagreements don't disrupt their love.

2. On the other hand, if a husband and wife develop calm love for each other, their relationship will not thrive. If they are too familiar with each other, too comfortable with each other; then like a brother and sister, their love will not flourish. True intimacy in marriage--fiery love--is created, by constant withdrawal and reunion.

If a husband and wife are never separate, their love begins to sour; because they are not creating an environment, appropriate to that love. The environment of constant togetherness, is not conducive to man-woman love: it's the environment for brother-sister love, or parent-child love.
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That's why the ideal blessing for a married couple is, "Your honeymoon should never end." A honeymoon--when two people who were once separate, come together for the first time--should never end; because that's what a marriage thrives on.

The love between a man and a woman, thrives on withdrawal and reunion, separation and coming together. The only way to have an environment conducive to that kind of relationship, is to provide a separation.
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This similar to the difference between a, Baal Teshuvah and a Tzadik.

(A Baal Teshuvah, is an average person, who has to fight to be one with G-d; whereas a Tzadik or Tzadekis (woman), was born a completely holy person. He/she has no Yetzer Hora, their only desire, is to do G-d’s will. They have no lusts or desires, apart from G-d.)

A Tzaddik’s love for G-d, is like that of, parent and child, and brothers and sisters. It is constant and innate. It is strong, solid, steady, predictable, and calm.

But the love of a Baal Teshuvah, is a like the love of a husband and wife. It is a fiery love! And the fire has to be continually fed, or it will die down, into only embers.

There are many kinds of separations. A couple can live in different places, or have differences of opinion; or get into arguments, and be angry at each other. Often, the arguing isn't for the sake of arguing, but for the sake of creating a distance; so that husband and wife then can feel the power, of coming back together.

That's not a very happy solution. Making up after an argument, may be good for a marriage on occasion, but not on a regular basis. It isn't a good idea to go looking for arguments.
The separations, can take a more positive form:

The physical separation given to us by G-d for that purpose, is a much happier solution. That separation is created, by observing a collection of Torah laws (deriving from Leviticus 15), called "the laws of family purity," or "the laws of Mikvah." The word Mikvah refers, to the submersion into special water.

Religious Jewish women, since the days of the Bible: have immersed themselves in a Mikva, following their monthly period, before renewing sexual relations with their husbands.

According to the Torah laws of Mikvah, during the time that a Jewish woman is menstruating, and for one week afterward, she is physically off-limits to her husband.

For those days, the physical separation is total: no touching, no sitting on a swing together, and no sleeping in the same bed. They now have to relate to each other, on a much deeper level, a soul level.
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Through the ages, all sorts of explanations have been given for these laws; but all of them, have one thing in common: Separation protects and nurtures the intimate aspect of marriage, which thrives on withdrawal and reunion.

This understanding is not unique to Jews. In most cultures throughout the world, they practiced varying degrees, of separation between husband and wife, during the woman's menstrual period.

Some, such as certain tribes of American Indians, who had separate tents, where a woman would stay during her period. Later in some cases the reasons for this separation deteriorated into rationalizations, in an attempt to make sense, of a very deep subject.

But separation was such a universal practice, that it may be, that human beings instinctively may know, that male-female love, thrives on withdrawal and reunion, on coming together following a separation.
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So too, regarding the laws of Shmita. For six years in Israel, a farmer works his land; but in the seventh year he must not touch it, (work it).

There must be a separation between him and his land, like the week separation between husband and wife.
For six years his relationship with G-d, (through providing food for himself and his family), is one of faith, a natural, family love.

He had faith, that G-d will provide him with rain, sun, no insects, etc, so that he can harvest enough for all his needs.
But in the seventh year, he now has to separate from the land, and create a marriage relationship with G-d.

The first six years, his relationship with G-d is like a family, constant and innate; but in the seventh year it is distant, it becomes a marriage. Therefore it becomes a fiery, miraculous relationship; breaking the rules of nature, and jumping across the infinite gap, between nature and Creator.

He awaits G-d’s to come back, in an open, fiery manner; for G-d to openly appear to him, and provide enough food for the fallow year, and the following year.
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Like everything else that exists in our lives, the cycle of withdrawal and reunion that exists in marriage, is meant to be a reflection of our relationship with G-d. The two kinds of love, calm love and fiery love, exist not only among human beings, but between ourselves and G-d.

When we refer to G-d as our Father, it's an innate and intrinsic relationship. We don't have to work for it; it's just there. It's a steady, constant love, an indestructible love, a love compared to water-calm love.

But we also talk about how G-d is infinite, and we are finite; G-d is true, and we are not; G-d is everything, and we are barely something. Because of these differences, we feel a great distance from G-d, and the need to create a relationship with Him. Establishing a relationship in spite of the differences, in spite of the distance, is more like a marriage. That's a stormy relationship--fiery love.
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When our soul was above in heaven, our soul loved G-d, like a child loves a parent; because our soul, was part of G-d; like a family relationship. That love, was innate and calm.

But when G-d tells this soul, to go down into a body; that's a separation. After the soul is separated from G-d, and it has to descend into a body; then our soul loves G-d, with a fiery love. This love, is then like the love, between a husband and wife. It not automatic, rather it is distant, intense, and fiery.

Eventually in the times of Moshiach, the soul will be reunited with G-d, infinitely more intimately than before; just as the intimacy between a husband and wife, is deeper, when they come together following a separation.
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Rather than wait for a separation to develop, where a husband and wife get into a fight or lose interest in each other, let’s create a physical, rather than emotional, separation.
Everyone is saying, "I need my space," it's true. When a husband and wife, keep the laws of Mikvah, they create a G-dly space!

Napolean Bonaparte:The Three Weeks

Napoleon Bonaparte, was passing through the Jewish quarter in Paris, when he stopped to investigate the strange cries and laments, emanating from the local synagogue.

His curiosity was intensifed, when he was informed, that it was the Ninth of Av, and that he was hearing the Jewish people, wail over the destruction of their Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

He then asked, “When did this happen?”.
He was told, “About 1700 years ago”.

Upon hearing this Napoleon remarked in awe: “A people who do not forget their past, are destined, to have an eternal future.”

Advice of the Rebbe

1. The Melting Pot
Dollars
New York Mayor David Dinkins
September 1989
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The Mayor: I just wanted you to know, that the blessing I got before, worked very well.

The Rebbe: I am happy to hear it.
D: Thank you so much.
R: May G-d almighty bless you.
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The Rebbe: G-d almighty is our leader.

This is for charity for all New York. Including me and Mr. Dinkins.
Especially for the benefit for the multitudes of nationalities in NY.

It is a melting pot for many nations. May all these nationalities live, in good peace and in harmony.

And every one of them, should strengthen all the nationalities around them, especially in matters of charity.

I hope that in the near future, the melting pot will be so active, that it will not be necessary to underline (emphasis) every time, that they are negro, or they are white, or they are Hispanic, etc, etc, because there are no differences.

All of them are created by the same G-d. And they are created for the same purpose, to add all good things around them. Beginning especially, with themselves and their families,
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That is also an important thing to underline, for someone that is active in communal affairs. Not to forget about his wife and children, and his grand children; and in time to come, great grand children.
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As I said before, I am not so happy in underlining, Brooklyn being on one side, and Manhattan on a second side, and other people – the Hispanics, etc., on a third side.

If it is a real melting pot, then certainly it must be a melting pot, for all good things with no differences.
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There is a curious fact, in the Jewish prayers of Rosh Hashanah, that there is a G-d Who is the ruler of all the universe. Not only of our country, but of all the universe. And don’t be afraid of a task, to do something for all the universe.
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2. Yichidus
Mrs. Chana Sharfstein
In her early twenties, in 1954

One time when I went into Yechidus, the Rebbe started asking me about Shidduchim.
I was dating, and I just answered: Yes, I was meeting people.

Then the Rebbe started asking me, about different boys.
I thought to myself that is strange, all the boys that the Rebbe asked me about, I had gone out with them.

I answered about them, that although they were nice boys, I had my reasons for not marrying them.
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The Rebbe then said to me: “I know that you like to read.”

I said: “Oh yes I do.”

He said: “And what kind of books do you prefer reading.”

I said: “I loved to read novels.”

The Rebbe said: “Novels are fiction, and fiction is make believe, it is not real.
So what you read in a novel, is not what happens in real life.”

“In a novel, people meet, and there is this big blinding storm of passion. That is not, what real love is all about.

In real life, two people can meet, and there can be a thread of understanding. It is like a tiny little flame.

And as these people merge their lives together, and decide to build a home, and raise a family. Through the everyday activities of life, through caring and sharing, through commitment to each other, going through the daily tribulations of life; this little flame then grows ever brighter, into a much bigger flame.

Until these two people, who started out a strangers, have through life, become intertwined to such an extent, that neither one of them can think of life, without the other.

This is what true love is all about. It is small acts, that you do on a daily basis, that make you become, instead of you and I, us.
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3. Rabbi David Edelman / Connecticut
1942

Once I was standing with a few friends, in the hallway of 770, and the elevator opened up. The Rebbe came out, and he came over to us, and started telling us what happened upstairs, in the Pervious Rebbe’s room.
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“I ask the Previous Rebbe, if I am doing the right thing.
I have an office here in Merkos, and all kinds of people come to see me, and some give donations.

Some are not religious Jews. But I am friendly, no matter what kind of people come in.

Am I doing the right thing, by being friendly to non-religious Jews? Since I don’t say anything to them, maybe they think, that it is not so bad, that they are not religious.”
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The Rebbe answered me: “It is the nature of parents, that no matter how many children they have, they have enough love for all of them. That is the way G-d created the world.

But if among a big family, one child has a problem with a hand, or a problem with a leg. The father and mother, have even more love for that child. Because he needs more.

So if a Jew comes into your office, who is missing a hand, because he has not put on Tefillin, or a leg because he has not gone to Shul; to that Jew, you have to have a deeper love.

The more that he is lacking, the greater your love has to be for him.”
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4. Rabbi Shmuel Kaplan
1973

After I was learning in the Kolel for 2-3 months, I was asked to come to speak to Rabbi Hodakov, who was the Rebbe’s personal secretary.
He told me, that he has a special mission for me. And that this should be my top priority. And take as much time, as is needed.

There was a seventeen year old girl, who was having a great deal of emotional problems. She had many severe issues that bothered her.
For some unknown reason, the Rebbe took an extraordinary, personal interest, in trying to help her. The Rebbe put himself into it, with a lot of intensity, time and effort.

Over 3-4 months, I spent 50% of my time trying to help her. I didn’t do a single thing, without consulting the Rebbe.

She herself would write to the Rebbe, and we would discuss the answer that she had received.
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Once she wrote to the Rebbe, about the excruciating pain and anguish, that she
was going through. The emotional turmoil, that she was feeling inside of her.
She described it at length and in detail, over a couple of pages.

The Rebbe after receiving her letters, would uncharacteristically, usually answer her in a couple of hours,.
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In answer to her desperate letter, the Rebbe wrote:
“When you will merit to grow up and marry, and G-d willing, you will have a child, the nature of things are, that in the first year, a child begins to teeth. Teething is very painful, and the child cries a lot.

A mother feels that pain, as if it was her own.
This is how I feel, your pain.”
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She then realized, that the Rebbe was feeling what she was going through, and that he was trying to help her. This changed her life. And eventually she did get married and had a family.

"The Heels of Moshiach"

Our generation is called: “The Heels of Moshiach.”

A heel has two contradictatory aspects: On the one hand, it is the lowest part of the body. It is also the most insensitive part of the body. But on the other hand, the whole body rests on the heel; including, the heart and the head.

The reason that our generation is called: “The Heels of Moshiach”, is because all past generations are considered as one body. As history has progressed, it has followed the plan laid out by G-d at its inception; namely, that it should progress until Moshiach is revealed, and lead the Jews to the Geula.

Adam Harishon (the first) included all the souls of the future generations. Therefore, when he went against G-d’s will, (by eating from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden) all the future generations were lowered. Moshiach also includes all the souls of the generations, but he will elevate them all.

As time has gone on, the Jewish body has elevated the brain/intellect, the heart/emotions, and now we are up to the heels/action and Kabblos Ohl (Bittel).

Even though the heels are the lowest part of the body, they take the brain and the heart to places that they could never reach on their own.

Understanding and feeling, although very refined senses of the body, are still limited. A person can only understand and feel so much. Especially, when we are talking about connecting, with the highest levels of G-d- Atzmus- essence.

The brain and the heart are not vessels to be able to receive an infinite light, as was the case when the Jews received the Torah at Mount Sinai.

When the Jews heard the first two commandments directly from G-d, they died. Their souls flew out of their bodies, because the light was too great, to fit into their limited beings.

Although their souls returned, the next eight commandments were told to Moses (the Moshiach of that generation), who was a vessel for the infinite light, and he then transmitted them to the Jewish people on a level that they could absorb.

This will not be the case of this generation of heels. We will be able, through Moshiach, to receive the Torah of Moshiach directly.

The heels are not limited by understanding or feeling, they just do what they are told - action. The heels can then take the intellect and emotions and be able to receive the greatest revelation of G-d, in the history of mankind! This, is our generation.

In previous generations (for example in the time of the Temple), they had higher souls and more light. But as high as a soul can go, it is still limited in holiness. And the light revealed then, was still only a ray of G-dliness.

This is not the case now. We will transcend all limitations, and reach the level of G-dliness, that is so high, that both the physical and spiritual will meet as one.

Specifically, the heel does not wait to do something, until it understands, or feels something; rather, it immediately jumps into action.

This is similar to what happened when the Jews first received the Torah. They said to G-d: First we will do whatever you tell us to do, in the Torah; and then later, we will delve into it, to understand what it says.

So too now, we will first do what Moshiach asks us to do, and then we come to understand on a level, that was previously impossible to understand and feel.