Hebrew as a "Mother-Tongue" and as a "Father-Tongue"
THE strongest impression which I have been able to carry away from the Baltimore Convention is the growing appreciation of the significance of Hebrew which found unmistakable expression both in the debates on the floor of the Convention and in the activities of the Hebrew Organization outside of it. To many people it may have seemed strange and entirely out of proportion that the only occasion on which the serious emergency of a roll call had to be resorted to was the comparatively subordinate question of the use of Hebrew in the official reports of the Zionist organization. Though of little significance in itself, because what was involved was not a matter of principle but of mere practical convenience, the incident revealed a healthy Jewish instinct. The passionate debate centering on a detail of office management showed that the delegates to the Convention were fully alive to the importance of cultural values for a movement which is entering more and more upon the stage of practical realization and were, in particular, aware of the unique position of Hebrew in the national life of the Jewish people.
I may, therefore, be permitted, in response to an invitation to contribute to the Convention number of THE MACCABAEAN, to use this opportunity for a few brief observations on the position and function of Hebrew in Jewish life,—a question which formed also the topic of discussion at the Hebrew mass-meeting held during the Convention and was answered by the various speakers, including the writer, in various forms.
It would, indeed, be difficult to define the position of Hebrew in the life of the Jewish people in terms applicable to other languages. It would be just as difficult, and just as hopeless, as the attempt, so often undertaken, to squeeze the unique phenomenon of the Jewish people into the current formulas of national existence. Hebrew is not a living language, for it vanished from the mouth of the Jewish people more than two thousand years ago. Nor is it a dead language, for throughout the entire length of the Jewish dispersion it has never ceased to be the expression of the national life of the Jews. It is in this respect radically different from medieval Latin, with which it has been so frequently compared. For medieval Latin was a universal language, a sort of Esperanto cultivated by the learned world, without any of those national associations which so eminently characterize the Hebrew language in all its stages. Perhaps the best way to get at the truth is to say that, while Hebrew is not the mother-tongue of the Jewish people, as all national languages are to their respective nations, it is the father-tongue of the Jews. During the whole period of the Exile, the Hebrew language has been the expression of the conscious, intellectual, "fatherly" phase of Jewish life, while the more fundamental, though less elevated, aspects of Jewish existence have found utterance through various other tongues. There were times in Jewish history, as was the case during the several centuries of Arabic influence, when even as a "father-tongue" Hebrew found successful or dangerous rivals in the languages of the surrounding nations, but at no time did Hebrew manage to supplant the other languages
as the natural medium of expression, as the “mother-tongue” of the Jews. And as long as the Goluth will last, this dualism will be unavoidable. For it is the very nature and the very tragedy of the Goluth that it splits the Jew into his conscious and unconscious self, that it separates the “motherly” and the “fatherly” phases of his existence and makes Judaism entirely the object of conscious endeavor. The conflict which has for some time past been raging between the Yiddishists and the Hebraists rests on a mistaken notion of the functions of the two languages in the Diaspora. Historically Yiddish has been, and still is, the Mamme-Loshen of the bulk of the Jewish people, but Hebrew has been, and still is, if I may use the expression, the “Matte-Loshen” of the Jews. Yiddish to us bears.the relation of a mother: it is reminiscent of the nursery, it is saturated with the sweet associations of our childhood, with the joys and sorrows of our every-day existence. Hebrew occupies the position of a father: it is suggestive of the school, it spells maturity and brings back to our minds the failures and successes of our intellectual growth. The ordinary Jew who is ignorant of party slogans has a place in his heart for both his “mother-tongue” and his “father-tongue”: his relation to Yiddish has more the quality of love in it; his attitude toward Hebrew is more saliently characterized by respect.
It is only in Palestine, in a genuine Jewish environment, that we may hope to make the Hebrew language also the mother-tongue of the Jewish people, to render it the medium not only of our conscious life but, what is far more important, also the vehicle of our unconscious existence.
But this transformation is more than a hope, it is an accomplished fact. Within the last generation, Hebrew has actually become the mother-tongue of the young generation in Palestine. What the greatest linguists of the world have flouted as a sheer fancy has become solid reality. In the whole history of human speech there is no parallel to the phenomenon of a language which had been cut off from the mouth of its nation for two thousand years and after an interruption of two millenia came back to life as a spoken language. It is a "tehiyyath hamethim," a "resurrection of the dead," in the literal sense of the word.
It is not accidental, but lies in the very nature of things that this miracle has been brought about, not by the conscious efforts of our scholars and intellectuals, but by the unconscious, playful self-expression of our children. It is an earnest of what a Jewish center, with a normal Jewish life, may do towards remedying the many other ills of the Goluth. The number of those who know and even master the Hebrew language in the Diaspora exceeds many times the entire Jewish population of Palestine. Numerous and earnest attempts have been made outside of Palestine to revive the Hebrew language as a spoken medium, but all these attempts have failed, blighted by the dualism of the Goluth. In Palestine, however, a handful of Jewish children, living a natural life, have succeeded, without a conscious effort, where the deliberate plannings of our Diaspora intellectuals have come to naught. There is a deep truth in the