On Our Language

In my years at the Frisch Yeshiva High School, when a person- asked another for notes or old tests, they referred to it by just that name. "Do you have any notes or any old tests?" a student would say. Upon my first experience in our university with the material in question, I was surprised to learn that the common practice of handing over these precious documents had come to be known as... MESORAH!!!! At first, the humorous dual usage of the word seemed innocuous. However a closer examination of the word's meaning uncovered a fiendish plot.

"Mesorah" literally means tradition. According to Webster's, tradition means: 1. The passing down of a culture from generation to generation especially orally. 2.a. A custom handed down. b. a set of customs viewed as a coherent precedent influencing the present. In the Jewish world the word mesorah is taken even more seriously. It means the passing down of the combined teachings and wisdom of the Gedolim from the generations, straight from Sinai right into our laps. Both the Rambam and Pirke Avot list this passing of the baton of Torah throughout history, while we earnestly study texts that are older then most civilizations. Even Topol sings proudly about it - "Tradition....Tradition."

You would think that by now the people who look for mesorah in the library would figure out that its mostly up on the fifth floor. Seriously though, here's my concern: I'm worried that the usage of the word mesorah in the Torah world will become synonymous with test-and-notes-mesorah of the "YU-get-an-easy-A" world. Under the influence of such mesorah, knowledge of Judaism and all other fields becomes rote memorization; bland and meaningless. The detrimental affect of this neo-mesorah can be already felt in the teaching style of professors in this school who stress memorization instead of creativity. It can be witnessed in the ambitiously-challenged student body. And it can be plainly seen upon opening any book put out by the strangely similar Artscroll and Cliff Notes publications.

As the word mesorah is going down the toilet, two more words have lost all meaning in terms of education, those words are chiddush (novel ideas) and lishma (something for its own sake).

With schools becoming more and more economically minded, these concepts are exiled with the poets and academics and are deemed fiscally unworthy in this capitalistic world. Today, you go to the right high school, to go to the right college, to go to the right grad school, to get the right job, so you can get the right money!! The school (a fine tuned machine of higher or lower education) must churn out a complete and packaged student product ready to crunch numbers and forgo any quality of life, to be called a success. In the new vocational school system, no one has time to experiment in classes or take a class that is interesting but does not guarantee the all powerful 'A,' consequently, lishma in anything becomes a waste of time. Chiddush is looked down upon by the intellectual elite and the technocrats who innudate us with the party line at every opportunity. "Have you read all there is to read?" they smugly question anyone who dares think for himself.

DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN!! Let us re-institute the real meaning of mesorah, chiddush, and lishma into our lives and our education. When studying anything from Babba Kama to Fukiyama, from the Mishna Brura to a Muslim Sura, try to realize that you are a part of the great tradition of knowledge of humanity. Make learning the end game in your life rather then educating yourself for an meaningless ephemeral goal. Think for yourself, and don't short change yourself by filling your mind with a pre-fab, second-hand, artificially flavored education. Make the mesorah of the past be alive today. Pursue knowledge lishma. Believe in your ability for chiddush.

It's Thursday afternoon. Your mind is thinking one thing: WEEKEND!! The clock is m-o-v-i-n-g... v-e-r-y... s-l-o-w-l-y. But, the period ends and you run out of class happy and free as a gazelle in a national park. What's wrong with this picture? Yes, you guessed it, you forgot to say Shabbat Shalom.

This will come as a shock to most of you, but your teachers are actually human beings (I was not aware of this development till recently myself). As much as you are dying to get out of class, the teacher is probably thinking: "I cant wait to get out of this miserable, esthetically challenged, Hanoi hell-pit."

Next time, before you run out of class, if it's a weekday, just take a minute to say "have a nice day" to your teacher, rebbe, or the occasional secretary. If the weekend is approaching it won't hurt you to shake your rabbi's hand and say Good Shabbos or Shabbat Shalom, depending on your preference. Most of the time he'll understand both. Many of your afternoon teachers are Jewish, and it wont kill you to say Shabbat Shalom to them either. Now, in the case of a non-Jewish teacher/administrator/office person, I recommend using the gentile equivalent to our pre-Sabbath greeting which goes something like this: " have-a-nice-weekend."

While your at it, it would be nice to get a Shabbat Shalom on Shabbat once in a while. This is how to do it: when you see a person coming down the street and you positively identify him as a Jew by one of his many stereotypical Jewish traits just let out a rip-roaring "GOOD SHABBOS." You will be surprised in all these cases that the other person will usually smile and return your greeting in kind.

There's even a bunch of old people who hang out around campus. So even if your going to be a big-shot lawyer or a hot-shot doctor, some nice words will do the kind of great things that money just can't buy. Indeed, there is a lack of warmth around here which can be easily alleviated with a few small simple gestures. At first it will hurt your face to smile or nod and say "have a nice day," but I am confident that these not-so-new ideas will help create a better atmosphere for everyone in our quaint little community.