Love, suffering, success, intelligence . . . What do these words tell you about the Jewish people? These words may mean something entirely different in Biblical Hebrew—in a way that has shaped a nation for millennia. In People of the Word: Fifty Words that Shaped Jewish Thinking (Ezra Press and Chabad.org), Rabbis Zalman Abraham and Mendel Kalmenson dissect 50 Hebrew words, and dive into their definitions and the hidden messages found inside each of them.
It’s a rare journey through the history, culture and dreams of a nation—much of which may have been lost in the languages of host countries through which the Jewish people wandered for the past 2,000 years. As the authors explore each word, they also uncover gems that put each idea into a uniquely Jewish perspective, often challenging the reader’s prior understanding.
In a conversation with Chabad.org, the co-authors shared their passions behind the book, each displaying their individual—and often very different—outlook and style. Rabbi Zalman Abraham brings his 13 years of experience planning and writing popular courses for the Jewish Learning Institute (JLI). Rabbi Mendel Kalmenson’s resume includes serving as rabbi and executive director of Chabad of Belgravia in London, and author of several widely successful books, including the highly acclaimed Positivity Bias and Seeds of Wisdom.
Their synergy leads to a book that is surprisingly difficult to put down and meets every type of reader from the academic to the casual, and from the advanced Judaic learner to the beginner.
Here the authors answer several questions, revealing their fascinating intentions behind People of the Word.
Q: In the introduction to People of the Word, you write about how the words a nation uses shape its unique culture and ethos, and you give several fascinating examples. How did each of you become interested in this phenomenon, and what led you to explore the impact of the Hebrew language on the Jewish people?
Zalman Abraham: For full disclosure, the idea for creating such a book was completely Mendel’s, as was the angle of words shaping culture. What drew me to this genre was more of an interest in capturing the insight that words provide into a nation’s culture and ethos, and not so much how they shape it.
I think most people analyze words as a way to gain a better understanding of things. My maternal grandfather, of blessed memory, trained me to reach for a dictionary at every turn to gain a more precise definition for words that seem somewhat ambiguous. I do this several times a day using Google’s “define:WORD” feature.
Turning to etymology is also a common technique that I’m familiar with from my yeshivah education. Particularly from Rashi, the classical biblical commentator, who places a tremendous emphasis on etymology, building on the work of his predecessors in comparing different usages of a word to decipher cryptic biblical terms. Chassidic texts often use etymology to drive home a more accurate and nuanced meaning of a term and to point out the foundational basis for a particular insight.
Additionally, as a visual learner, I find that concepts are depicted in pictorial form differently in different cultures because of the attributes referenced in words used to describe them. For example, the English word “sifting” depicts the use of a sieve for sorting larger granules from smaller granules. It’s just a technical act of sorting, no different from sorting cards. In Talmudic texts, the word for sifting is meraked, which means to dance, depicting the granules jumping up and down in the sieve. Another (more modern) Hebrew term for this is lenapot, which describes the act of waving (hanafa) and shaking the sieve to and fro. Depending on which word you use, the visual mind can depict sorting flour as sorting cards, as granules dancing on a trampoline, or as shaking an instrument (think tambourine). The activity might be the same, but it paints a different picture in your mind.
I must admit, I didn’t fully appreciate the practical, spiritual and religious significance of etymology (I viewed it as more of a trivial novelty, kind of like Bible codes) until I chanced upon a talk by the Rebbe [Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory] that explains that the purpose for which everything was created—the way that thing exists in its most perfect and complete state—is coded into the etymology of its Hebrew name. And that, before the Torah was given, the primary purpose of humans on earth was to assist in bringing everything to that perfect state as described in its name. After seeing this, I knew there was something fundamental in Hebrew etymology, something that was beckoning to be explored further, a new genre that existing Jewish literature has barely tapped into.
Mendel Kalmenson: A number of years ago, I was one of many guests at the Sukkot table of a member of the Chabad community of Atlanta, Ga. During the meal, he invited everyone present to ask any questions on their mind. One woman stood up and said, “I’m actually deeply offended by something in your sukkah.”
She pointed to an electronic board that had messages floating across the display. It read: “Do Not Pray, Do Not Repent, and Do Not Give Charity.” She explained that she found it jarring, coming right after the High Holiday season, when one of the essential prayers is that teshuvah tefillah utzedaka maavirim roeh hagezerah—repentance, prayer and acts of charity can avoid or revert a negative decree—highlighting that these three spiritual practices are fundamental pillars in Jewish tradition.
The host was smiling, as clearly he had planted the gimmick for just this moment. He then launched into a well-known teaching of the Rebbe that these three words have been mistranslated and misunderstood for millennia.
Jewish people, especially those who lived in Christian host countries, have been influenced to see the world through a Christian lens, so these three ideas in Judaism have unfortunately become tainted by a different way of thinking, other than the original Jewish worldview.
If you open a Webster’s Dictionary, “prayer” is synonymous with “petition,” or “lobby.” These suggest that prayer is done when one has a lack or need to be fulfilled and petitions a higher deity.
Whereas in the Jewish tradition, the word tefillah appears early in the Torah in the context of Leah naming her son Naftali, which means to “bond.” She’s thanking and asking G‑d that through this child she will grow closer to her husband, Jacob.
So prayer is not merely transactional, there to facilitate a need; it’s a spiritual exercise aimed at fostering intimacy with the divine. It’s a conversation, a bid for connection,a touchpoint to express and deepen the closeness between ourselves and our creator.
The idea of repentance in many traditions in the wider sense, is to become someone/something new. There’s a notion in Christianity about being “born again.” In the Jewish tradition, the literal meaning and essential theme of the word teshuvah is tashuv, “to return” to who you really are. In other words, we each have a point of goodness and G‑dliness that cannot be corrupted and always maintains its spiritual innocence and integrity. Its irrevocably and unconditionally connected to the Almighty. The process of teshuvah, then, is simply shedding the distortions and distractions that come with the wear and tear of physical existence, and realigning with our truest core and essence. Hence, teshuvah is not about becoming the new you but becoming the real you.
The Hebrew word tzedakah doesn’t translate to English, because it means both “charity” and “justice.” In English, that simply doesn’t work because paying a debt is justice, whereas gifting money is charity—the two don’t mix. But in Hebrew there's no word for charity without justice, because giving is something that we have to do.
After this fateful exchange in the Sukkah, I began to notice how so many of the deepest spiritual principles, and fundamentals of Judaic and Chassidic thought, are often embedded in one word. I began to collect these words because they’re truly remarkable. Each one conveys an entire worldview and frame of reference, and helps provide a paradigm shift into the teachings of Judaism and the unique worldview of Chassidus.
This idea inspired me to delve deeper, and that’s how the book came about.
Q: Most people don’t pay much attention to the words they use. In most languages, the words for “body,” “food,” “money,” sit, run or love are just sounds we use in order to communicate about objects, actions or feelings, without thinking about any higher meaning that might be embedded in them. How is this different in Hebrew?
ZA: I think people pay less attention to the meaning of words in English-speaking cultures than they do in Semitic cultures. This is because Semitic language systems like Hebrew follow a triconsonantal root system, called shorashim, which brings to mind associations in content between words that share a common root.
In addition to the linguistic differentiator, Judaism’s classic religious texts (think Talmud) place considerable focus on hermeneutics and the interpretation of biblical texts, including zeroing in on etymological nuance and their subtle yet deliberate differences in meaning. Thousands of years of studying such texts must have influenced the Jewish psyche and culture to, in some way, be more cognizant of words and their meanings.
In the introduction to the book, I point out the kabbalistic basis for Hebrew being different, the idea that G‑d created everything by uttering its Hebrew name. Give it a different name, and it would possess a different set of properties. For example, diverging from Shakespeare’s famous line, a rose by any other name (in Hebrew) wouldn’t quite smell as sweet. This is because the Hebrew word for “rose,” shoshanah, describes its qualities, in this case, its property of suppleness (from the root shoneh, “to change”). You don’t get that level of depiction in English. So, yes, I would say we do pay more attention to the meaning of words in Hebrew than we do in English and most other languages.
MK: Hebrew is very different from any other language. In other languages, the words used are completely arbitrary—in English, for example, we would get on just fine if the word table were used for chair and the word chair for table. This is because English words are not in and of themselves descriptive.
In Hebrew, the word tells you about what it’s describing. For example, kelev (the Hebrew word for “dog”) contains two words: kulo lev meaning “all heart,” which a wonderful description for man’s best friend.
It’s also called lashon hakodesh, or, “holy tongue.” Because Hashem brought the world to existence through those words, encoding everything within those words. So the Hebrew language really serves as a portal into the Divine mind, and delving into it is the best way to understand the depth of existence.
Q: In addition to the rich philosophical and anthropological insights in People of the Word, it takes a very practical turn in each chapter. Who are your target readers and what do you hope they will take away from it?
ZA: The book speaks to a broad and diverse audience. If I had to settle on one, it would be the person with a growing interest in Judaism who is looking to discover a unique Jewish worldview that is profound, relevant and resonant.
MK: Every chapter is followed by “The Big Idea”—a takeaway in a one-liner—and also an accompanying story.
The Big Idea feature is inspired by our sages, who were the masters of encapsulating entire world views in sound bites of just a few short words. When you read a book or essay with a lot of information, it’s very beneficial to the reader to have the idea focused into a few words that can easily be taken into day-to-day life.
Some people are visual learners, some are audial learners; I consider myself a “story learner.” Stories bring ideas into real life, with emotional context that vivifies the idea now relevantly place into a human context.
We tried to create something with this book that is both accessible and academic; it’s scholarly, but written in a contemporary and resonant style. So the academic might enjoy the essay more, people with shorter attention spans will walk away with “The Big Idea,” and the story-lovers will have what to walk away with.
Most importantly, these are three different steps and methods to bring concrete and abstract information into real-life applications, to really bear fruit.
Q: In your research of the etymology of various Hebrew words, was there any one word that took you by surprise?
ZA: Yes, there were many. One example is the word rega which means “a moment.” Rashi (Job 7:5) points out that it describes something wrinkled or folded like waves in a stormy sea (roga hayam in Isaiah 51:15), or what we call an accordion fold. I was particularly taken by the conception of a moment as being something that could be compressed or expanded, alluding to the broader idea that time is what we make of it. I found this interpretation particularly novel and resonant because we tend to think of time as being a conveyor belt that we’re on and have no control over; it’s constantly moving, forever bringing us closer to our eventual demise. This new picture of time changes the narrative; we aren’t riding the conveyor belt anymore, but rather it’s passing before us, bringing new opportunities with it. From this perspective, we aren’t victims of time but have control over whether we choose to take advantage of the opportunity every new moment brings or whether we let it pass without notice. In this sense, we can collapse time or expand it. This becomes even more fascinating when we consider the science behind differences in the perception of time, how some people experience longer minutes than others by simply finding more novelty to marvel at in the same unit of time.
MK: There’s a word that I enjoy very much, especially due to its broader relevance. The word “rav,” which means “master” (and by extension, “teacher”) is etymologically linked to the word “conflict.” The function of a teacher isn’t to create a clone of themselves in their students but to challenge them and create cognitive conflict in order to engender critical thinking, rather than orthodoxy of thought.
I think that’s especially relevant in today’s era of “safe spaces,” where academies have been discouraging divergent views and creating a group-think mentality in the very space that is meant for rigorous debate. Unfortunately a lot of the time the teachers and professors themselves are held captive or part of this intellectual orthodoxy or dogmatic thinking.
Yet here we have a beautiful definition of the teacher’s role, which is really to ensure that students think for themselves. In simple terms, the role of the teacher isn’t to teach the student what to think, but how to think. And that’s beautifully encompassed in the word “Rav.”
Q: There’s a lot of concern today about the resurgence of antisemitism around the world. You note the connection between the Hebrew word for “hate,” sinah, and Mount Sinai where the Jews received the Torah. Did we also receive antisemitism at Sinai?
ZA: Yes, antisemitism is connected to Sinai, but we didn’t come up with the connection; it’s an explicit quote from the Talmud (including the etymological connection between the word “hate” and Sinai). We merely explained it and interpreted how it can inform our response to antisemitism as Jews today. Too often, Jews either mistakenly assume some kind of responsibility for antisemitism, are ashamed of it, or disown it completely. In the entry, we suggest a different approach, one that emboldens us to take pride in our Judaism and to hold ourselves to the higher moral standard that we were tasked at Sinai to introduce to the world. This is the very same higher standard that antisemites hate us for.
MK: Yes, with the receiving of the Torah the nations begin to hate us. This idea has been reinforced in the very words of many antisemites, and most recently, Hitler, who explicitly talked about the Jewish people creating, disseminating and embodying the “pernicious idea” of a conscience. This he and his followers utterly rejected since it inhibited their barbarism, and they wanted to live freely without any moral code.
Antisemitism isn’t directed at the Jew as an individual but at every Jew, practicing, knowledgeable, or not, for what they embody as a certain higher moral code—an ethical system called Torah and mitzvot.
In a conversation with Croatian Foreign Minister General Kvaternik, on July 21, 1941, (cited by Robert Wistrich, Hitler’s Apocalypse, p. 122) Hitler vividly and explicitly spelled this idea out:
“If only one country, for whatever reason, tolerates a Jewish family in it, that family will become the germ center for fresh sedition. If one little Jewish boy survives without any Jewish education, with no synagogue and no Hebrew school, it [Judaism] is in his soul. Even if there had never been a synagogue or a Jewish school or an Old Testament, the Jewish spirit would still exist and exert its influence. It has been there from the beginning and there is no Jew, not a single one, who does not personify it.”
The chapter on antisemitism has unfortunately become increasingly relevant and is super important today because it communicates a deep idea—namely, that historically we Jews elicit two polar opposite reactions in those who study us. In some, it creates a philosemitic desire to emulate us from a healthy sense of envy and ambition, as a people to learn from and incorporate some of our ideals and values. Others react negatively, almost “allergically” fueled by a desire to uproot the moral conscience that has been the instrument for civilizing the Western world. To this point, the idea of running or hiding has never been of great use, but to the contrary, embracing our identity fully and uninhibitedly is the surest way to manifest our legacy and be the light we were called to be, and hence hopefully, by embodying the best of Jewish values, we can bring more people into the camp of philosemites than otherwise.
Q: In contrast to the many jokes about Jewish guilt and dissatisfaction, you note that, according to many studies, Jews are among the happiest people. How is this shaped by the Hebrew language?
MK: I wrote about this in the introduction. One way to understand a culture is through the preponderance and prominence of certain words in that given culture. In the Jewish tradition, there are over 10 words for happiness—gila, ditza, sasson, chedva, etc.—each of which describes a different shade of joy. For example, gila, from the word gal, “rolling wave” describes a spontaneous joy that overtakes someone; ditza is rooted in the word for “dance,” and represents an all-consuming joy that expresses itself in dance. Sasson is a joy that’s tinged with a hint of sadness, like a parent walking a child down the aisle.
These many words suggest that happiness is of great value in our culture. Much like the Inuits have various words to describe various textures of snow, we have various words to describe various shades of joy.
In Chassidus, there’s a teaching that while depression isn’t technically a sin, the abyss that depression can take one to, no sin can. Conversely, while joy isn’t one of the 613 mitzvot, the place where joy can take you is above and beyond the lofty place that the mitzvot can take you.
Getting into the word simchah, which we have a chapter on, really encapsulates the Jewish notion of true happiness. As opposed to the secular notion of happiness, which is based on the word “haphazard” from English, or “happenstance” and implies that happiness is a matter of chance or luck, the letters of the word b’simchah are the same letters as the Hebrew word machshavah—thought. In Jewish culture, happiness is a thought, or a state of mind, rather than a circumstance. Furthermore, it’s made of the words sham moach—“there are your thoughts.”
The Baal Shem Tov taught that one’s real existential location in life is where their thoughts are. In other words, you are where your thoughts are.
This idea that we’re not defined by our external circumstances, but rather by our state of mind, has in a nutshell been maybe the single greatest idea that has helped the Jewish people survive, and more so, thrive, despite the history of upheaval and exile. If we had waited until the circumstances and conditions of our existence were fully secured and stable before realizing fulfillment and happiness, we would have long ago lost our hope and equilibrium, and ability to function and thrive as we do. Indeed this idea, embedded in our word for happiness, and by extension in our psyche, has helped us transcend our circumstances, allowing us to tap into and create for ourselves a state of joy while living in limbo and on the run.
Q: You explore 51 Hebrew words that have shaped the Jewish people. Today, many Jews, especially those in North America, cannot speak, read or write in Hebrew or in Hebrew-based languages like the Yiddish, Ladino and Judeo-Arabic of their ancestors. What effect do you think this is having on the Jewish people? Is there a solution short of becoming fully literate in Hebrew?
ZA: There has never been a better time in history to be Hebrew illiterate. There are fortunes of translated materials available in multiple languages, to the extent that you can become a Torah scholar and master the entire Talmud without even knowing how to read Hebrew. That said, one of the purposes of our book is to address the gap that this study of translated texts has created. There are multiple layers of depth that are communicated in the original Hebrew that get lost in translation. Through the book, we’re looking to bring attention to this often-overlooked treasure trove of wisdom and, hopefully, inspire readers to take a renewed interest in the language of our heritage and improve their Hebrew literacy.
MK: One of the main objectives of the book is to a certain extent to disentangle the “Judeo” from the “Judeo-Christian” values, which for so many today seem to be synonymous or identical. While of course, we all believe strongly that all traditions should live side by side, to suggest that they’re somehow hyphenated, is to do everyone a great injustice.
One of the main functions of the book is to demonstrate through the Hebrew words that Jewish thinking is really different, especially from any of the main world religions. For example, the word “Islam” means to “surrender,” whereas the word “Yisrael” means to “wrestle—with the Divine and the human, and to prevail.” To be a Jew then is to wrestle and challenge the injustice we encounter in the world, whatever the source, divine or human.
Judaism’s greatest heroes distinguish themselves from others, by how deeply they embody this virtue.
Having lived amongst the nations of the world for millennia, many Jews have begun to see the world through the eyes of their host cultures, which does a great disservice to our own heritage, concealing as it does the unique contribution of Jewish thought.
The irony is that so many of the modern staples of moral furniture in our world today, things that young people embrace, such as liberal values like inclusivity, tolerance, social activism, anti-prejudice, philanthropy, world peace, human dignity—so many of these ideas are Jewish inventions, rooted in the Torah and the words of our prophets.
The very notion of inclusivity and tolerance is fundamentally Jewish. Judaism is one of, if not the only, religion that suggests that you don’t need to be Jewish to achieve enlightenment and a portion in the World to Come. Yet if you stop a modern Jew and ask them what is the source of the values they hold and cherish so dearly, they’ll say modernity, secularism and Western thought. And they’ll look at Judaism with a sense of disdain, as something dated and primitive. The absolute tragedy is that that which they hold so dear and is the source of their greatest passion, is Judaism itself, their very own heritage.
I hope that this book in some way draws the link between the things they hold dear and Judaism, and helps restore Judaic thought to the top shelf in the library of moral thought.
Q: The title of your book is “People of the Word,” which makes you, as a Jew, a “person of the word.” Is there any one word from your book that you feel shaped you the most on a personal level?
ZA: It’s a stretch to say that I’ve been shaped by any one word. If I had to choose, it would be the word nisayon (or its root, nes), which means a test or a challenge. It also means to elevate, communicating that the purpose of a challenge is to promote us to a higher level. Personally, when things don’t work out as expected or when life throws a seemingly nasty curveball, I tend to gravitate towards victimhood and blame, feeling stuck in the situation, and tempted to fall into a dark emotional space. This teaching reminds me to practice humility and trust that there is always some hidden positive purpose, even when I can’t imagine what it might be. Sometimes I get to see what it is after the fact; more often, it remains a mystery, but even then, I find tremendous resilience in trusting that everything has a positive purpose. I’m definitely much better off as a result of this insight.
At the same time, in the entry on the word Israel, which comes from the word sarita, “to struggle,” we point out that to grapple and wrestle with the ills and evils of the world—not to accept or make peace with the status quo—is a defining feature of a Jew. It is the way of Abraham who protested the destruction of Sodom, rather than that of Noah who was spared without protest while the world was destroyed. So in terms of being a “Person of the Word,” the tendency to not accept (and find purpose in) darkness is also very much a Jewish feature.
MK: Each word has shaped me differently; we’re all the product of so many layers and influences, and the same is true of words and languages. One word that has really influenced me on a practical level is dibbur, which means “speech” or “words,” and consists of the same letters as davar, “things.”
Words create worlds, and the power of words can leave an energetic imprint on the universe. This is a theme that resonates with me deeply and is something I wrote about in my book, Positivity Bias. Chassidic thought creates a radical sensitivity around words and their power to create reality, and this has deeply influenced my own personal way of speaking.
People of the Word can be purchased online from Kehot and Amazon and at Jewish bookstores.
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