Educators stress that during the vacation time one needs to
be extra wary of harmful environments. Leaving the yeshiva's
beis medrash, our present-day Noach's ark, for bein
hazmanim, and the temporary pause of studies in
cheders and Beis Yaakov schools, are liable to cast
young people into a dangerous confrontation with modern
society's hazards. In the last brocho of birchos
hashachar we daven daily: "Do not bring us . . .
into the power of challenge."
It seems superfluous to warn that we should keep our children
in a purely Torah atmosphere during vacation time. Any
discerning person sees that the morals of our brethren on the
other side of the fence, those who have strayed from Judaism,
have drastically declined. Surely we must do all we can to
prevent any spiritual damage to our young boys and girls.
Responsible parents do everything in their power to ensure
that their children are under constant supervision and are
not wandering the streets.
But despite our best efforts there is occasionally no escape
from having to mingle with society for medical care, for
official paperwork, or travelling on buses where many of the
passengers are either non-Jewish or non-religious Jews. For
this reason rabbonim and educators underscored the need to
strengthen our children when they leave our houses, to
immunize them from any taint of foreign influence, and to
convince them that it is preferable to "cover their eyes and
close their ears" when they are among those who might leave a
harmful impression.
We emphasize the prominent hindrances of contemporary
society: people dress improperly, heretic views abound, and
other myriad modern maladies. We are, perhaps, not
sufficiently aware that outside our homes children are liable
to learn a new "language." This language, better known as
slang, is formed in the empty minds of foolhardy teenagers,
and every new neologism spreads among the non- Jewish in
chutz la'aretz and the secular populace in Eretz
Yisroel like fire in a field of thorns.
There may be nothing explicitly wrong with the words and
concepts themselves. Although they do not carry heretical
messages nor are they obscenities, they are nonetheless
injurious since they show the feelings of both the
promiscuous non-Jewish and secular Jewish youth, their
backgrounds, and their ways of thinking.
Unfortunately part of this new way of expressing oneself has
unintentionally penetrated into our camp. We are often
surprised to hear a string of popular expressions from the
mouths of children and teenagers who study Torah. These
concepts have crept into our working vocabulary and have
become standard speech of yeshiva students. They are not
forbidden per se. On the other hand, they are often
expressions of the "mental world" of the base and superficial
youth, and there is no reason for us to imitate this way of
speaking.
Anyone who has ever examined such slang will realize that it
embodies a poverty of values. Sometimes this refers to words
showing a lack of seriousness, feelings of excessive pride,
superficiality, and typical leitzonus. Occasionally
these words unveil their contempt for the forbidden by making
daily use of words similar to real aveiros.
For instance, in previous generations people were careful not
to use words referring to killing and murdering. Today things
have changed. A person starts off a conversation when he
wants to show his anger and offer an appropriate reaction
after being annoyed by another person, using expressions such
as "I will kill him." Also words of stealing and theft and
other serious aveiros, that were always considered
negative expressions, have become acceptable if not even
fashionable.
The non-Jewish population and our brethren
who have strayed from Torah and mitzvos have developed such a
"language" but it is extremely unfortunate if it is
incorporated into the language of our children who live in an
atmosphere of kedusha and tohoroh. A ben
Torah knows that he must separate himself from unrefined
behavior and act in a unique way. The Rambam (Hilchos
Dei'os 5) writes: "Just as we can know whether a person
is sagacious by his wisdom and knowledge, and his being
detached from other people, so he needs to be particular in
his behavior, in what he eats, and what he drinks, . . . and
how he talks."
Maran the Chofetz Chaim (introduction to Kvod
Shomayim) writes: "The truth is that everything which
needs correcting depends only on talmidei chachomim,
and this is especially true when we correct speech so that
dvar Hashem will not be hefker." The Chofetz
Chaim designates the above mainly in regards to being careful
not to speak loshon hora but what he writes pertains
even to general purity of speech. Those who study Torah are
required to be especially mindful how they speak, since
through their speaking divrei Torah they help the
world continue to exist.
The Shem MiShmuel shows us how many types of speech
can influence a person. The Midrash Rabbah in the
beginning of Devorim writes: "Is a Jew permitted to
write a sefer Torah in other languages?
Chachomim taught us that there is no difference
between sifrei Torah, tefillin, and
mezuzas with the exception of permission for sifrei
Torah to be written in every language. Rabbon Gamliel
says that even sifrei Torah are only allowed to be
written in Greek. HaKodosh Boruch Hu said: `See how
dear the language of the Torah is that it cures the way a
person speaks.' R' Levi said: `Why do we need to learn from
somewhere else; let us learn from what is written here. Until
Moshe was zoche to Torah he was `not a man of words,'
but after being zoche to Torah his ability to speak
was cured and he began to speak. From where do we know this?
The Torah writes "These are the things that Moshe
spoke."'"
Naturally this needs to be explained. Many times the Torah
writes that Moshe Rabbenu "spoke." Why do Chazal infer this
point only from "spoke" in this parsha? Furthermore,
Moshe apparently did not need his power of speech since the
Shechina would speak from his throat.
"It seems we must reflect on the nature of non-Jewish
languages. A nation's vernacular is its essence and shows its
substance, as Chazal write: `The tongue is the quill of the
heart.' Their heart's evil is invariably expressed in the way
they talk. Their particular power of evil is hidden in their
national language. The Gerrer Rebbe, the Chidushei HaRim
zt'l, once said that French lures a person to
adultery, Rachmono litzlan. This is because it is well
known that the French are markedly sullied in this, and
therefore their essence is expressed in their language.
"The language of Torah however transforms the evil in a
language to good. Since the Torah must use that language to
explain something, the language combines itself to
tohoroh. Its basic evil nature is repelled and a
spirit of tohoroh enters it. This is the `curing of a
language.' In this way I explained why Rashi cites French
words numerous times. It is inconceivable that Rashi did not
find words in loshon hakodesh to explain the correct
meaning to the reader. According to what we have written
Rashi helped those who speak that language. Since it is
possible that before Rashi cited French words as
explanations, French would be even more conducive to
adultery."
Subsequently the Shem MiShmuel explains why Moshe
Rabbenu explained the Torah in seventy languages although he
had only spoken to bnei Yisroel in loshon
hakodesh or in the Egyptian language, and did not need
all the seventy languages for his purpose. "Moshe [used the
seventy languages] to cure somewhat the languages for the
benefit of coming generations. Perhaps he knew [through
ruach hakodesh] that in the future Jews will go into
golus among the seventy nations and would need to use
the local languages.
"When Chazal write that the Shechina spoke from
Moshe's throat it refers only to loshon hakodesh in
which the Torah is written, but as to what was later
explained in the seventy languages it was surely not the
Shechina emanating from his throat. The Ramban
(parshas Nosso) writes that our language is called
loshon hakodesh because divrei Torah and all
the prophecies and every matter of kedusha are all
written in that language. If the explanations that Moshe gave
in the seventy languages were "Shechina speaking
through his throat" what preeminence did loshon
hakodesh have? We must therefore conclude that when the
Shechina spoke from his throat, Moshe spoke only
loshon hakodesh but not the seventy languages.
The Midrash's proof from Moshe that the Torah cures
one's language is only when he explained the Torah in the
seventy languages. When Moshe spoke the seventy languages the
Shechina did not speak from his throat, and
nonetheless his innate difficulty of speech did not disturb
him because "his language was cured according to the above
way."
We have written at length because of the
essential message: Every language expresses a nation's
essence -- "A nation's vernacular is its essence and its
substance, as Chazal write `The tongue is the quill of the
heart.' The evil of their heart is always expressed in the
way they talk. The nation's particular power of evil is
hidden in its language."
The above does not only relate to foreign languages. Also
using loshon hakodesh improperly, profaning and
degrading it, while creating a low quality "Hebrew slang"
wrecks the nefesh. If in foreign languages there is a
negative power in apparently innocent and mundane words only
because of the inner essence and hidden influence of those
who created the language, there is surely great damage in
using a distinctive jargon that shows emptiness and
arrogance. The nature of such a language is evil and its
messages are shoddy. Such a language cannot be cured and
there is no way in the world to purify the way it is used. It
is surely intolerable that someone who speaks divrei
kedusha will use such language. The Torah-true should
distance themselves from such slang.
A person's values are reflected in the way he speaks. We
should heed the saying of a famous French writer that "Le
style c'est l'homme meme" (The style is the man himself)
since the kadmonim speak at length about the fact that
man's superiority over the animals is in his possessing the
power of speech. This unique power obligates man to be more
careful about how he speaks since it is a central element in
building or, chas vesholom, ruining him. We must
protect the purity of our camp, the way our children talk,
since base external influences create a disgusting and vulgar
slang. We must do this the entire year and especially during
vacation time.
