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When Words Are Corrupted, Meaning Is Lost

by Ram ben Ze’ev


When Words Are Corrupted, Meaning Is Lost
When Words Are Corrupted, Meaning Is Lost

Language is not a cosmetic choice in Judaism. Language is the vessel of truth. The Torah does not merely describe reality; it creates it. G-D spoke, and the world came into being. When we alter the words, we alter the world they shape.


Today, our message is in crisis, not because Jews have forgotten how to speak, but because we have grown careless about what we speak. Even within Jewish publishing houses, educational institutions, and organisations that are widely regarded as credible and trustworthy, foreign words and foreign frameworks have quietly embedded themselves into our sacred vocabulary. This is not accidental, and it is not harmless.


The problem begins with translation, but it does not end there. Translation is never neutral. Every word carries history, theology, and assumptions. When translators or editors choose convenience over fidelity, they do not merely change language; they redirect meaning.



We say פסח (Pesach – the festival of covenantal passage), not Passover. We say קרבן פסח (Korban Pesach – the Pesach offering), not “Paschal sacrifice.” “Paschal” is not an English synonym; it is a church word, forged within Christian theology and later retrofitted onto Jewish texts. Its use subtly reframes obedience, covenant, and identity into alien categories that do not exist in Torah or in the Holy Zohar.


We say חנכיה (Hanukkhia – the Hanukkah lamp), not Menorah. The Menorah belongs to the Beit HaMikdash and has seven branches, no more and no less. The Hanukkhia has eight lights plus the shamash. This is not pedantry. This is halakhah, history, and holiness. When we collapse the two, we erase distinction, and distinction is the backbone of kedushah.


We say תהלים (Tehillim – praises), not Psalms. A מזמור (Mizmor – a song with structure and intention) is not the same thing as a generic “psalm.” David did not write “psalms” in the Greco-Christian sense. He composed Mizmorim that are prayers, cries, declarations, and spiritual instruments, each with precision and purpose.


And we say שואה (Shoah – catastrophe, destruction), not Holocaust. My great-grandparents were not “burnt offerings” to some Christian god. The word Holocaust is inseparable from pagan and ecclesiastical imagery of sacrificial burning. Shoah tells the truth. Holocaust distorts it.


Some dismiss these concerns as semantic. They are wrong. Words train the mind. Repeated often enough, foreign words produce foreign thinking. Over generations, this linguistic drift reshapes prayer, study, and identity until Jews unknowingly begin to understand their own tradition through borrowed lenses.


What makes this moment particularly dangerous is that the erosion is now internal. These terms are no longer imposed only from outside. They are reproduced by Jewish publishers, educators, and organisations who should know better, often without malice, but also without vigilance. That is precisely how corruption succeeds: not by open attack, but by quiet normalisation.


The Holy Language, including Aramaic, is not ornamental. It is structural. Aramaic is not merely the medium of the Holy Zohar; it encodes concepts that cannot survive careless translation. When editors replace precise Aramaic or Hebrew terms with Christianised English equivalents, they do not make the text more accessible. They make it less true.



We must be honest about the stakes. Evil does not only operate through violence. It operates through confusion. When language is blurred, meaning collapses. When meaning collapses, identity weakens. When identity weakens, assimilation is no longer forced; it becomes voluntary.


What must be done is clear. Jewish publishers must conduct serious linguistic audits of their works, especially translations. Editors must stop inheriting academic conventions without questioning their origins. Translators must prioritise fidelity over fluency and retain Hebrew and Aramaic terms where translation distorts rather than clarifies. Educators must teach students not only what our words mean, but why we refuse substitutes.


This is not about rejecting English. It is about refusing to let English redefine Torah.


If we do not guard our words, others will continue to reshape them for us. And once the words are lost, the message soon follows.



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