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113-609: Isaac ben Solomon Luria Ashkenazi ( Hebrew : יִצְחָק בן שלמה לוּרְיָא אשכנזי ; c.  1534  – July 25, 1572), commonly known in Jewish religious circles as Ha'ari , Ha'ari Hakadosh or Arizal , was a leading rabbi and Jewish mystic in the community of Safed in the Galilee region of Ottoman Syria , now Israel. He is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah , his teachings being referred to as Lurianic Kabbalah . While his direct literary contribution to

226-475: A "third-born calf" that they ate for a celebration. The separation of the mystical and magical elements of Kabbalah, dividing it into speculative theological Kabbalah ( Kabbalah Iyyunit ) with its meditative traditions, and theurgic practical Kabbalah ( Kabbalah Ma'asit ), had occurred by the beginning of the 14th century. Many traditional speculative Kabbalists disapproved of practical Kabbalah, including Abraham Abulafia , who strongly condemned it. While

339-685: A Hebrew form. Medieval Hebrew added 6421 words to (Modern) Hebrew. The approximate number of new lexical items in Israeli is 17,000 (cf. 14,762 in Even-Shoshan 1970 [...]). With the inclusion of foreign and technical terms [...], the total number of Israeli words, including words of biblical, rabbinic and medieval descent, is more than 60,000. In Israel, Modern Hebrew is currently taught in institutions called Ulpanim (singular: Ulpan). There are government-owned, as well as private, Ulpanim offering online courses and face-to-face programs. Modern Hebrew

452-595: A century ago, was fluent enough in this idiom to be able to follow the Mishna Berurah without any trouble." Hebrew has been revived several times as a literary language, most significantly by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of early and mid-19th-century Germany. In the early 19th century, a form of spoken Hebrew had emerged in the markets of Jerusalem between Jews of different linguistic backgrounds to communicate for commercial purposes. This Hebrew dialect

565-661: A corollary Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. Moshe Zvi Segal , Joseph Klausner and Ben Yehuda are notable exceptions to this view. During the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archaeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls has disproven that view. The Dead Sea Scrolls, uncovered in 1946–1948 near Qumran revealed ancient Jewish texts overwhelmingly in Hebrew, not Aramaic. The Qumran scrolls indicate that Hebrew texts were readily understandable to

678-506: A decisive role in these practices..." Halakha (Jewish religious law) forbids divination and other forms of soothsaying, and the Talmud lists many persistent yet condemned divining practices. The very frequency with which divination is mentioned is taken as an indication that it was widely practiced in the folk religion of ancient Israel, and a limited number of forms of divination were generally accepted within all of Israelite society,

791-579: A distinct style of philosophical Hebrew. This is used in the translations made by the Ibn Tibbon family. (Original Jewish philosophical works were usually written in Arabic. ) Another important influence was Maimonides , who developed a simple style based on Mishnaic Hebrew for use in his law code, the Mishneh Torah . Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between this style and

904-611: A few exceptions, including kabbalistic poems in rabbinical Aramaic for the Shabbat table). The foremost advocate of his kabbalistic system was Vital, who collected all the disciples' lecture notes. Numerous works were produced from these notes, the most important of which was the Etz Chaim , "Tree of Life", in eight volumes (see below). Originally, it circulated only in manuscript copies. Each of Luria's disciples had to pledge—under pain of excommunication—not to allow any copy be made for

1017-757: A foreign country, so that for a time all the manuscripts remained in Ottoman Syria. Eventually, one was brought to Europe and was published at Zolkiev in 1772 by Isaac Satanow . In this work, both the theoretical and the devotional-meditative teachings of Lurianic Kabbalah , based on the Zohar , are elaborated upon. Tzimtzum was one of Luria's most important ideas that he stressed in his lectures. Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית ‎, ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ‎ ʿÎbrit )

1130-446: A form of exorcism which effectively transferred techniques from practical to speculative Kabbalah. While this led to the displacement of magical formulas and rites by contemplative exercises, the old forms of practical Kabbalah continued to exert broad appeal. Luria's position as the central teacher of modern Kabbalah, the foundation for later Hasidism , gives his proscription authoritative force. He taught that in our generations, without

1243-594: A gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904–1914 Second Aliyah that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A constructed modern language with

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1356-468: A literary language down through the Byzantine period from the 4th century CE. The exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated. A trilingual scenario has been proposed for the land of Israel. Hebrew functioned as the local mother tongue with powerful ties to Israel's history, origins and golden age and as the language of Israel's religion; Aramaic functioned as the international language with

1469-536: A literary language, especially in Spain, as the language of commerce between Jews of different native languages, and as the liturgical language of Judaism, evolving various dialects of literary Medieval Hebrew , until its revival as a spoken language in the late 19th century. In May 2023, Scott Stripling published the finding of what he claims to be the oldest known Hebrew inscription, a curse tablet found at Mount Ebal , dated from around 3200 years ago. The presence of

1582-424: A practitioner of practical Kabbalah, and baal shem, was said to have created a golem through use of the divine name. Rabbi Yhitzak Ayhiz Halpern, a practitioner of practical Kabbalah, and baal shem, was said to have saved a ship from capsizing, and to have exorcised a dybbuk . Rabbi Naftali Katz of Posnan was said to have brought a dead man back to life to free his wife from agunah . Rabbi Hirsch Fraenkel

1695-466: A river and save his life. Afterward he regretted this, even though he had used it in holiness. He knew that his repentance was accepted when later, he found himself again in a similar situation. This time he did not use practical Kabbalah to perform the miracle, but instead used faith to give him the miraculous supernatural power to cross the river. He then knew that his teshuvah was complete. Hasidic thought teaches that its internalised mysticism enables

1808-548: A set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either. By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceased as a regularly spoken language, roughly a century after the publication of the Mishnah, apparently declining since the aftermath of the catastrophic Bar Kokhba revolt around 135 CE. In

1921-615: A spoken language, it continued to be used as a lingua franca among scholars and Jews traveling in foreign countries. After the 2nd century CE when the Roman Empire exiled most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt , they adapted to the societies in which they found themselves, yet letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry and laws continued to be written mostly in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms. After

2034-472: A truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in phonology , was to take its place among the current languages of the nations. While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous (because Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some thought that it should not be used to discuss everyday matters), many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of

2147-558: A vernacular in Judea until it was displaced by Aramaic, probably in the 3rd century CE. Certain Sadducee , Pharisee , Scribe , Hermit, Zealot and Priest classes maintained an insistence on Hebrew, and all Jews maintained their identity with Hebrew songs and simple quotations from Hebrew texts. While there is no doubt that at a certain point, Hebrew was displaced as the everyday spoken language of most Jews, and that its chief successor in

2260-518: Is 8198, of which some 2000 are hapax legomena (the number of Biblical Hebrew roots, on which many of these words are based, is 2099). The number of attested Rabbinic Hebrew words is less than 20,000, of which (i) 7879 are Rabbinic par excellence, i.e. they did not appear in the Old Testament (the number of new Rabbinic Hebrew roots is 805); (ii) around 6000 are a subset of Biblical Hebrew; and (iii) several thousand are Aramaic words which can have

2373-644: Is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family . A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages , it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until after 200 CE and as the liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period ) and Samaritanism . The language was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century, and

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2486-528: Is concerned to distinguish this theory of the Tzadik's will altering and deciding the Divine Will, from directly magical process. This rendered the external methods of practical Kabbalah, its willed power over angels and lower spiritual forces, as unnecessary and a hindrance, though some Hasidic leaders retained use of traditional amulets at the borderline of practical Kabbalah. This change was manifested in

2599-567: Is fighting to stop businesses from using only English signs to market their services. In 2012, a Knesset bill for the preservation of the Hebrew language was proposed, which includes the stipulation that all signage in Israel must first and foremost be in Hebrew, as with all speeches by Israeli officials abroad. The bill's author, MK Akram Hasson , stated that the bill was proposed as a response to Hebrew "losing its prestige" and children incorporating more English words into their vocabulary. Hebrew

2712-471: Is forbidden. It is contrasted with the mainstream tradition in Kabbalah of Kabbalah Iyunit (contemplative Kabbalah), that seeks to explain the nature of God and the nature of existence through theological study and Jewish meditative techniques. According to Gershom Scholem , many of the teachings of practical Kabbalah predate and are independent of the theoretical Kabbalah which is usually associated with

2825-544: Is one of several languages for which the constitution of South Africa calls to be respected in their use for religious purposes. Also, Hebrew is an official national minority language in Poland , since 6 January 2005. Hamas has made Hebrew a compulsory language taught in schools in the Gaza Strip. Practical Kabbalah Practical Kabbalah is mentioned in historical texts, but most Kabbalists have taught that its use

2938-573: Is the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival . It is the only Canaanite language, as well as one of only two Northwest Semitic languages, with the other being Aramaic , still spoken today. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew , with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around

3051-457: Is the primary official language of the State of Israel. As of 2013 , there are about 9 million Hebrew speakers worldwide, of whom 7 million speak it fluently. Currently, 90% of Israeli Jews are proficient in Hebrew, and 70% are highly proficient. Some 60% of Israeli Arabs are also proficient in Hebrew, and 30% report having a higher proficiency in Hebrew than in Arabic. In total, about 53% of

3164-547: Is used to pronounce the Hebrew Bible; however, properly it should be distinguished from the historical Biblical Hebrew of the 6th century BCE, whose original pronunciation must be reconstructed. Tiberian Hebrew incorporates the scholarship of the Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who added vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting

3277-650: The Chayei Adam in Hebrew, as opposed to Yiddish , as a guide to Halacha for the " average 17-year-old" (Ibid. Introduction 1). Similarly, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan 's purpose in writing the Mishnah Berurah was to "produce a work that could be studied daily so that Jews might know the proper procedures to follow minute by minute". The work was nevertheless written in Talmudic Hebrew and Aramaic, since, "the ordinary Jew [of Eastern Europe] of

3390-727: The Ancient Greek Ἑβραῖος ( hebraîos ) and Aramaic 'ibrāy , all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew Ivri ( עברי ), one of several names for the Israelite ( Jewish and Samaritan ) people ( Hebrews ). It is traditionally understood to be an adjective based on the name of Abraham 's ancestor, Eber , mentioned in Genesis 10:21 . The name is believed to be based on the Semitic root ʕ-b-r ( ע־ב־ר ‎), meaning "beyond", "other side", "across"; interpretations of

3503-537: The Baal Shem of London (1708–1782). Yisrael Baal Shem Tov began his activity as a traditional Baal Shem, before founding Hasidism. While the association of the Maharal of Prague (1520–1609) with the creation of a golem only emerged in later times, contemporary tradition records Elijah Baal Shem as creating a golem. The Sabbatean mystical heresies of Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676) and Jacob Frank (1726–1791) led to

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3616-547: The Canaanite group of languages . Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages. Hebrew was the spoken language in the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE. Epigraphic evidence from this period confirms the widely accepted view that the earlier layers of biblical literature reflect the language used in these kingdoms. Furthermore,

3729-520: The Gospel of Matthew . (See the Hebrew Gospel hypothesis or Language of Jesus for more details on Hebrew and Aramaic in the gospels.) The term "Mishnaic Hebrew" generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud , excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which

3842-495: The Latin alphabet of ancient Rome . The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels , and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places in which later Hebrew spelling requires them. Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example, Proto-Sinaitic . It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs , though

3955-682: The Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE) and the emergence of the Hasmonean kingdom , the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE). The nationalist significance of Hebrew manifested in various ways throughout this period. Michael Owen Wise notes that "Beginning with the time of the Hasmonean revolt [...] Hebrew came to the fore in an expression akin to modern nationalism. A form of classical Hebrew

4068-550: The Sandak [who holds the child during the brit milah ceremony]." While still a child, Luria lost his father and was raised by his rich maternal uncle Mordechai Frances, a mültazim (tax farmer) from Cairo in Ottoman Egypt . His uncle placed him under the best Jewish teachers, including the leading rabbinic scholar David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra . Luria showed himself a diligent student of rabbinical literature and under

4181-536: The Second Aliyah , it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time. Those languages were Jewish dialects of local languages, including Judaeo-Spanish (also called "Judezmo" and "Ladino"), Yiddish , Judeo-Arabic and Bukhori (Tajiki), or local languages spoken in the Jewish diaspora such as Russian , Persian and Arabic . The major result of the literary work of the Hebrew intellectuals along

4294-619: The Temple in Jerusalem and its ashes of the Red Heifer to purify, the pursuit of the realm of practical Kabbalah by a person with an impure body is very detrimental. The traditional role of the Baal Shem healer involved accepted methods between borderline practical Kabbalah and meditative Kabbalah , such as amulets and psychic abilities. Among recorded figures from early-modern times were Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm (1550–1583) and

4407-546: The Zohar , a major work of the Kabbalah that had recently been printed for the first time, and adopted the life of a recluse. Retreating to the banks of the Nile for seven years, he secluded himself in an isolated cottage, giving himself up entirely to meditation. He visited his family only on Shabbat . But even at home, he would not utter a word, even to his wife. When it was necessary for him to say something, he would say it in

4520-514: The golem which continued into the 18th century. The identification of the ancient Sefer Yetzirah concerning the creative force of the Hebrew letters as the means to create a golem was derived from interpretation of two statements in the Babylonian Talmud , Tractate Sanhedrin . One relates that amora Abba ben Joseph bar Ḥama ("Rava") created a person; in the second, two other Sages were studying "the laws of "creation" and created

4633-462: The literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language . However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of people like Ahad Ha'am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into

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4746-620: The official language of the State of Israel . Estimates of worldwide usage include five million speakers in 1998, and over nine million people in 2013. After Israel, the United States has the largest Hebrew-speaking population, with approximately 220,000 fluent speakers (see Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans ). Modern Hebrew is the official language of the State of Israel, while pre-revival forms of Hebrew are used for prayer or study in Jewish and Samaritan communities around

4859-543: The ostraca found near Lachish , which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. In its widest sense, Biblical Hebrew refers to the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between c.  1000 BCE and c.  400 CE . It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them. Sometimes

4972-607: The 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic period , the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon . Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew , the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that, through the Greeks and Etruscans , later became

5085-535: The 13th century, one problem which intrigued the Ashkenazi Hasidim (literally "the Pious of Germany") was the possibility of the creation of life through magical means. They used the word " golem " (literally, shapeless or lifeless matter) to refer to an hypothetical homunculus given life by means of the magical invocation of Divine names. This interest inspired an entire cycle of legend revolving around

5198-528: The 1750s accusation of Jonathan Eybeschütz by Jacob Emden of being a secret Sabbatean. It was chiefly based on the interpretation of some amulets prepared by Eybeschütz, in which Emden saw Sabbatean allusions. The leader of Mitnagdic Lithuanian Judaism, the Kabbalist Vilna Gaon (1720–1797), related that in his youth he had attempted to make a golem, but stopped when he perceived a spirit of impurity involved. Rabbi Aharon Yehuda of Chelm ,

5311-555: The 1980s in the USSR , Hebrew studies reappeared due to people struggling for permission to go to Israel ( refuseniks ). Several of the teachers were imprisoned, e.g. Yosef Begun , Ephraim Kholmyansky , Yevgeny Korostyshevsky and others responsible for a Hebrew learning network connecting many cities of the USSR. Standard Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, was based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. However,

5424-611: The 19th century was a lexical modernization of Hebrew. New words and expressions were adapted as neologisms from the large corpus of Hebrew writings since the Hebrew Bible, or borrowed from Arabic (mainly by Ben-Yehuda) and older Aramaic and Latin. Many new words were either borrowed from or coined after European languages, especially English, Russian, German, and French. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of

5537-604: The 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity . For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh ( לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶש , lit.   ' the holy tongue ' or ' the tongue [of] holiness ' ) since ancient times. The language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Bible , but as Yehudit ( transl.  ' Judean ' ) or Səpaṯ Kəna'an ( transl.  "the language of Canaan " ). Mishnah Gittin 9:8 refers to

5650-609: The Almighty to bring you tidings that your holy wife shall conceive and bear a child, and that you must call him Yitzchak. He shall begin to deliver the believers from the qlippoth . Through him, numerous souls will receive their tikkun . He is also destined to reveal many hidden mysteries in the Torah and to expound on the Zohar . His fame will spread throughout the world. Take care therefore that you not circumcise him before I come to be

5763-766: The Aramaized Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud. Hebrew persevered through the ages as the main language for written purposes by all Jewish communities around the world for a large range of uses—not only liturgy, but also poetry, philosophy, science and medicine, commerce, daily correspondence and contracts. There have been many deviations from this generalization such as Bar Kokhba 's letters to his lieutenants, which were mostly in Aramaic, and Maimonides' writings, which were mostly in Arabic; but overall, Hebrew did not cease to be used for such purposes. For example,

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5876-687: The British Mandate who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. After the establishment of Israel, it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language . The results of Ben-Yehuda's lexicographical work were published in a dictionary ( The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew , Ben-Yehuda Dictionary ). The seeds of Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by

5989-526: The Great conquered Babylon, he allowed the Jewish people to return from captivity. In time, a local version of Aramaic came to be spoken in Israel alongside Hebrew. By the beginning of the Common Era , Aramaic was the primary colloquial language of Samarian , Babylonian and Galileean Jews, and western and intellectual Jews spoke Greek , but a form of so-called Rabbinic Hebrew continued to be used as

6102-432: The Hebrew name of god , Yahweh, as three letters, Yod-Heh-Vav (YHV), according to the author and his team meant that the tablet is Hebrew and not Canaanite. However, practically all professional archeologists and epigraphers apart from Stripling's team claim that there is no text on this object. In July 2008, Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa that he claimed may be

6215-602: The Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. The Syriac alphabet , precursor to the Arabic alphabet , also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The Aleppo Codex , a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century, likely in Tiberias, and survives into

6328-454: The Israeli population speaks Hebrew as a native language, while most of the rest speak it fluently. In 2013 Hebrew was the native language of 49% of Israelis over the age of 20, with Russian , Arabic , French , English , Yiddish and Ladino being the native tongues of most of the rest. Some 26% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and 12% of Arabs reported speaking Hebrew poorly or not at all. Steps have been taken to keep Hebrew

6441-470: The Kabbalistic school of Safed was extremely minute (he wrote only a few poems), his spiritual fame led to their veneration and the acceptance of his authority. The works of his disciples compiled his oral teachings into writing. Every custom of Luria was scrutinized, and many were accepted, even against previous practice. Luria died at Safed on July 25, 1572, and is buried at the Old Jewish Cemetery, Safed . The Ari Ashkenazi Synagogue , also located in Safed,

6554-417: The Middle East was the closely related Aramaic language, then Greek , scholarly opinions on the exact dating of that shift have changed very much. In the first half of the 20th century, most scholars followed Abraham Geiger and Gustaf Dalman in thinking that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel as early as the beginning of Israel's Hellenistic period in the 4th century BCE, and that as

6667-449: The Talmud, the Gemara , generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in two forms of Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which occasionally appears in the text of the Gemara, particularly in the Jerusalem Talmud and the classical aggadah midrashes . Hebrew was always regarded as the language of Israel's religion, history and national pride, and after it faded as

6780-406: The Talmud, various regional literary dialects of Medieval Hebrew evolved. The most important is Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that became the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus still influences all other regional dialects of Hebrew. This Tiberian Hebrew from the 7th to 10th century CE is sometimes called "Biblical Hebrew" because it

6893-422: The ability to speak the language and attempted to promote its use. According to the Jerusalem Talmud , Megillah 1:9: "Rebbi Jonathan from Bet Guvrrin said, four languages are appropriate that the world should use them, and they are these: The Foreign Language (Greek) for song, Latin for war, Syriac for elegies, Hebrew for speech. Some are saying, also Assyrian (Hebrew script) for writing." The later section of

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7006-411: The above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 10th century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls). However, today most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as

7119-455: The average Jew, and that the language had evolved since Biblical times as spoken languages do. Recent scholarship recognizes that reports of Jews speaking in Aramaic indicate a multilingual society, not necessarily the primary language spoken. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew co-existed within Israel as a spoken language. Most scholars now date the demise of Hebrew as a spoken language to the end of the Roman period , or about 200 CE. It continued on as

7232-428: The beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British Palestine. At the time, members of the Old Yishuv and a very few Hasidic sects, most notably those under the auspices of Satmar , refused to speak Hebrew and spoke only Yiddish. In the Soviet Union, the use of Hebrew, along with other Jewish cultural and religious activities,

7345-541: The composition of 1 Maccabees in archaizing Hebrew, Hasmonean coinage under John Hyrcanus (134-104 BCE), and coins from both the Great Revolt and Bar Kokhba Revolt featuring exclusively Hebrew and Palaeo-Hebrew script inscriptions. This deliberate use of Hebrew and Paleo-Hebrew script in official contexts, despite limited literacy, served as a symbol of Jewish nationalism and political independence. The Christian New Testament contains some Semitic place names and quotes. The language of such Semitic glosses (and in general

7458-410: The content of Hebrew inscriptions suggests that the written texts closely mirror the spoken language of that time. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a spoken vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile when the predominant international language in the region was Old Aramaic . Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by late antiquity , but it continued to be used as

7571-514: The dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel. A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the halachic Midrashim ( Sifra , Sifre , Mekhilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta . The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere;

7684-449: The divine soul to affect the world through its essential connection to God, rather than Divine manifestations of Kabbalah. Despite the prohibition against divination of the future, there is no prohibition against understanding the past nor coming to a greater understanding of present and future situations through inspiration gained by the Kabbalah (a subtle distinction and one often hard to delineate). The appeal to occult power outside

7797-423: The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating from around 3,000 years ago. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said that the inscription was "proto-Canaanite" but cautioned that "[t]he differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear", and suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. The Gezer calendar also dates back to

7910-513: The earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had Yiddish as their native language and often introduced calques from Yiddish and phono-semantic matchings of international words. Despite using Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation as its primary basis, modern Israeli Hebrew has adapted to Ashkenazi Hebrew phonology in some respects, mainly the following: The vocabulary of Israeli Hebrew is much larger than that of earlier periods. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann : The number of attested Biblical Hebrew words

8023-406: The early 6th century BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the ancient Kingdom of Judah , destroying much of Jerusalem and exiling its population far to the east in Babylon . During the Babylonian captivity , many Israelites learned Aramaic, the closely related Semitic language of their captors. Thus, for a significant period, the Jewish elite became influenced by Aramaic. After Cyrus

8136-707: The fewest words possible, and then, only in Hebrew . In 1569, Luria moved back to the Jerusalem Sanjak , and after a short sojourn there, where his new kabbalistic system seemed to have met with little success, he settled in the Safed Sanjak . Safed in the Galilee had become a center for kabbalistic studies over the previous decades, led by Moses ben Jacob Cordovero . There is evidence that Luria also regarded Cordovero as his teacher. Joseph Sambari (1640–1703), an Egyptian chronicler, testified that Cordovero

8249-711: The first Middle East printing press, in Safed (modern Israel), produced a small number of books in Hebrew in 1577, which were then sold to the nearby Jewish world. This meant not only that well-educated Jews in all parts of the world could correspond in a mutually intelligible language, and that books and legal documents published or written in any part of the world could be read by Jews in all other parts, but that an educated Jew could travel and converse with Jews in distant places, just as priests and other educated Christians could converse in Latin. For example, Rabbi Avraham Danzig wrote

8362-406: The generic term for these passages is Baraitot . The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew. About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language. By the third century CE, sages could no longer identify the Hebrew names of many plants mentioned in the Mishnah. Only a few sages, primarily in the southern regions, retained

8475-552: The great majority of historical Kabbalistic involvement, writing and development concerns the theological Kabbalah, the majority of practical Kabbalaistic writings were never published. One important tradition of practical Kabbalah thrived in Spain during the second half of the 15th century, before the Alhambra Decree . The main text of the tradition was called Sepher ha-Mashiv . The practitioners of this tradition were described by Moshe Idel as "interested in demonology and

8588-471: The guidance of another uncle, Bezalel Ashkenazi , best known as the author of the Gathered Method ( Hebrew : שיטה מקובצת ), he became proficient in that branch of Jewish learning. At the age of fifteen he married a cousin, the daughter of Mordechai Frances, and being amply provided for financially he was able to continue his studies. Around the age of twenty-two he became engrossed in the study of

8701-505: The heart of its social mysticism. Hasidism internalised Kabbalah through the psychology of deveikut (cleaving to God), and cleaving to the Tzadik (Hasidic Rebbe). In Hasidic doctrine, the tzaddik channels Divine spiritual and physical bounty to his followers by altering the Will of God (uncovering a deeper concealed Will) through his own deveikut and self-nullification . Dov Ber of Mezeritch

8814-689: The heavenly chambers. This elite practical mysticism, as described in the esoteric Hekhalot literature , incorporated and merged into magical incantation elements. The Talmud and Midrash refer to this as "using the Divine Name" for theurgic -practical ascent, as in the story of the Ten Martyrs who enquired in Heaven of the decree. In the Hekhalot literature, angels guarding each level are meditatively bound by formulae and seals to allow entry. In

8927-462: The language as Ivrit , meaning Hebrew; however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit , meaning Assyrian , which is derived from the name of the alphabet used , in contrast to Ivrit , meaning the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet . Hebrew ceased to be a regular spoken language sometime between 200 and 400 CE, as it declined in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba revolt , which

9040-465: The language spoken by Jews in scenes from the New Testament) is often referred to as "Hebrew" in the text, although this term is often re-interpreted as referring to Aramaic instead and is rendered accordingly in recent translations. Nonetheless, these glosses can be interpreted as Hebrew as well. It has been argued that Hebrew, rather than Aramaic or Koine Greek, lay behind the composition of

9153-471: The language. The revival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated in the late 19th century by the efforts of Ben-Yehuda. He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 immigrated to Palestine , then a part of the Ottoman Empire . Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora " shtetl " lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making

9266-517: The monotheist deity for divination purpose is unacceptable in Judaism, but at the same time it is held that the righteous have access to occult knowledge. Such knowledge can come through dreams and incubation (inducing clairvoyant dreams), Metoposcopy (reading faces, lines on the face, or auras emanating from the face), ibburim and maggidim (spirit possession), and/or various methods of scrying . The Midrash and Talmud are replete with

9379-464: The most common being oneiromancy (interpretation of dreams for prophetic meanings). Other magical practices of Judaic folk religion which became part of practical Kabbalah date from Talmudic times and include the making of amulets and other folk remedies using the esoteric names of angels. In Talmudic and Gaonic times, rabbinic mysticism focused around exegesis of Ezekiel's vision of the divine Chariot-Throne, and meditative introspective ascent into

9492-727: The newly declared State of Israel . Hebrew is the most widely spoken language in Israel today. In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew tradition revived as the spoken language of modern Israel, called variously Israeli Hebrew , Modern Israeli Hebrew , Modern Hebrew , New Hebrew , Israeli Standard Hebrew , Standard Hebrew and so on. Israeli Hebrew exhibits some features of Sephardic Hebrew from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous neologisms, borrowed terms (often technical) from European languages and adopted terms (often colloquial) from Arabic. The literary and narrative use of Hebrew

9605-610: The personal life of Hasidism's founder, the Baal Shem Tov (1698–1760), in his move from Baal Shem to the prototype of Hasidic leader. While a Baal Shem, he used amulets. At the end of his life, the Ba'al Shem Tov never wrote the Names of God, only his own name in amulets, Yisrael ben Sara or Yisrael ben Eliezer. A traditional story relates that on one early occasion the Baal Shem Tov resorted to practical Kabbalistic names of God, to cross

9718-534: The phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite , and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from that of Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone , written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam inscription , found near Jerusalem , is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include

9831-591: The present day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence. During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain , important work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the grammarians of Classical Arabic . Important Hebrew grammarians were Judah ben David Hayyuj , Jonah ibn Janah , Abraham ibn Ezra and later (in Provence ), David Kimhi . A great deal of poetry

9944-570: The primary language of use, and to prevent large-scale incorporation of English words into the Hebrew vocabulary. The Academy of the Hebrew Language of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem currently invents about 2,000 new Hebrew words each year for modern words by finding an original Hebrew word that captures the meaning, as an alternative to incorporating more English words into Hebrew vocabulary. The Haifa municipality has banned officials from using English words in official documents, and

10057-435: The repositories of his secret teachings and his formulas of invocation and conjuration . The most renowned of the initiates was Hayyim ben Joseph Vital , who, according to his master, possessed a soul that Adam's sin had not soiled. With him, Luria visited the grave of Shimon bar Yochai and those of other eminent teachers; it is said that these graves were unmarked, but through the mystical guidance given by Elijah, each grave

10170-734: The rest of the Middle East; and eventually Greek functioned as another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire. William Schniedewind argues that after waning in the Persian period, the religious importance of Hebrew grew in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and cites epigraphical evidence that Hebrew survived as a vernacular language – though both its grammar and its writing system had been substantially influenced by Aramaic. According to another summary, Greek

10283-493: The southern villages of Judea." In other words, "in terms of dialect geography, at the time of the tannaim Palestine could be divided into the Aramaic-speaking regions of Galilee and Samaria and a smaller area, Judaea, in which Rabbinic Hebrew was used among the descendants of returning exiles." In addition, it has been surmised that Koine Greek was the primary vehicle of communication in coastal cities and among

10396-474: The spoken language of the Russian Jews, should be treated as their only national language, while Hebrew was to be treated as a foreign language. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries, although liturgical texts were still published until the 1930s. Despite numerous protests, a policy of suppression of the teaching of Hebrew operated from the 1930s on. Later in

10509-470: The term "Hebrew" generally render its meaning as roughly "from the other side [of the river/desert]"—i.e., an exonym for the inhabitants of the land of Israel and Judah , perhaps from the perspective of Mesopotamia , Phoenicia or Transjordan (with the river referred to being perhaps the Euphrates , Jordan or Litani ; or maybe the northern Arabian Desert between Babylonia and Canaan ). Compare

10622-573: The term: Historically speaking, a large part of the contents of practical Kabbalah predate those of the speculative Kabbalah and are not dependent on them. In effect, what came to be considered practical Kabbalah constituted an agglomeration of all the magical practices that developed in Judaism from the Talmudic period down through the Middle Ages. The doctrine of the Sefirot hardly ever played

10735-619: The time of trial that would precede the appearance of the Messiah in Galilee. Those who moved to Damascus Eyalet in anticipation of this event found a great deal of comfort in Luria's teachings due to his theme of exile . Although he did not write down his teachings, they were published by his followers and by 1650 his ideas were known by Jews throughout Europe. Luria delivered his lectures spontaneously, without ever writing down his ideas (with

10848-580: The upper class of Jerusalem , while Aramaic was prevalent in the lower class of Jerusalem, but not in the surrounding countryside. After the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century CE, Judaeans were forced to disperse. Many relocated to Galilee, so most remaining native speakers of Hebrew at that last stage would have been found in the north. Many scholars have pointed out that Hebrew continued to be used alongside Aramaic during Second Temple times, not only for religious purposes but also for nationalistic reasons, especially during revolts such as

10961-530: The use of coercive incantations to summon demons, angels, and even God" in order to hasten the Messianic Age . Joseph Della Reina 's (1418–1472) failure with his students in this, was considered a warning by later Kabbalists of the potential perils of involvement with Kabbalistic practice. In the 16th century Isaac Luria , who opposed Kabbalah Ma'asit and forbade his students from writing amulets and using other techniques of practical Kabbalah, evolved

11074-492: The use of names of God and incantations that are claimed to effect supernatural or theurgic results. Most post-Talmudic rabbinical literature seeks to curb the use of any or most of these formulae, termed Kabbalah Ma'asit ("practical Kabbalah"). There are various arguments for this; one stated by the Medieval Rabbi Yaakov ben Moshe Levi Moelin is that the person using it may lack the required grounding, and

11187-505: The word Habiru or cognate Assyrian ebru , of identical meaning. One of the earliest references to the language's name as " Ivrit " is found in the prologue to the Book of Sirach , from the 2nd century BCE. The Hebrew Bible does not use the term "Hebrew" in reference to the language of the Hebrew people; its later historiography, in the Book of Kings , refers to it as יְהוּדִית Yehudit " Judahite (language)". Hebrew belongs to

11300-595: The world today; the latter group utilizes the Samaritan dialect as their liturgical tongue. As a non- first language , it is studied mostly by non-Israeli Jews and students in Israel, by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations , and by theologians in Christian seminaries . The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French Ebrau , via Latin from

11413-458: Was "the Ari's teacher for a very short time." Luria probably arrived in early 1570, and Cordovero died on June 27 that year (the 23d day of Tammuz). Bereft of their most prominent authority and teacher, the community looked for new guidance, and Luria helped fill Cordovero's former role. Soon Luria had two classes of disciples: novices, to whom he expounded elementary kabbalah, and initiates, who became

11526-421: Was a spoken language , and Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a literary language . The earlier section of the Talmud is the Mishnah that was published around 200 CE, although many of the stories take place much earlier, and were written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered to be one of

11639-527: Was built in memory of Luria during the late 16th century. Luria was born in 1534 in Jerusalem in what is now the Old Yishuv Courtyard to an Ashkenazi father, Solomon, and a Sephardic mother. Sefer HaKavanot U'Ma'aseh Nissim records that one day, Luria's father remained in the synagogue alone, studying, when the prophet Elijah appeared to him and said, "I have been sent to you by

11752-457: Was carried out against the Roman Empire by the Jews of Judaea . Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among societal elites and immigrants. Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy , rabbinic literature , intra-Jewish commerce, and Jewish poetic literature . The first dated book printed in Hebrew

11865-491: Was now a more significant written language than Aramaic within Judaea." This nationalist aspect was further emphasized during periods of conflict, as Hannah Cotton observing in her analysis of legal documents during the Jewish revolts against Rome that "Hebrew became the symbol of Jewish nationalism, of the independent Jewish State." The nationalist use of Hebrew is evidenced in several historical documents and artefacts, including

11978-566: Was published by Abraham Garton in Reggio ( Calabria , Italy) in 1475. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century, the Hebrew language experienced a full-scale revival as a spoken and literary language. The creation of a modern version of the ancient language was led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda . Modern Hebrew ( Ivrit ) became the main language of the Yishuv in Palestine , and subsequently

12091-523: Was recognized. Luria's kabbalistic circle gradually widened and became a separate congregation in which his mystic doctrines were supreme, influencing all the religious ceremonies. On Shabbat, Luria dressed himself in white and wore a fourfold garment to signify the four letters of the Tetragrammaton . Many Jews who had been exiled from Spain following the Edict of Expulsion believed they were in

12204-629: Was revived beginning with the Haskalah movement. The first secular periodical in Hebrew, Ha-Me'assef (The Gatherer), was published by maskilim in Königsberg (today's Kaliningrad ) from 1783 onwards. In the mid-19th century, publications of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e.g. Hamagid , founded in Ełk in 1856) multiplied. Prominent poets were Hayim Nahman Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky ; there were also novels written in

12317-515: Was sentenced to imprisonment in Germany in 1713, on the basis of having a library of books said to contain examples of sorcery, such as how to use oaths, and amulets to overcome demons, see the future, and speak to the dead. In Hasidism , the displacement of practical Kabbalah using directly magical means, by conceptual and meditative trends gained much further emphasis, while simultaneously instituting meditative theurgy for material blessings at

12430-531: Was suppressed. Soviet authorities considered the use of Hebrew "reactionary" since it was associated with Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the People's Commissariat for Education as early as 1919, as part of an overall agenda aiming to secularize education (the language itself did not cease to be studied at universities for historical and linguistic purposes ). The official ordinance stated that Yiddish, being

12543-496: Was the language of government, Hebrew the language of prayer, study and religious texts, and Aramaic was the language of legal contracts and trade. There was also a geographic pattern: according to Bernard Spolsky , by the beginning of the Common Era, " Judeo-Aramaic was mainly used in Galilee in the north, Greek was concentrated in the former colonies and around governmental centers, and Hebrew monolingualism continued mainly in

12656-408: Was to a certain extent a pidgin . Near the end of that century the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda , owing to the ideology of the national revival ( שיבת ציון , Shivat Tziyon , later Zionism ), began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken language. Eventually, as a result of the local movement he created, but more significantly as a result of the new groups of immigrants known under the name of

12769-570: Was written, by poets such as Dunash ben Labrat , Solomon ibn Gabirol , Judah ha-Levi , Moses ibn Ezra and Abraham ibn Ezra , in a "purified" Hebrew based on the work of these grammarians, and in Arabic quantitative or strophic meters. This literary Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets. The need to express scientific and philosophical concepts from Classical Greek and Medieval Arabic motivated Medieval Hebrew to borrow terminology and grammar from these other languages, or to coin equivalent terms from existing Hebrew roots, giving rise to

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