Ivrit be-‘ivrit (Hebrew in Hebrew)

The goal of the natural method of language acquisition is not simply to teach people how to speak in as little time possible; its goal is to inculcate the language to the learner in an easy and natural manner: To instill in him the spirit of the language as it is (or was) in the mouth of its people—speech is the most fitting element in the organic study of language. Accordingly, for this organic method, speech is a means and not an end. Its purpose is to acquire the language in its entirety and its organic knowledge. A person who learns Latin and Greek by the natural method will start studying them through speech, and from speech he will easily move on to reading books. And as he reads, he will quickly absorb the text, which will heavily influence him; while the person who learns these languages through translations always remains alien to them, and when reading he translates in his mind into his native language and never savors the fundamental taste of this language. [ . . . ]

The abnormal nature of early education among our people is a primary reason why Jews distanced themselves from Nature and the real world. While our mother’s milk is still on our lips, our studies lead us toward pure philosophy and thought, abstraction and divine emanation (atsilut).¹ And perhaps this is why we have few exceptional scholars in the sciences, and our capabilities lean far more toward arts and humanities, since we were educated on abstraction. At the age of four, or even earlier, we had entered school, where for two years we learned to combine letters to form words that meant nothing to us. We read and read constantly without understanding a single word. And then they began to translate for us, improving our comprehension, making our memory work hard, and sharpening our minds with abstract concepts, which our eyes did not see and our hands did not touch.

Please consider the matter properly. A five- or six-year-old child translates from one language to another! The subjects discussed in the book are already abstract ones, and it will be seven times more abstract when we translate it word for word from a language that is foreign to the young child. And so we make translation the main focus of study, while the subject itself becomes secondary. For pupils, the knowledge of Torah becomes the knowledge of its translation. Many of our people studied the translation for years and years without even knowing the subject, leaving many with only the translation from all the hard work of their youth. How many children aged ten or older can tell us, without stuttering, the festivals, their seasons and customs, sacrifices, and their various meal and drink offerings (Leviticus 23:18)? After all, didn’t they study the relevant Torah portions many times? Try to ask a child in heder (who learns the Bible) what the borders of the Land of Israel are, and you will find they have nothing to say. Did they not read and repeat?—Yes. They read these things dozens of times, but each time they merely translated without learning it.

The view that Torah study means translation is so engrained in people that we can see lads, aged twelve and older, sitting before their teacher, translating with great devotion words such as “and he spoke,” “and he said,” “to,” “table,” “horse,” “goat,” “stand,” “sat,” and so on. And the simpletons among us, even those who are seventy years old, sit and translate the Torah portion, Mishna, and Gemara for ourselves. For Heaven’s sake! How unnatural, how alien this is! Intelligent people who study a language for twelve years will not forget it their entire life. They will pray in it, say their blessings in it, study in it, read in it, and even write in it to a lesser or greater degree. And after all this, after all this rapprochement, there still hangs an iron curtain between them and the language, which will not cease to be an alien tongue for them. When reading it, even if they do not translate audibly, their lips seem to move and whisper the translation to their ears.

This is the product of distorted and pointless learning. And in such a crooked and distorted way, an entire nation teaches its people its sacred and beloved language, the language that interprets between the people and their God, between the people and their ancestors!