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by Shira Sorka-Ram

I had the great privilege of knowing Ehud Ben Yehuda as a dear friend when I lived in Jerusalem in the early 1970s. I also knew his younger sister, Dola. Both were in their 70s. They were two of the three living children of Eliezer and his second wife, Hemda. The story of their father’s work and mission in life against unthinkable odds is both heartbreaking and heartwarming, and many books have been written about his accomplishments.

My purpose is to describe the struggle this family underwent to raise the Hebrew language from the dead. Their story is a huge life lesson for those called to accomplish something extraordinary. I will present this incredible story in a series over the next few months.

What kind of person does it take to single-handedly resurrect a language which had been dead since the second century A.D.?

It is true that in the 19th century, there were a great many Jews who knew how to read the Torah and rabbinical books in Hebrew, or at least mouth the letters in the prayer book—especially in Eastern Europe. The ancient texts were chanted by religious Jews, but for the most part, barely understood. In Jerusalem there were a few Sephardic Jews (from Arab countries) who could even speak some Hebrew, but with a limited ancient vocabulary lacking all modern concepts. No one even considered that Hebrew could be a living language. Not one Jew spoke it as his mother tongue. For all practical purposes, the language was dead.

In the 1880s, there was a babble of many foreign tongues spoken by a grand total of some 30,000 Jews, who had come to the Holy Land from the four corners of the earth. Simply put, without Eliezer, it is doubtful there would have ever been a revival, literally, a resurrection of spoken Hebrew. Therefore, Eliezer Ben Yehuda bears the title of “The Father of Modern Hebrew” throughout the Jewish world.

Born in Lithuania in 1858, Ben Yehuda, the youngest in his family, learned the Hebrew Scriptures on his father’s knee. He loved spending time with his father, and with a phenomenal mind, at the age of 4, he already knew significant portions of the Torah, the Talmud and commentaries by heart.

But his father had tuberculosis, and one day as he was studying the Torah with his 4-year-old, he suddenly coughed up a huge amount of blood, which covered the Torah page. His last words were, “Eliezer, my son, clean the Torah! Don’t bring dishonor to our sacred book.”

From that time on, the young child was sent to one religious boarding institution after another. He was always the best student wherever he studied. At one academy, his favorite rabbi slipped him a rare book that was not religious, but translated into Hebrew—Robinson Crusoe. It was that book that ignited his belief that Hebrew could be a living language once again.

In his memoirs, he wrote: “I fell in love with the Hebrew tongue as a living language. This love was a great and all-consuming fire that the torrent of life could not extinguish—and it was the love of Hebrew that saved me from the danger which awaited me on the next step of my new life.”

That next step came when he was slipped a short volume of Hebrew grammar by his favorite rabbi, who had dared to taste of non-religious books. Of course, his ultra-religious uncle with whom he lived was horrified that his nephew was straying into areas outside rabbinical literature, and in a rage, threw the 14-year-old boy out of his house, telling him never to return.

A Chance Meeting That Would Change History

Devastated, Eliezer wandered through the night to a nearby town, went into the local synagogue and fell asleep. A Jewish businessman, Solomon Jonas—more secular than traditional—approached him and invited him to his home. Eliezer was immediately drawn to his library, but found he could not understand a single word. The only alphabet he knew was Hebrew. Even his mother tongue, Yiddish, was written with the Hebrew alphabet.

Jonas took him in as a son. Recognizing his brilliant mind, the whole family participated in preparing him for an entrance examination to a state (secular) school, and after that, a university. Jonas’ daughter, Devora, was enlisted to teach him Russian and French—required for the state school. He taught himself mathematics and biology by reading books in his newfound languages. He excelled in school and made plans to attend university. Eliezer and Devora kept in touch by mail. Devora saw him as her prince.

Eliezer became very much a secularist, loving the great literary giants in Russian and French. No longer was he interested in Jewish things—except there was one thing he could not let go. He wrote, “That string was my love of the Hebrew language. Even after all things Jewish became foreign to me I could not keep away from the Hebrew tongue.”

A New Movement: ‘Nationalism’

Among the important events that lit a fire in this visionary was a rising “nationalist” movement among different peoples who wanted their own country. Eliezer saw how the Bulgarians were rebelling against their rulers, the Turkish Ottoman Empire, and he thought, If the Bulgarians, who are not an ancient, classical people can demand and obtain a state of their own, then the Jews, the “people of the Book” and the heirs of historic Jerusalem, deserve the same.

In the middle of the night, as he was reading newspapers, he said, Suddenly, as if lightning struck, an incandescent light radiated before my eyes … and I heard a strange inner voice calling to me: ‘The revival of Israel and its language on the land of the forefathers!’ This was the dream.”

He then read a unique and controversial book by the famous author George Eliot in 1876, calling for a homeland for the Jewish people. That was the deciding factor that crystallized his mission for life.

He would go to Paris to study medicine and become a doctor. With that career, he would have a profession to earn a living for himself and his family. He planned to marry Devora, and they would go to live in Jerusalem.

His Catholic Confidant

Thus in 1878, Eliezer began his medical studies at the Sorbonne. He was penniless, but found an attic to rent and ate one meal a day. He spent his days studying in libraries across Paris. Visiting a Russian library, he met a new friend, a Russian/Polish Catholic journalist, Tchatchnikof, who promptly adopted him and opened for him the door to French literary society, introducing him to such literary giants as Victor Hugo.

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A friend and I were privately discussing the challenges of searching scanned paper books by the Greek and Hebrew words they contain. What follows is one of my replies, with personal references deleted, that may apply to other DC readers.

“Yep, I know just the garbled mess you’re talking about.

DevonThink searches the Greek and Hebrew fine for original documents. However, I think you’re talking about how it handles scanned images of paper books containing English, Greek, and/or Hebrew which is the hardest case “out there.” That boils down to OCR engines, none of which can handle Hebrew very well, yet.

The only good news is comparative in that DT uses the best OCR engine (ABBYY FineReader.) Even so, I don’t see the ability to handle niqqud on the Hebrew characters, but neither do any other alternatives.

If you’re starting with a scanned book, using an OCR engine to convert to text, and then exporting the resulting PDF to .docx in order to upload to Logos, I’ve found no workaround other than the publisher doing it for us (and charging more), or the work of someone who knows what they’re doing.

Ideally, the publisher has a digital copy, makes a deal with FaithLife, and FaithLife begins with the digital copy (side-stepping language issues) and starts tagging.

The more I learn, the more I’ve come to respect the amount of formatting work FaithLife has to do. That’s also why I focus on the 5 or 10% of the Divine Council Bibliography that is most urgent for scholarly work.

Having said all that, if you’ve found a few Divine Council resources that tend to be at the heart of your work let’s talk about what it would take to get them formatted, properly, for upload to Logos.

If you’re a MAC user doing research or writing, DevonThink is inevitable. There’s nothing out there that competes. I have DT office pro, and it’s one of those “always running” apps. Spotlight, HoudahSpot, Easyfind, DefailtFolderX, Acrobat, sure. But DevonThink is mandatory, IMO.”

(Photo credit: SNL screen capture)

I’ve spent the past two weeks coming up with a format to create and disseminate transcripts of video and audio materials I find important enough to have in text format.

With the proliferation of videos and podcasts, transcripts have become more useful in my work. As a writer and teacher, transcripts enable me to:

  • Skip long videos and podcasts (by reading or scanning them, instead.)
  • Search hundreds of videos, podcasts, or lectures by keywords.
  • Listen and read at the same time.
  • Come back up to speed quickly on an “old” video or podcast.
  • Quote the text without having to transcribe or retype.

I use DevonThink to store, scan, and search thousands of documents. Transcripts make videos, podcasts, & lectures available to that research workflow.

As each transcript is completed, I’ll make them freely available on either DivineCouncil.org (Spiritual) or McGillespie.com (Business, Family, Legal, Government, Health, Personal.)

Note: Each transcript (pdf) will be digitally signed by yours truly for web security. If you see my digital signature, you’ll know the document has not been altered from the signed original.

Want to quote a Bible verse without leaving your word processor using one keyboard shortcut?

Quoting the Bible with Keyboard Shortcut

Mark Ward describes two ways to do it.

Yes, it works from within Scrivener, too!

A few months ago, there was a 60-day preview of Unseen Realm on LOGOS and Michael Heiser asked some of his more veteran readers to help shepherd newcomers to the material on the FaithLife Forum.

Growing out of those discussions has been what I hope to be the first sister website and forum for writers, artists, and believers looking to interact with others on the material: DivineCouncil.org.

What is it?

It’s a full website & forum with three writers contributing to the front page blog. I hope the site may also serve as an outlet for others. So, if there are any believing writers, artists, photographers etc. Looking to contribute, this might be a good fit for you.

The forum part of the site is structured around the Unseen Realm in terms of the overarching missions of Jesus. We are organizing it to be a central hub for small groups to share materials and study the Word of God, wherever they are on the planet!

So What?

There’s a special resource manager setup to disseminate materials to small groups and make it easier to find things to bring to your church. Each resource can be reviewed, and have discussions formed around them, so people know how they can be used, the ideal audience, attributions, etc.

There’s also a live chat area, so you might be able to catch fellow listeners online for a brief chat while you’re on the forum.

Better than Facebook!

Facebook is fun, but if you’re tired of conversations scrolling off the screen (and other FB pitfalls) the private forum environment is more conducive to organized and focused discussions that can be searched later by yourself and others.

So, if you’re looking for a more private and trusted environment for discussions around this material you have another option available in which to do that. And, if your looking to start a small group, our forum may be the ideal place in which to find, organize, and disseminate the optimal subjects of study for your group!

What Next?

Over 50 people have signed-up to the forum in the first week, and the platform will scale up to as large as it needs to be.

If you’d like to use the forum to organize (and optimize) your small group, send Terence an e-mail at tg@McGillespie.com so he can set you up.

Nathan, Terence, and Zechariah hope DivineCoucil.org will fill a need for the Kingdom, empower small groups, and be a worthy site for the Church.

See you there!

DivineCouncil.org Website
DivineCouncil.org Forum