In what has become known as the Whorf Hypothesis, Benjamin Lee Whorf stated that, “language is not simply a way of voicing ideas, but is the very thing which shapes those ideas” (Clifford et al., 2016, p. 34). An example of this is how one perceives time. In our Modern Western culture, we view time in the sense of the past, present and future, a fixed and measurable progression of time.
Other cultures, such as the Hopi Indians of North America, do not share this same perspective of time. To the Hopis, there is what “is” (manifested) and what “is not yet” (unmanifested). Interestingly, the Ancient Hebrews had a similar view of time. Like the Hopi language, the Ancient Hebrew language does not use past, present and future tenses for verbs. Instead, it uses two tenses, one for a completed action (manifested) and one for an incomplete action (unmanifested).
An individual whose native language is Hopi views time from the Hopi perspective, but if he is required to adopt English, he learns the English perspective of time. During the late 1800s, the United States forced Native Americans to adopt the English language. When a Hopi no longer functioned within his native language, his original cultural perspectives, such as time, were lost and replaced with the Modern Western perspective, thereby destroying a part of their culture forever. This destruction of the language and culture is not unique to the Hopi, but happened countless times as the dominant Western culture replaced the culture of simpler peoples, including the Hebrews’ language and culture.
In the Introduction, we learned that from a Hebraic point of view, the word tsiytsiyt carried with it a cultural perspective that connected the blossoms of a tree with the performance of a commandment.
When the Hebrews, more specifically the Jews, were expelled from the land of Israel after the Bar Kokhba revolt in 136 AD, the Hebrew people adopted the language of the people around them. Frequently that language was Greek for their everyday use. From that point on, Greek became the influential language in their lives, and dominated and determined their mental viewpoint about words and ideas.
The Hebrew word tsiytsiyt, meaning “blossom,” became the Greek word kraspedon, meaning “a decorative fringe or thread” and the connection between a blossom and observing God’s commands is now lost.
In 1948, Israel became a Jewish state, and, with that, Hebrew once again became the everyday language of the Jewish people. However, while the language has been resurrected, the original cultural perspective of that language disappeared long ago, though the Western influence on Hebrew survived. Therefore, in the mind of Modern Orthodox Jews a tsiytsiyt is still a decorative fringe and no longer functionally related to a blossom and the fruit of obedience.
This same sort of change can be seen throughout the Hebrew language, as is documented in the author’s lexicon, The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible. For example, the Hebrew word תורה (torah), which in the original Hebrew language meant a “teaching,” now means “doctrine” in the Modern Hebrew language .” A כוהן (kohen) in the original language meant the “base” of the community, but in the Modern Hebrew language it means a “religious priest.” The word קדוש (qadosh), which originally meant “special,” now in the modern language means “holy.”