רשע - עם רקה

טטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטטט

I didn't have problems with all the rabbis at the yeshiva. I have a great deal of respect for the head of the yeshiva. The problem was that he had apparently been informed by the heads of the English Dept. that we had the collective brains of an eggplant. First of all, he only spoke Hebrew, which was fine, except that the class was slowed down incredibly by the fact that the English Dept. felt that we needed to have his class translated, line by line. If that wasn't enough, for every four classes he gave, three were like this: (I'm translating it all into English. In reality, every line he says, is translated by a Rabbi, and takes forever.)

"OK, we will look at the parsha of this week. Open the chumash to chapter X, line Y. I will read, then everybody repeat after me. 'And spoke...'" (This reading is done in Hebrew. The Rabbi generally starts to translate this, but fortunately gives up quickly.)

"'AND SPOKE!!!...'"

"'the Lord...'"

"'THE LORD!!!...'"

"'to...'"

"'TO!!!..."

"'Moshe'"

"'MOSHE!!!'"

(Broken English here.) "Very, very good. (back to Hebrew.) Now, tell me. How is it? How can God speak to Moses?" The class goes on, various answers given, then the class ends. It's the same line every week. "How is it possible that God spoke to a human being?" Tame stuff. Especially if it's over and over again.

But I know it's not his fault the classes are degrading. I've been to others he gave in Hebrew that were quite good.

The yeshiva has three programs. They have the Hebrew program, the English program, and the Russian program. So, for whatever reason, one day he had to give a class to both groups at once. Since he gives them in Hebrew, it's not a problem, it's just that we generally aren't with the Russians. We sat segregated.

"OK," he turns to the Americans. "תגיד לי, איך אתם ÷וראים להמדינה שלהם?" (Tagid li, eich atem koriem le hamidina shelahem?) [Tell me, how do you refer to their country?]

"Russia."

Now, see vowels are different in Hebrew. Where as in My Fair Lady and Pygmalion, Prof. Higgins says that English has over 100 vowel sounds, in Hebrew there are around ten.

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OK, we now return...

So, he goes to the board, and writes "רשע" (rasha) on the board. The thing is, that רשע or rasha, in Hebrew means (grumble) bad or evil.

He turns to the Russians. "תגיד לי, איך אתם ÷וראים להמדינה שלהם?" (Tagid li, eich atem koriem le hamidina shelahem?) [Tell me, how do you refer to their country?]

"America."

So, he goes to the board, and writes "עם רי÷ה " (Am Rayka.) In Hebrew, this means "empty nation." He goes on to say that this is what people feel about the countries. All of the stuff Lenin and Stalin did, the Cossacks, etc., could be considered evil, I suppose, and people seem very quick to point out that there is no American culture.

Cute. Not very substantial, but cute.

Neither of these are the way Israelis pronounce the two nations. These were just puns, kind of like pointing out...OK, there's a modern tourist city in Israel, called Eilat, pronounced "A Lot," which is apropos, both since that's what the prices are there now, and not too long ago it simply was an empty lot.

In the Yeshiva, I had three roommates. One Israeli, and two Russians. (There was a wise unwritten rule not to allow two Americans in the same room.) Well, not from Russia really, from the Ukraine.

Both Ukrainians were named Sasha, and only one Sasha had been to the class. Back in the room, Sasha and Sasha were talking in Russian, but I overheard Sasha mention to Sasha about "Russia Rasha."

They both chuckle, and Sasha repeats what Sasha had just said, they both keep chuckling, and I turn to them, and ask them in Hebrew, "Well, isn't that what you learned in school?" You figure that now they'd be teaching, rightly or not, that the Communists had been heartless and cruel. Back in the U.S.S.R., one would assume that they had taught that the Czars were evil.

Sasha is under the false impression that he speaks English well, whereas Sasha doesn't know more than a few words, so the conversation was in Hebrew, and I found it fascinating. Well, Sasha quickly felt the conversation was stupid, but Sasha decided to keep it going for a while.

In what was the Soviet Union, the largest country in the world, almost overnight, the badguy was switched. Whereas under Gorbechav we had a better relationship between the two powers, we were still capitalist pigs. Yeltsin comes to power, Lenin's statue comes down, and suddenly, communists were horrible people. That was not allowed to be taught officially in any form in the U.S.S.R. and now that creates a new dilemma.

Now Americans are very skeptical, paranoid people. But the Russians have it worse. They, who were more or less brainwashed in schools, had strict guidelines on how to view groups and history, were suddenly were taught not to believe what was taught to them, and consequently, don't believe in anybody too strongly. (You could say that we are brainwashed Stateside as well, with forced interpretations, but it's not as bad...) When you don't trust the government, the mobs rule. Or, in this case, the Mob rules.

I asked them if they knew what the reaction to the movie Anastasia had been back home. Sasha simply responded that they had changed the story.

Commercial break:

OK, we now return...

Well, no duh.

"But what were you taught about the Romanovs?" OK, if you don't like history, fine, but I do.

"What... He was a nice guy, but a horrible king." Which was more or less what I'd learned.

"OK, but did you learn that he said, 'Anyone for another set?'" This is the Russian equivalent to "Let them eat cake," never said, but "quoted" by the revolutionaries. They didn't know about that, but then again, neither would I, if it hadn't been for my AP\IB senior history class.

I personally learned a lot from them. I think it would be nice at the yeshiva, instead of teaching that you are better than other people, to learn from the other groups.
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Michael Kadish

"Some programs have been theatrical masterpieces, but all we're seeing is the negative side of nuclear war." -- Barry Goldwater
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