[Avodah] Precision Of Language

[jay via Avodah]

> 
> 1) He was excommunicated and therefore could not daven with a minyan.
>

I agree that when you are writing in English, you should write in
English.  You should avoid Hebrew words when there is no need to use
Hebrew words.  It is a simple matter to write "Leviticus" instead of
"Vayyiqra".  It denotes the same thing.

But when an English word does not denote the same thing as the Hebrew
word which conveys the idea that you are trying to express, you must
find a different English word, or, in the case of terms of art for
which no precise English equivalent exists, you must use the Hebrew
word.

"Excommunication" is not a correct translation of either "xerem" or
"nidduy".  We are not Christians.  We do not have a sacrament of
Communion, from which we can be excluded, and which we believe will
protect us from eternal damnation, or Purgatory, when we die.  A
correct English translation of both "xerem" and "nidduy" is "ban" (a
term which was used, parenthetically, to describe a punishment that
existed in the legal code of the Republic of South Africa until less
than a generation ago, and, in the United States, is occasionally
imposed in Mennonite and Amish communities).  And if you need to make
precise distinctions between "xerem" and "nidduy" that cannot be made
in the English language, then you must use the Hebrew words.


                        Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
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                        "He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky
                         through frightening leaves and shivered as he
                         found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how
                         raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created
                         grass."