I was reviewing my ulpan Hebrew language book last week and came across an interesting usage for the possessive word in hebrew, “yesh – יש” Hebrew doesn’t have an exact translation for the words ”I have.” Instead of saying, “I have a book,” in Hebrew you’d say, “there is to me a book” – יש לי ספר – Yesh li sefer. The word Li – “me” functions more as an object rather than a subject. Thus when we say we have something, rather than ourselves being the subject and doing the having, we are the object of the something – it is bequeathing itself to us.
The new meaning I learned is that you can use the word Yesh – יש to indicate responsibility. As in, יש לך לשמור את הילדים – Yesh lecha li’shmor et hayeladim “there is to you the responsibly to watch the kids.” This possessive word Yesh in Hebrew, I have learned, does not indicate “mineness” – the sense that I as an absolute subject possess an object to do with as I please. Rather, it simply functions as a pointer; tethering an object to its responsible partner.
The reason this is interesting is because it reminded me of a short talk by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks from a year or so ago where he noted the fact that in Hebrew we talk more about responsibilities than about “mine-ness.” In other words, when you say, “the book is mine,” in Hebrew what you’re really saying is something akin to, “The responsibility for the book is mine,” or, “I’m responsible for the book.” It shows a recognition that we don’t really possess anything anyway – it all either belongs to God in the religious sense, or to Mother Earth in a more practical sense, and that we have a responsibility to care for all the things we “have.” It’s a subtle cultural shift. Usually people see the act of acquisition, upon which our consumerist culture is based, as meaning simply that “I get to have more stuff.” How would it change our culture if people instead took the Hebrew meaning, that what acquisition really means is that I am increasing that portion of the universe for which I am responsible?
