What Differentiates Hebrew from Other Languages?

Over the past few centuries, many have attempted to unravel the mystery of human language: how did spoken language come into existence? What led to the development of this remarkable ability unique to humans; to produce vocal sounds and combine them using lips, tongue, teeth, and other parts of the mouth into sequences of words and sentences filled with meaning?

Various theories have risen and fallen, yet the mystery remains.

Researchers are also puzzled about the period marking the beginning of human speech, proposing different possibilities. Their confusion stems mainly from the mistaken belief that humans are merely animals developed from more primitive life forms. Hence, they struggle with questions: how did such a complex biological foundation for speech develop on its own in a lower creature? What triggered this development? When did humans suddenly start speaking in language? What explains the striking similarities between all human languages and their grammatical structures? Numerous books and articles were written to answer these weighty questions. However, the truth is that despite respecting the titles and positions of these researchers, none of the possibilities they suggest are based on evidence from that ancient time, nor on unequivocal proofs. Their statements are theories and hypotheses, which themselves cannot bring peace of mind.

Yet, in our possession, with the Tanach, is a millennia-old answer to these important questions. The Torah teaches us that human language is embedded in human nature due to its spiritual soul, which was created similar to its Creator in many aspects, as written: "Hashem created man in His image, in the image of Hashem He created him" (as is known, man himself is the spiritual man within the "clothing" called a body). Just as the Creator possesses what we call speech, as written: "Hashem said," so man has received this ability, as explained at length in the introduction to this book.

The Torah also details that all of humanity spoke one language until the sin of the rebellion at the Tower of Babel. In this rebellion, humans misused their unity for ill purposes, leading to a supernatural intervention that resulted in the confusion of their singular language. This initiated the division into many groups speaking different languages.

Here is the language of the Torah: "The whole earth was of one language and one speech. As they journeyed eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to each other: Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. They had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. They said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens...

And Hashem said: 'Indeed, they are one people and they have one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing they propose to do will be withheld from them.'

The Holy One, blessed be He, turns to His messengers, the angels, and says:

'Come, let us go down and there confound their language, so they will not understand each other’s speech.' Hashem scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel«.

Babel

Thus, the ancient name "Babel" originates from Hebrew, from the word for confusion or mix-up. In time, the people of Babel called their idol "Bel," unaware of their city's Hebrew name origin. From there, it was a short step to naming their dignitaries with titles like "Belshazzar," who was the third Babylonian king after Nebuchadnezzar, or "Belteshazzar," the name given to Daniel. After the dispersal of the peoples who built the Tower of Babel, the idol name "Bel" gradually transformed in distant regions to the name "Baal," such as "Baal Tsephon," "Baal Meon," "Baal Peor," "Bamot Baal," "Kiryat Baal," and more. For Hashem did confuse the language of the entire earth there, and from there, Hashem scattered them over the face of all the earth.

Thus, we have the Torah's testimony that from the creation of the first man until the generation of the Tower of Babel, all humanity spoke one language.

What was this language? From the names of the people preceding the generation of the Tower of Babel, it is clear that it was the Hebrew language, known as the Holy Tongue: The first man was called Adam because his body was created "from the ground" (adamah), and indeed "adamah" is a word in the Holy Tongue. Eve was called such because she was "the mother of all living." Cain, from the expression "I acquired a man with Hashem." Seth, from "Hashem has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel, for Cain killed him." Noah, from "he will comfort us from our work and the toil of our hands." These names all derive from the Holy Tongue.

Thus the sages say in the Midrash on the verse about the creation of man and woman: "She shall be called woman (ishah), because she was taken out of man (ish)." This is a play on words, indicating that the world was created in the Holy Tongue.

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"The world was created in the Holy Tongue." This is the fundamental and significant difference between the Holy Tongue and other languages. The Holy Tongue is the only spoken language originating from the Creator of the universe, and with it, He created the world, using the exact language and words that appear in the Torah in the story of creation.

The Jerusalem Talmud explains that the human use of the Creator's language is hinted at in the verse: "The whole earth was of one language": "They spoke the language of the Unique One of the world, the Holy Tongue." That is, besides the straightforward interpretation of the verse that they spoke one language, on a deeper level, the words "one language" allude to which language they spoke: the unique language, which is the language of the Unique One of the world.

Indeed, the sages of Kabbalah frequently write that within the Hebrew letters lie spiritual illuminations and powers implanted by Hashem, and through the combination of these powers, He created the world (similar to chemical formulas, where different combinations of elements create different entities and realities) as will be elaborated in the next chapter on the secret power of the letters. Therefore, unlike all languages which are conventional and words can be added to them based on human agreement, the Holy Tongue is essential. This means that the essence of a thing called by that name is inherent in the word itself, and each word must be composed of specific letters, according to the true essence of each letter, where the combination of all these powers together creates the reality that the word expresses. Indeed, no other languages have such internal essence explaining the depth of the meaning of the word to the level reflected in the Holy Tongue, with which the world was created. Therefore, every object or matter is called in the Holy Tongue "davar," or "chefetz." "Davar" – from the word "dibur" (speech), because it was created by a defined speech expressing its essence. "Chefetz" – because its existence depends on the desire, the divine will, to exist.

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