Wednesday, July 20, 2016

proposed addition to our vocabulary

In an "I forgive" statement that appears in many prayer books before the bedtime Shema, we say "I forgive all who have angered or annoyed me, or who have sinned against me, whether regarding my body or my possessions or my honor [bein bikhvodi], whether under compulsion or willingly, whether mistakenly or intentionally..." (emphasis added). The statement forgives those who have dissed us, which may be the hardest one to forgive. (I discuss the statement a little more here).

Jews, at least those who use Ortho-speak, have a number of conversational tags. "Lo aleinu" (it shouldn't happen to us), "Yasher koach" (or "Shkoich") (good job!), and so on. I propose that we add "bikhvodi" from the "I forgive" statement to this list as something to be said silently. It means "in my honor" (or, given what a pain prepositions are when going from one language to another, "having to do in some prepositional sort of way with my honor"). When we get bent out of shape because someone has slighted, superciliated, or otherwise dissed us, we can use this to bend ourselves back into shape.

Warning to those who don't know Hebrew: It would be reasonable to surmise that bein (rhymes with "pain"), means "or," but it generally doesn't. In this case, "bein this bein that bein the other" means "whether this, that, or the other."

1 comment:

Michael Carasik said...

I think I would find it hard to say this straightforwardly (rather than ironically).