Articles by Phil Bova

RACHAMONIS

Growing up with a Jewish family with a Yiddish language mind set, I learned to speak and think in Yiddish quite naturally. As I learned Yiddish certain words became very dominant in my vocabulary. Although Yiddish is composed of a mixture of European languages like German, Russian, Polish, etc., one of the dominant languages that brings it all together is Hebrew. I'm not an expert on linguistics; but as I grew older I saw the thread of Hebrew that gave Yiddish its distinctness.

The word RACHAMONIS, meaning mercy or pity, is one of those Hebrew words that found its way into Yiddish. Whenever there was an unfortunate person or situation present in my life as I was growing up, I was always taught to have RACHAMONIS and try and do something. If a situation presented itself that called for RACHAMONIS, I was responsible to offer a big helping of RACHAMONIS. If all of us bought into the truth of RACHAMONIS, our world would be a far better place.

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