Yesh Li Blog: Happy New Year!

Friday, January 01, 2010

Happy New Year!

9 comments:

Bonnie said...: That's exactly what I was thinking ...; 4:03 AM
Bonnie said...: Translation, por favor !; 4:04 AM
Sabba and Nanny said...: I knew you must be sharing my Japanese thoughts for a fine New Year. The first one is to be said prior to the New Year. It is Yoi otoshi o-omukae kudasai (usually shortened in spoken language to Yoi otoshi o).

The others must not be said before the New Year. Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu is spoken. Shin Nen Omedeto Gozaimasu is usually used in written language only.

And this is the year of the Tiger, in case you were wondering!; 4:13 AM
Bonnie said...: Sweet !!!

I love that it is the year of the Tiger, which has been my favorite animal for as long as I can remember !

PS ... I think you got a bit of spam there. The link is quite unsavory ... might be worth deleting that little comment from 'love'.; 8:06 PM
Sabba and Nanny said...: Bon, I certainly thought of you when I posted the picture of the tiger, knowing it was your favorite. BTW, did you know the Chinese consider the tiger to be the king of the beasts (at least the land beasts; the dragon is the king of water beasts). One of many things I learned in doing some research today.

Interesting about that unsavory comment. I immediately started trying to translate the Chinese. I clicked on the link to the blog but couldn't find anything useful, and there wasn't anything much on the site, certainly nothing unsavory. I didn't think to click on that bunch of dots. So I've deleted it.

Anyway, it took a while, but I was finally able to get a gist of what the four Chinese characters meant and learned quite a bit in the process, as well as finding an excellent web site for researching Chinese characters.; 2:07 AM
Bonnie said...: I always like to see who is commenting and always click on everything that looks like a link ! Especially links that are a bit dubious ... you get to know them once you've had a few ! I am glad you learned a lot in the process of researching ! I'd expect nothing less from you !! :) love you !! Bon; 11:58 PM
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Bonnie said...: Who is anonymous ??; 12:28 PM
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Why Yesh Li Blog?

Why do I have a blog? Quite simply, I have a blog to share my favorite things with others. The right side of the blog has a long list of links to some of the places on the Internet that I visit often. In addition to sharing those with others, I often come here myself to find a quick link to where I am going.

Bonnie, our eldest, led the way into blogging with her Simple Beauty Blog, and later with her extremely popular Beans Blog. I decided I would give blogging a try and thought "I have a blog" might be a clever name, but in English it sounded rather lame, so I did it in Hebrew, a language I love more and more the more I learn it.

What does Yesh Li Blog mean?

We would translate (i.e. interpret) yesh li blog to mean "I have a blog" in English, but the literal Hebrew means "There is for (or to) me a blog." You cannot literally say "I have" something or other in Hebrew. It is always "there is for me," or "there is for you," or "there is for us," etc. Hebrew, the language of the Bible, is showing us that we are really stewards of what has been provided for us and for our use. Rather than private ownership, perhaps a better term for what we "own" would be private stewardship.

Languages have been my passion since at least the fourth grade, when I studied Spanish from a library book called Fun with Spanish. In high school, I was the rara avis that became enamored of Latin. In later U.S. Navy tours of duty in Spain, Italy, and Japan, we did our best to learn the local languages. Along the way, I studied some Russian and picked up some Greek by studying etymologies and some Chinese by studying Japanese writing systems.

My first introduction to Hebrew was in the early 1980s, when I took a correspondence course, but it was not until the past decade that my primary focus has been on this wondrous language. It has been deeply rewarding, and especially in the past few years since we met Ori, an amazing Israeli woman, who has become not only my primary Hebrew mentor but also our good friend. Moreover, the small group of people who meet weekly to study Torah in Hebrew in Boulder have become dear to us and enriched our lives greatly. Further, reading Jewish commentaries on the Web of the weekly Torah portions has deepened my own faith and opened up new understandings of the scriptures we share and of Christian writings based on those scriptures.

The pursuit of words has been an essential part of my life for many years (since birth?). Many things have changed in my life, but I don't see that part of it changing any time soon (until death?). Lehitraot! Shalom, Chaverim!