You Say Tomato, I Say Tamahto
My late grandmother, Rose Katz, (z”l), was born in London and had a lovely and lush English accent. As kids, we delighted in asking her to pronounce common words that sounded different and exotic to our North American ears. Pajamas, tomato, potato, it was all English, but some words were more English than others. This is all brought to mind by the pronunciation of a number of words that are Hebrew in origin, yet are pronounced in another language so differently as to be unrecognizable. “Tefillin” is one example.
The largest tefillin festival on earth, the 10th Annual FJMC World Wide Wrap, will take place on February 6, 2010, when men and women will gather in synagogues all over the world, from Australia to California, and put on phylacteries (pronounced te-fill-in). FJMC members will teach those who may be a bit rusty the proper technique for wearing tefillin, and all will daven on that Sunday morning wearing their phylacteries (pronounced te-fill-in).
Our younger members will have spent the past few weeks working on one of FJMC’s children’s programs, Build-a-Pair, learning about what goes into the construction of tefillin, their halachic qualities and the proper pronunciation of phylacteries (pronounced te-fill-in).
Since 2000 there have been nearly 200,000 participants in this great event and the FJMC has become one of the worldwide leaders in education and distribution of tefillin (not pronounced fil-act-te-ries). We have seen the number of people wearing tefillin rise at weekday services and have brought the mitzvah of tefillin back to our synagogues.
Now if only we can convince people that the word “Moses” is pronounced “Moshe.” It’s just like tomatoes!
For more information on the 10th World Wide Wrap, go to http://www.worldwidewrap.org.
Stan Greenspan is an international vice president of FJMC.
