Deacon, and in Hebrew…

Among the problems of our communities, when we began to pray in Hebrew, in the 1950s and 1960s, was the need to create Hebrew words in order to speak about our faith: communion, sacrament, mass, etc. Slowly we began to find new words…

I wrote some time ago here, on this site, about my meeting with Even-Shoshan (see article here), the compiler of the great Hebrew dictionary. I will not go into the whole list of words I proposed then.

Here, I want to deal with the word “deacon”, the task of the deputy of the priest, a rank that is attained by the one who plans to be a priest so that he can help the priest. The source of this service is in the Book of Acts of the Apostles, chapter 6. There it was determined that seven men would serve the community, taking care of the widows, will provide help (sa’ad) (and meals) for the needy. What word could be proposed for this important task? In the New Testament in Hebrew, the title inserted for this chapter calls these men “shamashim” and I do not know who decided on this word. I looked the word up in the Even-Shoshan Dictionary and found this: “serves in an institution, does simple tasks like cleaning”. Our team of translators proposed a different word in the past, “sa’ad”. The person who accepts this service is a support (so’ed) of the needy and a helper (so’ed) to the priest – like the expression in Psalm 18:35 “your right hand has supported me”. This same root is in the expressions “se’udah” (meal) and “misrad hasa’ad” (welfare office). We hope that this world will take root in our communities as well as the vocation to be a deacon.

Read the article on the Hebrew word for communion here