In last week’s column we showed that speaking Hebrew is a Mitzvah. If so, why did the Rabbi's of the Talmud converse in Aramaic? The Babylonian Talmud was written in Aramaic and not in Hebrew. The Biblical Book of Daniel is written partly in Aramaic. Even the Torah itself in Bereshis 31:v.47 has an Aramaic phrase. The Talmud Yerushalmi Sotah 7:2 answers this question by stating, “Do not consider Aramaic unimportant for it is used in the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings.” The Talmud Bavli in Sanhedrin 21b relates that the Torah was rewritten by Ezra in Aramaic. Rabbi Yehudah Halevi in the Kuzari 2:68 states that Abraham’s native language was Aramaic.

However, this just begs the question of why Aramaic should be used instead of Hebrew if speaking Hebrew is a mitzva ? Avraham Ibn Ezra provides the answer to this puzzle by stating that Hebrew and Aramaic are closely enough related to be considered as one and the same language.

The Teshuvas HaRama (Rabbi Moses Isserlis) explains that the reason why a Get, a bill of divorce, is written in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic in spite of the prohibition against writing a Get ( a bill of divorce) in two languages, is to prove that Aramaic and Hebrew are one and the same language. He contends that Aramaic has a special Kedushah (sanctity), since the Torah was given to Moshe in Hebrew together with the Aramaic Targum. All this explains why Aramaic is the only language other than Hebrew that is retained in its original form in Tanach.