Lest you believe that we just don't have enough time to teach yet another subject, especially in elementary school, let me tell you that it would be instrumental in teaching world history and geography as well as literature, English, and the arts. Learning Latin and the other romance languages helps us understand English vocabulary. Learning Germanic languages helps us understand English structure and syntax. There are magnificent literary works that can be understood far better if read in the original language. I know that I would have been a better student of Heidegger if I had been able to read it in the original German.
There is a Hebrew/Yiddish word, chutzpah, that requires pages of explanation to be understood. According to Leo Rosten in "Jiddisch, A Small Enclopedia," it is from the Hebrew chuzpá "insolence", "boldness". In America it is: khutspe, chutzpa, chutzpah, hutzpa; in addition: chutzpadik (adjective). Insolence, insolence, arrogance and arrogance, as they are more clearly designated in no other language. Rosten also mentions that the user should be careful with word because, "In Germany it is used tongue-snapping "acknowledgment" gladly with a fatal, which is not contained in the original jiddischen word use."
One example of chutzpah is that of a child who kills his mother and father and then begs the court for mercy because he is an orphan.
In a treatise on Jews dated July 1941, Joseph Goebbels, discusses chutzpah. He describes it as: "Chutzpah is a typically Jewish expression that really cannot be translated into any other language, since Chutzpah is a concept found only among the Jews. Other languages have not needed to invent such a word, since they do not know the phenomenon. Basically, it means unlimited, impertinent and unbelievable impudence and shamelessness." He was not being complimentary. Perhaps it was the German use of the word that shaded his opinion. What he did not understand is that there is a good and bad chutzpah. It can be a rude, ugly way of doing something, or it can be an example of power and courage. There is a depth to the word that can only be understood by experience. There are many words and phrases that share that trait.
