Rav Pincus- Shabbos Kadosh

One of the outstanding characteristics of the Jew throughout the ages was simchah. i once heard in the name of a ceratin, a non-jew, a linguist, that no language in the world has as many expressions of joy as Hebrew does. In engligh ther are only two or three words for "joy". But Hebrew has very many terms, among them, simchah, gilah, rinah, ditzah,chedvah. WHY????? because each group of people emphasizes the things that are essential to their lives. for instance, in the eskamo language there are six or seven synonyms for the word snow but in English there is only one word for "snow" and so too in hebrew. but the eskimos have a lot of words for snow, because they live in snow. Thus they distinguish between dry snow, wet snow, cold snow etc. But snow is not essential part of our lives so we dont need a lot of words for it. Jews throughout the generations lived in happiness and Joy.. it is an ESSENTIAL part of being a yid =)