meshugas

Jul 15, 2008 - 21:01 PM PST

In Ap Lang we were asked to redefine any word we wanted.. I chose meshugas

Foolish. Senseless. Nonsense.

In Yiddish the word meshugas is defined as craziness. My interest in such a word all started as I stood bored and frustrated in the small Boca apartment inhabited by my 92-year-old Jewish Grandmother. Scattered amongst the clutter on her refrigerator door were small magnetic words. Yiddish words to be more precise. Intrigued, I asked my Grandma what the words meant. My curiosity was mistaken for an Interest in the Jewish faith and I was pulled into a three hour conversation on Judaism, the importance of the Yiddish language and of course those magnetic words.

She noticed my particular fascination with the word meshugas and explained what it meant. Meshugas was the chaos in her life. It was what happened when she forgot something and felt like she had lost her mind. She told me how the choir she sang with had forgotten their music before a performance and it had been “total meshugas.” As she said this I couldn’t help but laugh as I imagined the twenty elderly women in a state of confusion looking for their lost music.

My grandmother continued to talk with my parents and I lost myself into the Yiddish words before me. I imagined the chaos in my life. The meshugas. As I thought more carefully about it I realized that the Meshugas in my life was much different from that of my grandmothers. At the time I was 15 and in the midst of teenage hood. Every aspect of life was full of drama and gossip. Constant senseless behavior, foolish arguments and pure sophomoric nonsense. The meshugas in my life was less precise and more of a general disorder. It didn’t appear from time to time plaguing me for only moments, I was living in a constant state of meshugas.

Upon exploring the deeper roots of the word I found one mans opinion quite intriguing. It came in the form of a Blog. In the intelligent rambling of the author, Maureen Dowd’s use of the word meshugas in an article in the New York Times was analyzed. The word had been used to describe the current situation in Iraq. Maureen Dowd had said, "You'd think by now, watching the meshugas in Iraq, the Bush crowd would have learned some lessons about twisting facts to suit ideology…" The author of the Blog had found it curious that meshugas had not been italicized as to suggest it had already been integrated into the English language. The most intriguing thing was that the definition of meshugas was described as a specific type of craziness, one I had not thought of prior reading this Blog. This kind of craziness was self-created, almost pointless, occurring in ones own mind. This self created foolishness, unnecessary nonsense seemed almost endearing, not at all threatening and a sign of the chaos of life in general. The author of the Blog had criticized this New York Times article of portraying the war in Iraq in a false light through its use of the word meshugas. It had not been made out to be the horrible tragedy it truly was.

In any case, whether it is used to describe the day-to-day confusion of a 92-year-old woman or the drama in a teenager’s life a common truth prevails. Meshugas like many words are flexible. They can be twisted and manipulated to fit a person’s life and experiences. The Yiddish word meshugas comes from the participle “sugga” meaning “to be mad” but in my life refers to typical teenage behavior. When I hear the word meshugas I see a teenage girl in the midst of an overly dramatic and chaotic world, one she had created for herself, it is not dangerous, but necessary in her path of life. There is meshugas all around us affecting everyone in different ways.