November 30, 2023
The Hebrew Language’s Expression of the Year
Rarely heard in the speech of most Israelis in the past, b’sorot tovot, an ironic “good news,” has suddenly become a common way of saying goodbye.
“How are you?” a woman acquaintance wanted to know when I answered her phone call last week. “You needn’t answer that,” she went on before I could say a word. “I know it’s a question one doesn’t ask these days.” We then talked for a few minutes about the subject she had called to discuss. “Well,” she said when we were done, “b’sorot tovot,” and with that the conversation ended.
B’sorot tovot, literally “good news” or “good tidings,” might win the prize, if there were one, for Hebrew’s Expression of the Year. Rarely heard in the speech of most Israelis in the past, it has suddenly become a common way of saying goodbye—and if you find it strange that this should happen in a time and place in which there is so much bad news, that’s precisely the point. B’sorot tovot doesn’t really just mean “Good news.” It means “Let’s hope for good news, because right now there isn’t any.”
The expression is not a new one. It’s known to every observant Jew from Birkat ha-Mazon, the Grace after Meals, with its prayer of “May the Merciful One send us Elijah the prophet, may he be remembered for good, and may he bring us good tidings, salvation, and comfort [b’sorot tovot, y’shu’ot, v’neḥamot].” The text of Birkat ha-Mazon goes back to talmudic times, and Elijah in Jewish tradition is the harbinger of the Messiah and a bringer of solace to the downtrodden, so that the prayer is both for ultimate redemption and more immediate relief from trials and tribulations.