Cause and Effect—Yes

One of my favorite writers is the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, who opened his powerful classic Anna Karenina with the famous line: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. “When I first read it, I said to myself, “Lapin, Tolstoy is a deep and penetratingly insightful man, why would he start his great masterpiece with this fairly obvious observation about families?”

I do not read or understand Russian, but I was able to find an older Russian lady who escaped the Soviet Union where she had been a teacher of literature. She was visibly delighted when I asked her, “Surely that sentence must mean more in Russian?”

Well, it means ever so much more in Russian than in an English translation. Russian words hold layers of emotional, cultural, and even spiritual connotations that don’t survive translation into English. The Russian root “schastye” means happiness, but also good fortune, blessing, or even God smiled upon you. The negative Russian root “neschastye” doesn’t just mean unhappy — it also means misfortune, tragedy, calamity.

So, the Russian isn’t only about psychological states like happy vs. unhappy, but about fate and fortune: families blessed by good fortune resemble one another, while families struck by misfortune fall apart in unique ways. In Russian, the sentence has a balance and symmetry that sounds almost proverbial, like a folk maxim. In English, “happy/unhappy” feels flatter and narrower. Tolstoy’s opening line signals that Anna Karenina is a book not merely about emotions, but about the weight of providence and the unraveling of fate in family life. All that and more is lost by lingering in the English rather than probing the Russian original.

I was reminded of my youthful adventure into Anna Karenina when I recently heard the following passage read in synagogue.

And the Lord said to Moses, your days to die are drawing near… (Deuteronomy 31:14*)

I have translated the Hebrew original quite accurately above, with one exception: Between the words “Moses” and “your days” appears an untranslatable Hebrew word: hein.

‘Hein’ appears earlier in Deuteronomy while Moses is praising God.

To the Lord, your God, belong the heavens and the heavens of the heavens, the earth, and all that is on it. (Deuteronomy 10:14*)

The actual opening word of that verse in Hebrew is ‘hein’. As you see, omitting it does nothing to impair the meaning of the verse. Some translations try to acknowledge the ‘hein’ by starting the verse with the word ‘Behold’ —Behold, to the Lord your God belongs the heavens…. However, the word behold adds nothing to the meaning.

Finally, the word ‘hein’ appears earlier, here:

And Moses spoke before the Lord, saying, “Hein, the children of Israel did not listen to me. How then will Pharaoh listen to me, seeing that I am of closed lips?” (Exodus 6:12)

Again, the cryptic Hebrew word ‘hein’ is translated as ‘Behold’ which appears to add little to the comprehension of the verse.

Let me offer you some ancient Hebrew wisdom on the mysteries of ‘hein’. When God notified Moses of his impending death by using the word ‘hein’, (Deuteronomy 31:14) Moses responded to God saying, “That is a bit much! I used the word ‘hein’ to praise You (Deuteronomy 10:14) and now I hear that same word coming back at me with bad tidings. Surely, I deserve better?”

God answered Moses by explaining that much earlier, Moses had maligned the people of Israel by saying, “Hein, the children of Israel did not listen to me…” (Exodus 6:12*)

The word ‘hein’ appears in Scripture as an alert to the chain of cause and effect. Our understanding of life and of how the world really works is greatly enhanced by the knowledge that everything has a cause, and every cause has a cause before it too. Whenever we see ‘hein’ we know to probe for what earlier event proved to be the trigger that precipitated the current event.

In our recommended Bible:

1. Deuteronomy 31:14: P. 634, 12th line, 5th word from the right.
2. Deuteronomy 10:14: P. 570, 9th line, 2nd word from the left.
3. Exodus 6:12: P. 178, 14th line, 3rd word from the right.

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