I was speaking with my best friend today, and I sneezed. She said, " God Bless You !! "- and then exclaimed that she was sorry to have said such, that she wasn’t sure what to say. I said, I grew up with Gedzundheit (sp?), since I’m 1/2 German.
She laughed and said, “That means ‘God Bless You’ in German”. I pondered this a bit, and said with great surety, " Well then, before Yiddish was invented, when a Jew sneezed…nobody said ANYTHING ! "
Is there a better Yiddish or Hebrew equivalent? I’m putting this here instead of in G.Q. because the companion issue is , of course, what do YOU say to people when they sneeze???
I say gesundheit for similar reasons, besides having grown up in a community heavily populated by German immigrants. A friend of mine will occasionally say “Satan welcomes you!” with a lovely smile, in certain company and with humorous intent.
If you say “A vos souhaits” ( A (as in ahhh) VO (long o) SOO-AY (sue + long a)
It’s french for (literally translated) “to your wishes” though it’s prolly fluid in what you can make it mean
Just out of curiosity…why can’t a Jewish person say “God bless you”? Jews do believe in God last I checked, I thought? I didn’t think that “God bless you” was a strictly christian thing.
I don’t speak or read Yiddish or German, so I do not know the correct spelling of the Yiddish word my grandparents (Bubby and Zaydie) and parents said and still say when someone sneezes.
This is it phonetically: Si-Guh-Zint (it’s a short i in “si”, like “sit”)
In fact, that’s just part of it. For further emphasis on the part of the well-wisher, it was common to get, “Si-Guh-Zint, Si-Lay-Bin, Si-Nock-uss, Si-Glick”
(side note: I always thought Gesundheit meant “go in health”)
To answer the latter question, I don’t say anything at all. I’ve never understood the reason for saying some “special” phrase when someone sneezes. I think they should say something. Maybe, “Hey, I didn’t get any snot on you did I?”.
I’ll usually say “Oh, excuse me!” - I tend to sneeze loudly and enthusiastically. No sneeze suppression for me, by golly.
To another, I may say “Bless you” or “Cover your damn mouth when you sneeze” depending upon the person and cicrumstances. I try not to hang around sneezing Jews - no offense, 'Toons!
Cartooniverse: The Talmud (Berachot 53a) states that in the time of Rabban Gamliel (1st century) it was the practice to say “Marpeh” (Hebrew for “healing”) to someone who sneezed. The commentary of Rashi (11th century) adds that the equivalent Aramaic word, “Asuta,” was also used, and the 16th-century Code of Jewish Law (Orach Chaim 170:1) cites this as the normative practice. (None of these sources say that one should say this; they just mention incidentally in the course of discussion that this was done.)
Hajario: “Labreyoot” means “to health,” so it’s a fairly literal equivalent of Gesundheit.
Sivalensis: I don’t think the OP’s friend’s point was so much that a Jew shouldn’t say “G-d bless you,” just that the “typical” Jewish response is “Gesundheit” or some variation thereof. That said, it is true that there are halachic authorities that frown on saying “G-d bless you,” considering it a violation of the commandment about taking G-d’s name in vain.
Michelle: The phrase your grandparents used also means “to health” - it derives from the German “zu gesund”; some dialects of Yiddish, particularly from southeastern Europe, consistently convert /u/ to /i/. The longer phrase means, roughly, “to health, to life, to spiritual satisfaction, to luck.”
My Jewish fiance says “bless you,” while I grew up (Jewish father)with “gesundheit.” I wonder if it has anything to do with family history; I know my dad’s family were fairly recent arrivals in the US (about 1905) but I know nothing about his. Maybe they’ve been here longer?
