In a significant foreign policy transformation announced this week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reversed a Biden-era order and restored Times New Roman as the approved font for all official State Department correspondence. Rubio directed State Department posts worldwide to halt the use of the Calibri typeface that the previous Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, made standard as part of a diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) initiative.

Perhaps you didn't realize that fonts could be such a hot-keyboard-button issue, but the way our documents appear reflects our values and priorities. So whether or not you have Georgia on your mind, or err on the side of Arial, even if you're not hounded by Baskerville or can't see into the Futura, the shapes of your letters send a message. In this situation, the State Department had utilized Courier New exclusively until 2004, adopting Times New Roman under the Bush 43 administration. Blinken torpedoed Times New Roman in favor of Calibri in 2023 in an attempt to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, such as low vision and dyslexia, and people who use assistive technologies, such as screen readers. Rubio’s memo, which had the subject line, "Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper," argued that, "Switching to Calibri achieved nothing except the degradation of the department’s official correspondence." Rubio also called Calibri a failure by its own standards, saying that "accessibility-based document remediation cases at the department had not declined."

What is the נקודת המחלוקת, the ultimate point of contention here? Times New Roman and other serif typefaces are generally perceived to connote tradition, formality and ceremony, whereas Calibri is informal, casual, and modern:

Times New Roman was commissioned for use by the British newspaper The Times in 1931 and conceived by Stanley Morison, the artistic adviser to the British branch of the printing equipment company Monotype, in collaboration with Victor Lardent, a lettering artist in The Times's advertising department. Its small decorative lines (serifs) at the edge of each letter grant it a certain level of gravitas, and it looks beautiful on paper. Calibri, on the other hand, is a decidedly non-serif typeface created to look crisp and clean on digital screens. It was designed by Lucas de Groot in 2004 and released to the general public in 2006 in Windows Vista. In Microsoft Office 2007, Calibri replaced Times New Roman as the default font in Word and replaced Arial as the default font in PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook.

If you can't fathom fixating on fonts, imagine getting a shiva notification written in cheerful Comic Sans? That wouldn't feel so appropriate. And doesn't the writing in a Sefer Torah boast all sorts of ornamental serifs, called tagin or ketarim, conveying the splendor of its contents?

It was the Greeks, in fact, who can be credited with the first serifs since the Torah's script. The earliest datable stone inscription incorporating consistent thickening towards the ends of perpendiculars and horizontals in the lettering— later called serifs— is the Dedication of the Temple of Athena Polias in Priene, Asia Minor, by Alexander the Great (Stan Knight, Historical Scripts from Classical Times to the Renaissance, which appeared in Arial on my screen). And the Greek Empire after Alexander imposed its will and its influence on all the nations it conquered, using document creation as a means of control. The Hellenists could not have used Helvetica (developed in Switzerland in 1957), but our rabbis recorded different ways the battle for the spirit of the Jewish people was waged through writing:

1.

כתבו לכם על קרן השור שאין לכם חלק באלקי ישראל
Write on the horn of an ox that you have no share in the God of Israel.

(Jerusalem Talmud, Chagigah 2:2)

The Midrash Rabbah (Bereishis 2:4) comments that the pasuk “there was darkness on the face of the abyss” (Bereishis 1:2) refers to the Greek monarchs, who darkened the eyes of the Jewish people with their harsh and cruel decrees, specifically that they proclaimed that "the Jews should write on the horn of an ox that they had no share in the God of Israel." While multiple explanations have been offered for the strange reference to an ox horn here, perhaps they distract from the main objective of the Greeks, which was to formalize a breach between the Jews and their God through writing. Putting words down for posterity makes them official and makes them real. In those times, it was not parchment on which one wrote for permanence. Instead, inscriptions were made on animal horns, or on metal or pottery drinking vessels shaped like horns. These were displayed prominently and had lasting power. The Greek decree effectively compelled the Jews of Israel to publicly and falsely attest to heresy. And darkness prevailed. 

2.

The Greeks additionally banned other expressions of faith, and the Chashmonaim responded with their own writing decree (Rosh Hashanah 18b):

מוֹתֵיב רַב אַחָא בַּר הוּנָא: בִּתְלָתָא בְּתִשְׁרִי בְּטֵילַת אַדְכָּרְתָּא מִן שְׁטָרַיָּיא. שֶׁגָּזְרָה מַלְכוּת יָוָן גְּזֵרָה שֶׁלֹּא לְהַזְכִּיר שֵׁם שָׁמַיִם עַל פִּיהֶם, וּכְשֶׁגָּבְרָה מַלְכוּת חַשְׁמוֹנַאי וְנִצְּחוּם הִתְקִינוּ שֶׁיְּהוּ מַזְכִּירִין שֵׁם שָׁמַיִם אֲפִילּוּ בִּשְׁטָרוֹת. וְכָךְ הָיוּ כּוֹתְבִים: בִּשְׁנַת כָּךְ וְכָךְ לְיוֹחָנָן כֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל לְאֵל עֶלְיוֹן

Rav Aḥa bar Huna raised an objection: It is stated in Megillat Ta’anit: On the third of Tishrei the ordinance requiring the mention of God’s name in legal documents was abolished, and on that day fasting is forbidden. For the kingdom of Greece had issued a decree against the Jews forbidding them to mention the name of Heaven on their lips. When the Hasmonean kingdom became strong and defeated the Greeks, they instituted that people should mention the name of Heaven even in their legal documents. And therefore they would write: In year such and such of Yoḥanan the High Priest of the God Most High.

וּכְשֶׁשָּׁמְעוּ חֲכָמִים בַּדָּבָר, אָמְרוּ: לְמָחָר זֶה פּוֹרֵעַ אֶת חוֹבוֹ וְנִמְצָא שְׁטָר מוּטָּל בָּאַשְׁפָּה, וּבִיטְּלוּם, וְאוֹתוֹ הַיּוֹם עֲשָׂאוּהוּ יוֹם טוֹב. וְאִי סָלְקָא דַעְתָּךְ בָּטְלָה מְגִילַּת תַּעֲנִית — קַמָּיָיתָא בְּטוּל, אַחְרָנְיָיתָא מוֹסִיפִין

And when the Sages heard about this they said: Tomorrow this one, the borrower, will repay his debt, the lender will no longer need to save the loan document, the document will be cast on a dunghill, and the name of Heaven written there will come to disgrace. And so they annulled the ordinance to mention God’s name in documents, and they made that day into a Festival.

Here the Chashmonaim made a good-faith attempt to promote God-awareness in mundane business documents. They overcompensated for the darkness of the Greek persecution by demanding the mention of God's name in regular correspondence, and then they had to walk that back when it created a glut of sheimos. A practical consequence of this episode can be found in the words of the Rem"a (Yoreh Deah 276:13), who writes that one should not mention names of Hashem in letters nowadays: "It is prohibited to write a Name other than in a book [of Tanach], because this can lead to disrespect, and we are therefore careful not to write a name in letters." The Biur HaGr"a suggests that the source of this halachah is the anecdotal teaching of the above Gemara.

The Greeks inscribed horns with declarations of their pagan beliefs and also depicted those horns on coins:

But what about the God-centered inscriptions on American currency? Could that be a concern?

Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (Halichos Shlomo 20:33) quotes the Sha"ch (Yoreh Deah 179:11) who writes that a name written in a foreign language does not possess the sanctity of God's name. The few remaining bills and coins you may have in our modern era of Calibri do not require special treatment. But our relationship with Hashem can be expressed through fonts, even though calligraphy is now a lost art form.

The Chashmonaim, our heroes of Chanukah, wanted each Jew to roam the earth with constant God-awareness. We must acknowledge that this special relationship with Hashem looks and feels different each hour of the day based on our personal experiences.

There are breathtaking moments of awe as we bask in Hashem's grandeur and reflect on His omnipotence. This can happen during tefillah, Torah study, or even at the edge of Bryce Canyon. When we feel these stirrings of majesty we inscribe them on our hearts with serifs, with the formality and seriousness of Times New Roman. At other times we sense Hashem's closeness, maybe in the breath of a newborn child, in the simcha of a Yom Tov, or in the throes of personal success and achievement. These feelings are stamped on our softened hearts in Calibri, with no adornments necessary, sans serif, reflecting the elegant simplicity of being one with Hashem. 

The complexity of the human experience demands multiple fonts, and we ought to use all of them, each at its right time, to foster that connection. Are we just doing but not thinking, like Roboto, or has life inspired us to make an Impact? As you gaze at the Chanukah lights and reflect on the miracles wrought by Hashem, how will your letters take shape?