I don’t really know what the audience of the New Voices magazine/website is, but I assume that it’s one that has a better Jewish background than I do. Maybe some of the people who stumble upon this post or anything else I’ve written for New Voices will think, “this guy is an ignorant fool who should go back to the basics before he publishes his thoughts for all the world to see”. And perhaps you’d be right for thinking this. Nevertheless, this is what I realized yesterday as I was sitting in shul: praying in a language you don’t understand is wack.
My Hebrew comprehension is really poor. I achieved no more in eight years of Hebrew school at my hometown Reform synagogue than basic phonetic reading, memorization of key prayers, and a little Jewish history. And I don’t think I was at all alone in sitting through (roughly calculated) hundreds of hours of Hebrew prayer services, not having any idea whatsoever what was going on. Of course I could read the ‘poetic translation’ that accompanied the abridged Hebrew texts in the old (but not old, old) Gates of Prayer siddur, and I had a vague idea of what each prayer was about, and could maybe pick out a key word or phrase here and there. But still—what a waste of time! In what other context would it be even remotely acceptable to listen to hundreds if not thousands of hours of gibberish? I can’t think of any, yet this is what the average liberal American Jew does when he/she goes to synagogue (albeit one who has no Hebrew comprehension, and many liberal American Jews do know Hebrew). How could this be allowed by our rabbis, educators, and the other leaders in our community? The answer is that nobody taught my Hebrew teacher Hebrew, so she (usually it was a she) was unable teach it to me. If
I had been in a better environment for Jewish learning, I could have learned a lot more Hebrew (and other stuff I’m just catching up on now). But so many of the liberal Jews I know had the same experience growing up—this deficiency in Hebrew education must be symptomatic of the Jewish education system in the liberal American movements.
The original ‘High Reform’ concept of prayer services entirely in the native language makes a lot of sense from this perspective. I’ve been told that a better alternative is to learn Hebrew, and to pray in the traditional way.
Now I’m not big into praying, in fact my main interest in davening currently comes from attempting to match what’s going on on the right side of the page (printed in Hebrew in most liberal siddurim) with the left side’s English translation. And according to Nosson Scherman, who’s 1984 essay on traditional concepts of tefillah serves as the introduction to the “Complete ArtScroll Siddur” that I have sitting on my shelf (but rarely use), “If one prays…in Hebrew, he fulfills his obligation [to pray] even if he does not understand…The twenty-two sacred letters [of Hebrew] are profound, primal, spiritual forces.” According to Halakhic authorities, Hebrew is “Lashon HaKodesh”, or the “holy tongue/speech”. To pray in Hebrew is tap into a perfect, spiritual connection with HaShem that goes beyond human understanding.
For us liberal types, I don’t think this answer is going to cut it. So how do we justify our praying in a language we don’t understand? My dad says that he derives comfort from the familiar sounds and melodies of the prayer service, even if he does not understand the prayers’ literal translations all the time. A good friend who’s Hebrew is also shaky suggests that praying in Hebrew gives him a connection to the generations of Jews before him who prayed using the same words in the same ways. These are rational explanations (by very rational people) to what is essentially an irrational practice of invoking words in a foreign language, that do not reflect our most deeply held beliefs as modern, secular Jews.
Now that I can understand some of what’s going on in a liberal prayer service, I’m both more tied in to our tradition because I have better access to it, but I’m also turned off now that I know that what we’re saying often isn’t in line with liberal Jewish theology, because our theology is new and these prayers are old. Mostly I’m just disappointed that I learned next to nothing in years of Hebrew school (probably not my fault, nobody else learned much either) and left grasping for a justification for praying words that I don’t believe (but at least they’ve been changed to be egalitarian!) in a language I struggle to understand. Thoughts?
