Why We Pray in Hebrew
Friday night, March 9 2018
Congregation B’nai B’rith, Santa Barbara CA
Shabbat Shalom.
As part of their preparation for their Bat or Bar Mitzvah, some of our twelve year olds visit other houses of worship, and write a short report on their experience. Last week’s Bat Mitzvah Sarah Dent visited Calvary Chapel and in her report she wrote “in some ways it felt similar to our services at CBB, but the entire service was conducted in English, and it was very different to be able to understand exactly what was being said!”
Tonight we have a number of visitors, and I know that especially for first time visitors, the single most striking and the strangest aspect of what we do here is all the Hebrew. Some visitors find it beautiful. Some find it mesmerizing. Some visitors find it interesting for a while, but then after a while it gets boring.
To be honest, for many Jews as well, Hebrew is the single most off-putting thing about our Jewish religion. Since you have come tonight to learn about us, I will share with you a secret: the vast majority of the people here do not understand Hebrew. There are a few exceptions.....people who lived or grew up in Israel. Or who have studied Hebrew for years, in depth. But that is a tiny minority. Most of the people here do not understand the words of the Hebrew.
Nonetheless, as you have now experienced firsthand, much of our service is in Hebrew.
Some Jews walk away from our religion because they just don’t see the point of all the Hebrew. Many. For Jews who take the time and put in the work to learn, Hebrew can be a doorway, leading into a magnificent palace. But for the many Jews who do not know how to read Hebrew, the door is shut. Hebrew is a wall, shutting them out.
So why do we pray in Hebrew?
Incidentally, for a bit of historical context, when the Catholic Church made the decision in the early 1960’s to stop offering the Mass in Latin, Reform synagogues like this one were using much more English...with just a little bit of Hebrew. And in the 50 years since then, most synagogues like this one have brought Hebrew back. And not everyone has been happy about it. So tonight I am speaking to our guests, but also to our own congregants, many of whom also wonder: why?!
Why do we break our teeth on b’chol levavcha, uv’chol nafshecha uv’chol m’odecha? Why do we ask our children to learn this ancient foreign language which is only spoken on the streets in one little country on the other side of the planet? Why do we try to open our souls to God using a language that almost none of us understand?
Here is one honest answer: to know the literal meanings of the words does not make it easier to pray with them. In fact, for many Jews, the literal meaning drives them away...even more than Hebrew does! For example, most of our Jewish blessings begin with the words Baruch atah Adonai eloheinu melech haolam, meaning literally “Blessed art Thou Lord our God King of the universe...” King of the universe? That image is so medieval! And patriarchal! And furthermore, which universe are we talking about? The incomprensibly vast cosmos of modern astrophysics? In what sense does that universe have a King? The literal meaning of the traditional Jewish prayers brings the questions and objections tumbling down on us. The literal meaning gets in the way of simple honest prayer.
So not understanding the Hebrew allows a Jew to come here, to let the music wash over him or her, to feel the love and the community of the people, to sense a deep connection to the ancient past and to the presence of God that fills the world...without stumbling over the old and problematic God imagery. When we sing the Hebrew words without understanding, they become an empty vessel into which we can pour all of the deepest and most honest longings and searchings of our heart. That is one honest answer to why some of us pray in a language we do not understand.
A second reason is that Hebrew binds us together in a single body of Jews praying all over the world. As we’ve already mentioned, Isabelle Kim Sherman is coming of age as a Jew this weekend. I vividly remember standing with her parents in their home thirteen years ago, with their new born infant daughter, and giving Isabelle her first Hebrew word. Her Hebrew name Dinah.
Tomorrow morning, she will be called to the Torah by that name. She will lead us in our Hebrew prayers and she will sing to this room, full of friends, relatives and many people she does not even know...she will sing the words of the Torah into life. Isabelle will sing from the Torah the exact words being sung by Jews all over the world. French speaking Jews in Paris, singing the Hebrew. Russian speaking Jews in St. Petersburg, singing the Hebrew. Hebrew speaking Jews in Tel Aviv....obviously, singing the Hebrew! But also Persian speaking Jews in Tehran, Dutch speaking Jews in Amsterdam, Spanish speaking Jews in Mexico City, in Buenos Aires, in Montevideo, and Santiago, English speaking Jews in Toronto, in Cape Town, in Manchester, and in Miami, all of them singing the Torah in Hebrew, the exact words and sounds that Isabelle will sing from this pulpit.
Those Jews will all understand the words differently, each in their own way. The Jewish world will be full of an infinity of meanings tomorrow morning. Even just in this room, every single one of the two hundred or so people will have their own understanding of the words, their own interpretation. In this way, we each hold onto our individual beliefs and opinions while at the same time being bound together into a single community. The Hebrew words are the glue that binds us together.
In the old Jewish worlds of Europe and North Africa, when a child was ready to begin learning to read, they were taken to the synagogue and given a slate or wooden tablet with the Hebrew letters written on it in honey. Aleph. Bet. Gimel. Dalet. Heh. Vav. And the child was encouraged to lick the honey and the parents and teacher would say to them “may the letters of Torah be as sweet as honey in your mouth.” I have wanted to reintroduce that custom into our own community, when we begin the kids’ Hebrew education; maybe some of the parents here can help me troubleshoot the sanitary issues. We would not get many objections from the kids.
That custom hints at the power of the Hebrew letters themselves. Look at the Hebrew letters. Some of you are looking at them for the first time. What do you see? They are flames of fire...written by a scribe. Even in this age of word processors and digital media, the letters of the Torah are still written by hand, with a feather quill pen, on animal skin.....as they always have been. The original Torah, according to one ancient legend, existed before the creation of the world, alone in the universe with God....letters of black fire written upon white fire.
This is why we continue, against all odds, to teach our children their old inheritance: the letters, the sounds, the words of Hebrew....our holy tongue.
When we Jews imagine the very beginning of the universe, we tell an old story. Emptiness and chaos, and darkness upon the face of the deep. Then a mighty wind sweeping over the face of the waters. And God spoke.
Yehi or.
In our ancient poetic mind: God spoke two Hebrew words, yehi or, and the universe became filled with light. That’s why we pray in Hebrew.
Shabbat Shalom.