Many of my students find the language of Jewish prayer frustrating. I’m not talking about Hebrew; I’m referring to the language that seems addressed to the archetypal Old Man in the Sky. That language doesn’t match up with their own experience of the sky, of human beings, or of God.
Take for example the wording of the blessing for creation in the evening service:
Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the Universe,
who by His word brings on evenings,
by His wisdom opens the gates of heaven,
with understanding makes time change
and the seasons rotate, and by His will
orders the stars in their constellations in the sky.
– from The Koren Siddur, 2009
I chose this translation because it is a very literal translation of the Hebrew from a leading Orthodox scholar. Some translations in liberal siddurim have been softened a bit with inclusive language, but for my purposes here I want the full impact of the traditional language.
What is a modern, scientifically minded Jew to do with this? There are many options employed by such Jews in dealing with the language of the prayer.
TRADITION I – “This is the ancient prayer. It was good enough for my grandparents. I say these words because my ancestors said them, and I have been saying these prayers all my life. I find the images of God in these prayers suitable and comforting. These prayers are great poetry; please don’t take them away from me!”
TRADITION II – “This is the ancient prayer. I may find it archaic, but my people have been praying in these exact words for many centuries. I don’t take the images literally; I say the words because my ancestors said them. There is holiness and beauty in the continuity of saying them and teaching them to another generation. We can update a few things that are theologically problematic, perhaps, but in the main, I don’t want big changes.”
TIME FOR REVISION – “This may be the ancient prayer, but my Judaism is alive and living things grow and change. I want a siddur that reflects my own experience of God.” This person might want to seek out a congregation that uses the Reform siddur Mishkan Tefilah or the Reconstructionist siddur Kol Haneshamah. Neither is perfect, but both are striking attempts to use inclusive language and to offer interpretive versions of prayers that are more appropriate in an age of science.
Mishkan Tefilah offers several alternative readings for the Ma’ariv prayer above. I am partial to a reading in one of the footnotes:
To be “religious” might mean to have an intuitive feeling of the unity of the cosmos…. Oneness is grounded in scientific reality: we are made of the same stuff as all of creation. The deepest marvel is the unity in diversity. – Daniel Matt (Mishkan Tefilah, p 7)
BEYOND METAPHOR – Sometimes the problem isn’t gendered language, it’s all of the metaphor-laden language about a God who has “hands” and “opens gates” and is a person not all that different from any human being. One of the most famous and successful attempts to write a siddur that gets beyond personalized language is Marcia Falk’s The Book of Blessings, which is truly a new vision of Jewish prayer. I am not aware of any congregation that uses it regularly, but if you find traditional Jewish prayer language terminally off-putting, you may want to check it out.
STUDY AND REVISE – Sometimes no version of the prayer I can find works for me. Then I study the prayer, and I struggle with it. I try to understand the original intent of the prayer and my specific issue with it. Then I work on a new interpretation of the prayer. Asher Yatzar is one example of a prayer I’ve reworked. Obviously, this is a labor-intensive approach, and if you choose it, you will need access to a commentary on the prayer to study it. Talk to your rabbi and explain that a particular prayer is troubling you, and that you’d like to study it with them.
Jewish prayers are not easy. None of us are born knowing how to pray Jewishly, and whenever we begin learning, we are never “finished.” What seems fine at one stage of life may bug the daylights out of us at another stage. However, where there is a will, there is a way to pray.
Have you ever felt that you simply could not say a particular prayer? Which prayer, and why? How did you resolve the issue?