Rabbi Michael S. Beals, Temple Beth El
Shalom, Shalom,
You’ll find Shalom
The nicest greeting you know;
It means bonjour, salud, and skoal
And twice as much as hello.
It means a million lovely things,
Like peace be yours,
Welcome home.
And even when you say goodbye, You say goodbye with Shalom.
— “Shalom” from the Broadway musical, Milk & Honey (words & lyrics by Jerry Herman, better known composer of Hello Dolly and Mame)
I love the 1961 musical, Milk & Honey, made famous by Molly Picon (better known as Yente the Match Maker, in the 1971 film-adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof). My two favorite songs from the show are: “This is the Land of Milk & Honey” and the song referenced above, “Shalom.”
The song just touches the surface of the multi-faceted meanings of the word שלום shalom. Expanded from the three-word shoresh, or root, ם-ל-ש, Shin-Lamed-Mem, the word suggests completeness. This is to suggest that, when there is war, when there is personal distress, when there is violence or bullying, there is a lack of completeness, a lack of feeling whole. And in the word shalom there is the remedy—make countries, make people, make yourself whole. And when you wish someone shalom, you are wishing for that which the recipient needs to feel complete.
And that is the more subtle reason why Jews should pray in Hebrew. We can express all sorts of subtle ideas which elude English, or whatever secular non-Hebrew language we use to express common thoughts.
Hebrew is the language we use to express uncommon thoughts. But the more obvious reason why Jews should pray in Hebrew is the x-y axis argument.
If you think of the x axis on a graph, that is the direction which goes horizontally. Jews can live all over the world. In places like Rio where they speak Portuguese, or Budapest where they speak Hungarian, there is a good chance that you will not be able to converse with the people sitting next to you. But if it is the Kabbalat Shabbat service of Friday night, or the Shabbat morning service of Saturday, and you are in synagogue, you can pray next to the person. You may not know their tunes, but you can pray with them. And you do not need to know their lingua franca to enjoy a delicious kiddush oneg after services.
If you think of the y axis on a graph, that is the direction which goes vertically. That means, for the past 2,000 years dating back to at least the codification of the Mishna—and I dare say even earlier than that—Jews are connected to their ancestors through the prayer language of Hebrew. So much has changed in two millennia, but not the ability to express our most inner spiritual thoughts through the Hebrew language.
Finally, there is a wonderful Kabbalistic teaching on the first verse of Genesis, Bereshit bara Elohim ET ha-shamayim v’et ha-aretz. Kabbalah teaches that based on the untranslated word et (aleph + tav), that before God created anything, God created the Hebrew language (aleph through tav). What is the prooftext? When God said, “let there be light,” what language did God say it in? Answer: Hebrew. So Hebrew is the spiritual building blocks of the universe, linguistic DNA.
So, if you want to plug into the universe, pray in Hebrew.
Rabbi Peter H. Grumbacher, Rabbi Emeritus, Congregation Beth Emeth
It is said that French is the language of love; other cultures have languages that are the “language of (fill in the blank).” Of course, Hebrew should be the language of prayer . . . Jewish prayer . . . and added to that is the vernacular of the country in which you find yourself when praying.
The Reform movement went from
“Hardly Hebrew to Holy Moly, look at all the Hebrew!” I mentioned this in a previous article. Fortunately, we do have a greater balance today (despite some congregants bewailing the added “foreign” language).
First and foremost is the fact that our God-language is complex. Sometimes the word reflects God as merciful, other words that God is just. Sometimes the word intimates that God leads the charge, other words that God holds you close to the Divine heart. Now how would you differentiate that with, let us say, English? “Praised are You, O God, the One who leads the charge?” Well, yes, if you don’t know that Adonai Tz’va-ot is how the Torah puts it. Or “God is merciful,” requires El rachum. We experience God differently, thus Hebrew is the language to place God in the correct context. The same is true for Indigenous peoples of the Arctic region, who have different words for snow. Snowball snow is different than powder snow, but we call both “snow;” and while I have no idea how they differentiate them, they do.
About 30 years ago, the new siddurim the Reform movement published had transliterations of the Hebrew prayers. At first, I was upset, believing that no one will have to learn to read the language if it is presented on a silver platter, as it were. Then I learned that people who otherwise might not consider learning to read the holy tongue now felt encouraged precisely due to the transliterations. One congregant told me in so many words, “I don’t want to feel like a child when I’m among congregants who are looking at the original and not the English letters.” I recall asking if she believed people were looking at where her eyes were directed instead of their own prayerbook, and she gave me the best response . . . “I’ll know, Rabbi!”
So, if you daven in a Paris synagogue where French is part of the service, or in Berlin where German is, or Moscow where Russian is, all of them will have one thing in common, namely, that is Hebrew will be on the right side of all their siddurim!
