{"id":128,"date":"2006-09-04T12:49:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-04T12:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/hebrew-big-hurt.html"},"modified":"2006-09-04T12:49:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-04T12:49:00","slug":"hebrew-big-hurt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/hebrew-big-hurt.html","title":{"rendered":"Hebrew: The Big Hurt?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For far too many Jews, the High Holidays are marred by confusion and boredom. They come to synagogue and are lost. Everything is foreign except maybe their parents sitting next to them, who once again purchased tickets for the whole family.<\/p>\n<p>Probably the biggest impediment for most Jews is the Hebrew in their prayer books. Simply put, Hebrew is hurting the High Holiday experience for hundreds of thousands of Jews every year.<\/p>\n<p>There are but few instances when a rabbi should say anything good about Martin Luther (on why, see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fordham.edu\/halsall\/source\/luther-jews.html\">Medieval Sourcebook: Martin Luther (1483-1546): The Jews and Their Lies 1543<\/a>). But Luther\u2019s decision to translate the Bible into German and make it accessible to the world might have been one of the greatest moments in human history.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the biggest difference (I hear about from converts ) between church and synagogue services is the ability to follow what is going on. The synagogue experience, especially in more Orthodox synagogues, can be a disaster for someone whose Hebrew is weak. Luther wasn\u2019t the first to realize that a tradition must be understandable to be meaningful: In the Jewish tradition, already in the second century <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Targum\">Onkelos<\/a> translated the Bible into Aramaic.<\/p>\n<p>Look, I am all for the importance of Hebrew. There is no doubt that in it the treasures of Jewish life and culture reside. If you don&#8217;t know Hebrew, there is a limit to how much Judaism will be able to offer your life. But by making Hebrew a prerequisite for what for many Jews is a once-a-year synagogue experience, we are ensuring that Judaism will not have any part in the lives of most of American Jewry.<\/p>\n<p>So this year, if you don\u2019t know Hebrew or you aren\u2019t moved by the stiff English translation of some thousand-year-old hymn, do your soul a favor: Put down your prayer book and pick up a book that speaks to you, maybe <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/0671873032?v=glance\">Rabbi Irving Greenberg\u2019s &#8220;The Jewish Way,<\/a>&#8221; maybe <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nextbook.org\/books\/book_author.html?bookid=4\">S.Y. Agnon\u2019s &#8220;Days of Awe,&#8221;<\/a> maybe <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/1568219857?v=glance\">Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik\u2019s &#8220;On Repentance,<\/a>&#8221; or maybe some poetry that speaks to your conscience.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever you decide, make sure that when you come to synagogue it is not wasted on staring into space. The purpose of the High Holidays is not to torture yourself but to examine yourself and reconnect with what is truly most important in your life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For far too many Jews, the High Holidays are marred by confusion and boredom. They come to synagogue and are lost. Everything is foreign except maybe their parents sitting next to them, who once again purchased tickets for the whole family. Probably the biggest impediment for most Jews is the Hebrew in their prayer books.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hebrew: The Big Hurt? - Virtual Talmud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/hebrew-big-hurt.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hebrew: The Big Hurt? - Virtual Talmud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For far too many Jews, the High Holidays are marred by confusion and boredom. They come to synagogue and are lost. Everything is foreign except maybe their parents sitting next to them, who once again purchased tickets for the whole family. Probably the biggest impediment for most Jews is the Hebrew in their prayer books.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/hebrew-big-hurt.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Virtual Talmud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-09-04T12:49:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rabbi Eliyahu Stern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hebrew: The Big Hurt? - Virtual Talmud","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/hebrew-big-hurt.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hebrew: The Big Hurt? - Virtual Talmud","og_description":"For far too many Jews, the High Holidays are marred by confusion and boredom. They come to synagogue and are lost. Everything is foreign except maybe their parents sitting next to them, who once again purchased tickets for the whole family. Probably the biggest impediment for most Jews is the Hebrew in their prayer books.&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/hebrew-big-hurt.html","og_site_name":"Virtual Talmud","article_published_time":"2006-09-04T12:49:00+00:00","author":"Rabbi Eliyahu Stern","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/hebrew-big-hurt.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/hebrew-big-hurt.html","name":"Hebrew: The Big Hurt? - Virtual Talmud","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-09-04T12:49:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-09-04T12:49:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/53c806e36632262087fa251c621f2bc9"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/hebrew-big-hurt.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/hebrew-big-hurt.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/09\/hebrew-big-hurt.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hebrew: The Big Hurt?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/","name":"Virtual Talmud","description":"Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, where politics and pop culture meet 3,000 years of Jewish wisdom","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/53c806e36632262087fa251c621f2bc9","name":"Rabbi Eliyahu Stern","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/417\/4170a8452a509d8efe19496bf5d566e9x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/417\/4170a8452a509d8efe19496bf5d566e9x96.jpg","caption":"Rabbi Eliyahu Stern"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/author\/estern"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}