just a few more thoughts after a long Yom Kippur

[calimac]

The best moment in our High Holy Days ceremonies is at the very end of the Yom Kippur closing services. All the lights are doused except for a candle on the bima. All the congregation link arms around our neighbors' shoulders and we all sing a series of one-line Hebrew blessings in unison, to a special melody. One of these is the standard blessing over the wine, and after we sing that, everyone on the bima - the rabbis, cantors, and others - each in turn take a sip from a kiddish cup, formally breaking the 24-hour Yom Kippur fast. More than anything else, this moment does what blessings and lighting Sabbath candles and all such other rituals are supposed to do: place you inside a new sacred space. The special days are over and the new year is firmly under way: l'shanah tovah.

My copy of the holiday prayer book, the machzor, is the first edition of the current text: it's 30 years old and predates the de-genderizing of the text. I'm always tripping up over this. There's one prayer which refers (in Hebrew) to the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, to which we now repeat that line of the melody with God of Sarah, God of Rebecca, God of Leah and Rachel in its place, and that is well and good, but what gets me is that the English phrase "the LORD" is out: too masculine. It's usually replaced by "God," even though that's actually a slightly different theological concept: "The LORD is God," an oft-repeated phrase, is firmly affirmatory, but it's not intended to be tautological. So instead of changing it in that phrase to "God is God," which would be tautological, it usually comes out as "the Eternal is God." And there are other unexpected variants here and there.

There's one prayer sung in both Hebrew and English in which God is addressed, in the Hebrew, as Avinu Malkeinu. This is translated in the pre-egalitarian English as "Our Father, Our King." Well, we can't say that, and I guess someone decided that "Our Parent, Our Sovereign" would be too awkward, even though it would scan just fine and "King" is replaced with "Sovereign" elsewhere. So now in the English we replace "Our Father, Our King" with the original Hebrew, "Avinu Malkeinu" ... which, unfortunately, as I understand it means "Our Father, Our King." So either the Hebrew is being treated as unknown rigamarole, or the change doesn't really make sense.

... but it's a tradition.

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

It rather gives the impression of a quasi-religious tabu on the use of gendered language . . . the sort of thing where the use of those exact words is what is forbidden, but expressing the same concept through a workaround is OK.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It is, but the tabu is of secular, not religious, origin. You see it in operation all the time where degenderizing is desired.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Quite. That's why I said quasi.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to be sure that was clear to readers.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

It can be strange. I remember some Hebrew endings being feminine and in the Old Days, they would still translate as Our Lord or some other masculine word. I would ask why and was told Tradition. God is Male Only. Which even then I thought was pretty dumb.
Translation is always a tricky subject.
But I am glad when the ambiguity that is God and the women of the Bible get remembered some of the time.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Reading the Koran, I'm reminded that Elohim is not so much male as it is plural. The Koran, at least in the early going where I am, has G_d being translated speaking as We.