Recently some local congregations have been banding together for yom tov services. Friday's service for the last day of Pesach was pretty unsatisfactory in a lot of ways, but in this post I'm going to write about just one practice, something I have seen in other congregations too and that needs to end.

Most blessings begin with a six-word formula, followed by the text that varies. The morning service contains a bunch of these, thanking God for making us free, lifting up the fallen, giving strength to the weary, and more. (There are 15 of these in a row.) The congregation says these together. In Friday's service, the leader decreed that the congregation would chant these in "Hebrish" -- first six words in Hebrew, then chanting the varying part in English.

I previously wrote about the horror that is chanted English prayer. This isn't that. This "Hebrish" practice, I've been told when I've asked, is motivated by a desire for inclusion: people don't know the Hebrew, the reasoning goes, so this makes prayer more accessible. Sounds admirable, right? But it's misguided and, dare I say, harmful. First off, the transliteration is right there in the siddur next to the Hebrew, precisely to make the Hebrew more accessible. But, more fundamentally, this practice serves to keep people down. How are they ever to learn the Hebrew if we never do it? Are we supposed to settle for the current state and never move past it? How would I have become proficient in the Hebrew prayers if, when I was trying to grow, my congregation had kept me on the English?

The Rambam (Maimonides) famously taught that the highest level of tzedakah (charity, loosely) is to help a poor person to get a job, rather than to give him money. Giving him money sustains him for a time; getting him a job helps him break out of the clutches of poverty (we hope). The Reform movement holds this up as a key value, even placing it in the section of the siddur where we study torah in the morning. Why, then, do we refuse to apply that same principle to those who are poor in knowledge? Why is it better to give them the handout of English prayer instead of helping them to pray in Hebrew?

In the past I have remained silent to avoid the appearance of challenging our leaders. I have tried and failed to persuade leaders who do this to reconsider. Friday, when they announced this and started into those prayers, I said to myself quietly "no more" and proceeded to chant the prayers in Hebrew. The long-time member of my congregation sitting next to me said "good for you!" and joined me. We were not disruptive, but I have high hopes that maybe, next time, he'll be sitting next to someone else and he too will say "no more" and forge ahead, and maybe someone sitting next to him will follow. And maybe, eventually, we'll be able to help people break out of the bonds of illiteracy, instead of continuing to keep them down by catering to their current weaknesses. We've just celebrated z'man cheruteinu, the season of our freedom, and it is time to apply that to our people now and not just looking back at Mitzrayim.

If reading the Hebrew text directly is too challenging for some, the transliteration is readily available. Or they could quietly read the English the way I quietly read the Hebrew. (I do that when I'm at services that are above my level, like last week at Village Shul.) But let's stop telling our congregants that they're too uneducated to handle the Hebrew; that only serves to reinforce the idea until they no longer want to try.

---

Somebody asked, in a comment, why the choice of language matters. This is how I answered:

Thanks for commenting, and never worry about asking questions. We're all about questions. :-)

There are a few factors. First, by putting those first six words in Hebrew, the people leading the service in this way are already saying that Hebrew is important -- but not important enough to learn. I think I would be less bothered by English-only prayer than I am by this. It seems contradictory. (Mind, I wouldn't continue to pray in an English-only synagogue, for reasons I give below, but I'd be less bothered, I think.)

Second, short and/or common Hebrew prayers are the "gateway Hebrew" to other texts. If you learn the prayers you'll start to recognize some of those words and phrases when torah is read, which may lead you to learn more words, which can eventually lead to an understanding of scripture that is just not possible in translation. I'm not there yet by any means, but because I learned some Hebrew I notice nuances in the torah text that either add meaning or lead me to ask more questions -- and questions are good; they lead to deeper understanding. So by cutting people off from that "entry-level" Hebrew text we're also cutting off all but the most curious from a lot more.

Those are reasons that apply to everybody. Speaking just for myself now, there is quality to the text that just doesn't come through in translation -- a combination of the word-roots feature another commenter mentioned, and a meter that lends itself a little more to contemplation (hard to explain, but it's "calmer"), and probably some other factors I haven't yet figured out. Additionally, there is something "connecting" about saying the same prayers (in the same words) that Jews have said for thousands of years. I realize that the Reform movement breaks that in places, but it's still largely intact.

God hears prayer in any language; you don't need to pray in Hebrew to stay in right relationship with God. But working a little harder to pray in our language feels rewarding to me. I imagine that this is similar for Roman Catholics who pray(ed) in Latin, and for Greek Orthodox who pray in Greek, and Muslims who pray in Arabic, and others.

Last week during the Sh'liach K'hilah program I gave a d'var torah. I spoke from notes rather than fully writing it out in advance. Now I'm writing down very approximately what I said from those notes.

--

The portion of Sh'lach L'cha records the incident with the wood-gatherer. To review, on Shabbat two men find a third outside the camp gathering wood, a clear violation of the laws of Shabbat they have been given. The men bring the wood-gatherer to Moshe and ask what to do. Moshe, in turn, asks God, who pronounces a death sentence. Pretty harsh!

The talmud, in tractate Sanhedrin, elaborates the laws of capital offenses. These laws are designed to prevent capital punishment; Rabbi Akiva said that a court that executes one person in 70 years is a bloodthirsty court. In order for a death sentence to even be possible, the following conditions have to be met: there must be two witnesses; they must warn the person that he is about to commit a capital offense; he must acknowledge that warning and say he intends to do it anyway; and they must then directly see him do it.

If I understand rabbinic tradition correctly, that the wood-gatherer was executed means that all of that happened in this case. So why didn't the two men prevent this? Where did things go wrong?

When the men bring the wood-gatherer to Moshe, the word in the text is karov. This means "bring" or "draw near". We know this root from other contexts: a korban, usually translated as "sacrifice", is the means by which b'nei Yisrael draws closer to God. And the word kiruv is generally understood to mean "outreach". You know how, when you're walking down the street, a Lubavicher might stop and ask you if you light Shabbat candles, and then give you candles and teach you the blessing? That's kiruv. When an observant family invites you to Shabbat dinner so that you'll experience the joy of the day, that's kiruv. Kiruv is about bringing Jews closer to Judaism -- by drawing them in, not admonishing them. While many of our congregations have outreach programs of various sorts, true kiruv is one on one, one Jew to another. It's not really about adult-ed classes and congregational dinners, nice as those things are too.

I had always understood the witnesses against the wood-gatherer as trouble-makers -- "look what he's doing! stop him!". But I think what we're seeing here is a failed kiruv attempt -- they weren't prosecuting a case; they were saying to Moshe "do something to help this person". Why did this fail? Perhaps because the men failed in their own responsibility, making it Moshe's problem instead of taking a more active role themselves. Our leaders can't be everywhere nor can they solve all of our problems personally; we have to do some things ourselves. We are taught kol Yisrael arevim zeh l'zeh, all Israel is responsible one for another. The men made a good start by recognizing a need, but they didn't follow through.

Next week after Shabbat services, look around at the oneg. Do you see the guy standing in the corner, the one no one talks to because he's socially awkward? What about the 30-something single woman who doesn't have kids and maybe feels a little out of place in a family-focused congregation? What about the 90-year-old who has no local family, but he's been a member of this congregation all his life? And these are the ones who came -- how many others in the congregation aren't even here?

What can we as individuals do for these people? We could invite them over for Shabbat or for a meal in the sukkah. We could invite them to a Chanukah party or a Yom Kippur break-fast. Or it could be something secular, going out to a group dinner or to a movie or the like. Or, more simply, we could talk with them. Do you know their names? Do they have families? What do they enjoy doing in their free time? Do you know why someone who's usually there every week hasn't been around for a month? Is he on vacation, or is he sick?

Kiruv doesn't have to be big and official; in fact, it shouldn't be. It's the small, individual acts that will draw the people on the fringes of our community toward the center. And these small, individual acts are things we can all do without relying on our leaders. Sure, it's not always easy -- but we don't have to do it all at once. Any step we take is better than taking no step at all.

May we develop the ability to treat the outliers in our communities better than the men in this portion treated the wood-gatherer. Kein y'hi r'tzono, may this be God's will.