On the Hebrew Language

Erev Rosh Hashanah, 5758

Rabbi Melanie Aron

I think I can speak for all 46 of us, when I say that our Temple trip to Israel this summer left many lasting memories. Though the trip was only 14 days, a day in Israel is like a week or a month at home- not just because we did so much, setting out early in the morning and coming home late at night, but because of the many powerful experiences we had. Some of the moments that we will always remember were deeply religious, others political, and still others of a more personal nature.

For me one of the most spiritual moments was the morning we sang the mi sheberach together on the bus, for those wounded in the Machane Yehudah market bombing. In our prayers I heard sadness and concern, but also thanksgiving, in the heart of our bus driver, thanks to God that his wife who teaches in a school across the street, did not chose just the wrong moment to run over to the market and do some grocery shopping.

Some of the memories were of historical significance. For me personally, it was a shehechiyanu moment when I stood in Bethlehem beside a blue uniformed policeman of the Palestinian Authority. I tried unsuccessfully to engage him in a discussion of the politics of the day. I wanted to share my hope that the promise expressed in his being an officer in the newly established Palestinian entity, would someday be fulfilled in a real and lasting peace.

I was also moved when I stood at Prime Minister Rabin's grave and saw all the small stones that had been placed on the sculptured monument. While we were there, a group of teens from a youth group came and conducted a program they had written, probing the meaning of Rabin's life and death. Our group sang a song that talked of dreams, and of our determination to hold on to our dreams even in the face of laughter and ridicule.

Some of the memories are political . I remember particularly the morning ten of us, woke up before the rest of the hotel, ate a quiet breakfast in the still deserted dining room and then walked down into the valley of gei hinnom, and up the hillside of the old city, to join a small group of Israeli woman praying at the Kotel on Rosh Hodesh.

A group of woman praying together, extremely quietly, on the woman's side of the mechitzah, the dividing partition- it hardly seems like a big deal. After all this goes on routinely not just in Reform and Conservative synagogues, but even in many Orthodox congregations in the United States. But in Israel it's different. We dared not raise our voices- we huddled together, glad of each others physical presence. I know some of the younger members of the group were disappointed that we didn't spark a riot- but for me the shouts from the men's side of the mechitzah "do you see what they are doing there!" and the presence of the Israeli police announcing with concern into their walkie-talkies "we've got a group of women here--- and they are singing!" was enough excitement for me.

Each time we entered a Reform synagogue in Israel, and we visited five of them, I felt strongly that our physical presence was a significant source of support and strength to the Israeli Reform movement.

Another memory, this one perhaps a bit more idiosyncratic. I remember our visit to Kibbutz Lotan, a small, struggling Reform settlement in the wilderness of the Arava. An hour north of Eilat, two hours south of the Dead Sea, it is nowhere and looks it. The kibbutzniks at Lotan are real pioneers, living in difficult physical circumstances, trying to figure out what it means to live by your principles as a committed Reform Jew. How do you ethically apportion jobs- by skill, by interest, by rotation of unpleasant tasks? How do you balance the desire for creature comforts in the present, with the needs of the Kibbutz for infrastructure so the future can be better? What does it mean to be observant and Reform and, if we are a movement of individual conscience, then to what extent must everyone in the group do the same thing? I was caught up in the idealism and the argument-- oh, I thought, if I were only fifteen years younger, or even fifteen years older, at some less rooted stage of life. Then I turned to the teenagers who were traveling with us, thinking that they might want to come back when they were just a bit older, and build this place. But you know every generation has its own dream, and I found no takers for Kibbutz Lotan. Our teens seemed to be resolutely city folk , and other forms of idealism caught fire more easily.

A number of people asked me, what was the best thing about the trip? That was a very hard question for me to answer. First, because there were so many great things, including the mazal we had in the group getting along so well, and the children playing so happily with each other. Second, because one of the things I liked the best, was something that may not seem that exciting to others.

One of the things I like best about Israel is Hebrew. I love it from the moment you arrive at the El Al terminal at JFK and the announcement that you are not allowed to park in front of the terminal is made in Hebrew. I love being surrounded by Hebrew, hearing it and seeing it written, and even speaking it, in my grammatically imperfect conversational Hebrew. I learned Biblical Hebrew in day school and at rabbinical school, but my conversational ability, such as it is, was a gift from my Jewish-- but now 25 years later, speaking from a mothers perspective, highly undesirable--older Israeli boyfriend during my college junior year abroad.

I'm not sure why Hebrew means so much to me.

Maybe it's the romance of a language revived from the dead. I've read a number of biographies of the man responsible for it all- Eliezer ben Yehudah, genius, dreamer, madman, great uncle of our member Judi Weissinger. The neighbors thought he was crazy, his kids found him something of a tyrant. When he came to Israel in the late 19th century, the Jews there spoke a variety of languages, and no one was dissatisfied with the situation. Yet Eliezer ben Yehudah recognized that to create a people, a culture, you needed a language that would bind them together. It had to be a Jewish language, but not Yiddish, which was born and formed in the experience of oppression, and represented only European Jewry.

Hebrew, with its ties to the land of Israel, with its unifying potential, was the obvious choice despite the fact that it hadn't been a spoken language of the people for over two thousand years. So Ben Yehudah sat in his study and developed modern words from Biblical roots. He published a newspaper in a language no one knew how to speak and he persevered, until his dream became a commonplace, until everyone took it for granted that in Israel one speaks Hebrew. 100 years after the First Zionist Conference, 50 years after the founding of the state of Israel, Hebrew is one of the miracles we take for granted, we, who were born long after the struggle was complete, we who wonder what difference can one person make.

It's not just because of its romantic history that I love the Hebrew language. It's also how the language is constructed. It's a great language for scrabble because just about any three letters constitute a root and thus can be made into a word. These roots enrich the language, such that in a sense every sentence is a poem- because every word contains an allusion to all the other words developed from its root. A notebook, a friend, an essay, a social group- in English these are all distinct things, but in Hebrew they share a common sharesh, reminding us that pages, and people, words and families, are enriched when joined together.

Finally, there is the fact that Hebrew is a Jewish language. There is a sense, and I believe its really true, that even "please pass the salt" becomes Jewish, in a meaningful way, when said in Hebrew.

This issue actually came up in a session I attended at CAJE, the Jewish educators conference held at Stanford this summer. I came in late, so I was a bit surprised, when I walked into my class and found the presenter reading lousy erotic poetry in Hebrew. Actually he was reading the lyrics to an Israeli pop song, showing how the author had no choice, because of the Hebrew language, but to use words which created a wholly Jewish context for this totally secular lovesong.

I love Hebrew, but what about you? Many of you now read Hebrew. We have offered Instant Hebrew almost a dozen times over the past 7 years, and for some of you that has proven a significant step in feeling closer to the Hebrew of the prayerbook. Sometimes even the most elementary Hebrew reading skills are enough to change Hebrew from a stumbling block to an enhancer of the worship experience. In addition a number of our instant Hebrew graduates have gone on to become serious students of the Hebrew language, really able to read and translate meaningful Hebrew texts.

But I recognize that is not an easy option for everyone. For many, a mastery of basic Hebrew reading will be a reasonable goal for the time being: second language fluency being the exception rather than the rule for native born Americans.

There is a partial substitute for Hebrew language fluency, one which is much more accessible and still provides some bang for the buck. Learning individual important Hebrew words is another route to enter Jewish culture. Learning that Tzedakah is more than charity, and rachmanut, more than pity: learning what shalom bayit is, and why we might seek out a refuah shleimah helps to give you Jewish eyes with which to see the world. Beginning in November we will provide opportunities to increase your Hebrew cultural literacy in this way through the Notes.

Language is one way that we experience Jewish culture, of course, visiting Israel is another. But what are some other ways we can be part of a Jewish universe, even here in faraway Silicon Valley, where challah is what's sold in the bakery on Friday afternoons, and the schools don't close for the Jewish holidays?

This summer I read an interesting article by Vanessa Ochs about her research into the material objects which make a home Jewish. She notes that there are things which obviously mark a Jewish home, like a mezuzah on the door, the presence of Shabbat candles on the table, or a Sukkah in the backyard.

There are also things which signify a Jewish home without themselves being particularly Jewish, like the cars outside a Jewish home at Break-the Fast time, our absence from school or work on Rosh Hashanah, or the good clothes we put on in honor of Shabbat and holidays.

There are also the things which aren't present- the lack of Christmas lights, no smell of bacon frying on a Saturday morning.

One of the people Ochs interviewed was a woman, let's call her Debby, much like many of the members of our congregation. Debby, began the conversation by telling Ochs that it would be a short interview. She lived in such a non-Jewish world, she doubted that there was much Jewish content in her home. Debby was an American born Jewish college professor, married to a non-religious Jew from the former Soviet Union and did not consider herself particularly observant. Looking carefully around the house, Ochs identified 1,000 Jewish objects ranging from cookbooks and music catalogues, to frozen blintzes and kosher pickles. Ochs argues further that she could have found many more objects if the definition were expanded.

After all, is it not the meaning we give to objects that makes them Jewish? A kiddush cup is not a holy object, in and of itself, it is just a cup that has been given meaning and memory. So too challah, which without the Jewish context, is just a loaf of egg bread. Can't our telephone become a Jewish ritual object when we use it to fulfill the mitzvah of bikkur cholim- of visiting with the sick, when they are far away from us? Or even our broom, when we use it to sweep away the chumutz, the crumbs of bread before Passover, or our bed, when we take our shabbes nap?

We won't all get to Israel this year, nor will we wake up speaking lashon hakadosh, the holy language of Hebrew. But we can create Israel in our homes and holiness in our consciousness. We can fill our homes and lives with Jewish culture and we can name the Jewish culture that already exists.

One night last month I took Shifrah with me to deliver something to one of the older couples in our congregation. Luck was with me and Shifrah was in the mood to be particularly outgoing and sweet. The couple had very strong grandma and grandpa genes and we all had a lovely time. Afterwards driving home in the car I explained to Shifrah, that she had done a mitzvah. That didn't change the experience per se, it just taught her to see it in a Jewish context

When you invite visitors to your house, you can name that activity entertaining or you can call it Hachnasat Orchim, and make it part of your Jewish lives. The presence of guests can make you feel connected to Abraham, who was the master of hospitality as well as the father of the Jewish people.

When you send your child back to school with his friend's sweatshirt that accidentally got into his backpack, you can attach that simple action to the Bible's teachings about returning lost objects, maybe even discussing other possible cases. What if the sweatshirt had belonged to the local bully rather than a friend? What if it had been a much coveted computer game instead of a dirty sweatshirt? In that way Talmudic reasoning enters your child's life.

Your daughter's footwear, which is not an athletic shoe, can be her shabbes shoes, and your son's shirt which isn't a T-shirt, his Shabbes shirt. And when you volunteer for hospice, or bring your children's clothes and toys to the Battered Women's Shelter, you can give yourself a Jewish pat on the back for fulfilling another mitzvah.

Just as Ochs found that Debby had many more Jewish objects than she originally thought, we probably do a lot more Jewish things than we might initially think, if only we recognized them and identified them as Jewish.

Whether we are active Temple members, or visitors joining the congregation for the evening, the High Holidays are a time for taking stock of what is Jewish in our lives.

If I walked into your home, how would I know I was in a Jewish home?

If I paged through your day timer, or clicked through your computer date book, how would I know that this is a Jewish life?

Where is the Judaism in the words that you speak or in the concepts that shape your perception of reality?

It is perhaps in the realm of the intangible that it is most difficult to figure out what is Jewish in our lives, but also most important.

In an article called "The Vanishing Jewish Lawyer", Alan Dershowitz, tried to put his finger on exactly what it means to be a Jewish lawyer. He notes that for a certain generation, Sandy Koufax was often held up as a hero as a Jewish baseball player. And while it is true that he didn't pitch in the World Series game played on Yom Kippur, could anyone looking at his behavior as a pitcher, say that he had a Jewish way of pitching- that his choice of pitches, his particular style derived in anyway from his religious beliefs?

But about Jewish lawyers, Dershowitz is not so sure. He cannot say that only Jews are idealistic, he knows it isn't true that only Jews are creative- yet he wants to say that Jews have brought a certain mind set to the practice of law- one motivated by Biblical teachings: Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of thy brother- and thou shalt love the stranger as thyself. He believes that even of secular, assimilated, non-practicing Jews like himself . He states: "For me my Jewish heritage greatly influences my life. I think Jewishly; I teach and practice law Jewishly. I conduct my professional and personal life Jewishly. My family life is Jewish and my politics are Jewishly inspired. Even my agnosticism is Jewish, since the God whose existence I wonder about is the Jewish God." His obnoxious personality may actually be Jewish too.

What about you? How does Judaism find expression in your work, your thoughts, your outlook on the world? Do you see the world through Jewish eyes- thus adding another dimension to your life? Tonight we all feel very Jewish, what difference will that make to us, the other 364 days of the year?