Last night, I went to shul in Tel Aviv. You might expect this to be the most familiar place for a British Jew to go in the white city of shashuka and jungly trees. And of course, superficially, the old, old routine is the same. The same songs, the same rituals, in the same order. But glancing at those around me I noticed something was hugely, massively different. The Hebrew speakers around me, unlike most British Jews, can actually use the prayer book.
It struck me as absurd that almost all British synagogue still use Hebrew-English prayer books that are not only straight translations, but straight Victorian translations of the Siddur. Let’s face it: very few of us attending the United, Reform, Masorti, Liberal or Sephardic synagogues in the UK actually speak Hebrew. Most can barely read it. Our Jewish knowledge is choppy. How many of us really know which prayers are which, what stories they tell, and where they come from?
Let’s be honest: very few. A frum core can follow it all. But the rest of us are clueless. We haven’t been to yeshiva. We haven’t been schooled in Talmud. Most of what we know is passed down at home. Some learn a lot, some learn a little. So we just hum along, try to follow the service the best we can and listen to the sermon.
The Victorian translations are worse than useless. The now utterly verbose, archaic language actively undermines the Hebrew. You can’t refer to God as “Awesome” in 2016. “Awesome” may have translated the majesty of the Hebrew word nóra in 1906. Today it just sounds silly. God? Awesome? What, like a chocolate bar or thumbs up?
We are a people that value knowledge. We are a community of doctors, accountants and lawyers. We are experts in our fields. But when it comes to something so precious to us – we are ignorant – and the prayer book is not helping. Straight Hebrew-English translations keep up the veneer of Orthodoxy but they don’t help Jews connect.
We are supposed to be a religion that asks questions, thinks, probes, and argues. But our traditional Victorian prayer book does anything but that. It offers bland translations of ritual prayer, which are blandly recited and repeated by the congregation.
How many of us really know which prayers are which?
Jewish life is flourishing, in culture, in writing, online, in activism, in Israel but not here. Inside the synagogue, there is a real need to do something new. And this is exactly what Americans Jews are doing. This year the Conservative Movement has launched a new prayer book, Siddur Lev Shalem. This is a thing of beauty. Every page looks like a page of Talmud: the prayers ringed with guidance, commentary, history and poems. This is a Siddur that holds your hand, showing you not only how each and every prayer flows, where they come from, and what they are questing after. Strange words are unpacked. The tales and mysteries behind blessings are told from Poland to Yemen. Every page of the Siddur has been translated out of Victorian into living English. Those traditionally sung out loud have Hebrew transliterations underneath so everyone in the shul can sing along.
The Siddur Lev Shalem is a Jewish guide, history and prayer book rolled into one. The new additions make this a much more Jewish book than the straight translation. They are all in dialogue and informing one and other, like the conversations in the Talmud, filling in the holes we all have in our Jewish knowledge, a few hours here and there at synagogue, cannot fill. Unlike the prayer books we use know: this is a Siddur you can learn from.
But what I like most of all about the Siddur is that is open and honest that minds wander in the service. The Siddur knows it is hard to concentrate for several hours on end, especially in a language both so familiar to Diaspora Jews, but most do not understand. These new prayer books allow the mind to move in and out, learn the richness of the liturgy, and then come back to the service.
This revolution is not just an American thing. Most prayer books for the non-Haredi are printed with commentary in Israel. This is not considered reform but Orthodoxy living up to its proper intellectual and discursive content. This is not considered dumbing-down but mugging-up. The Orthodox Israeli and Conservative American Rabbis behind these new Siddurs do not feel they are tampering with something but allowing greater numbers to connect. They know the vast majority in their shuls on High Holy Days and Shabbat are not going to start coming to evening classes or take months out in yeshiva to catch-up. They are honest with themselves these are the hours open to them.
What binds us to these musty volumes than were themselves revolutionary in their day? It should not be cost – the work is already done. Nor should not be fear of pulling those with a greater Jewish knowledge back – the straight translations and Hebrew only prayer books will still be there proudly waiting in the synagogue for them. It should not be a fear to experiment – when this is the new normal in Israel and America. We need to bring the Siddur Lev Shalem, and her sister for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Mahzor Lev Shalem, to Britain. Why would we not do this?
