OK, I KNOW MANY Jews can SAY the Hebrew words of the daily and Shabat prayers, but I also know that most Jews don't know what they are reading; they don't know the meaning of the words.
I confess that even as a "graduate" of an Israeli ulpan (intensive Hebrew language course) I hardly can be compared to Eliezer Ben-Yehuda or Abba Eban, but I am able to comprehend most of the daily and Shabat prayers.
Because I no longer can make the 1/2-mile trek to make minyan on Shabat I "do" Shabat at the house. It's not the same as being part of the minyan and while I have a humash - several in fact - I miss hearing the Sefer Torah. (I hear a bit of it Mondays and Thursdays so I still manage an aliyah once in 40 days.)
On weekdays, when we rush through our prayers so the youngsters can get to work - being a geezer has its benefits - I sometimes take a paragraph here or there from the prayers to read them slowly enough to understand the words' meaning.
The weekday and Shabat
עמידה/שמונע אשרי (a/k/a amedah/18 or "standing prayer") for the weekday morning prayer contains a paragraph (Hebrew language images from the Hebrew/Hebrew sedur Avotanu)
that translates (according to the Kol Yaakob Hebrew/English sedur as:
Sound the great shofar for our liberty, and raise a banner to gather our exiles, and quickly gather us together from the four corners of the earth into our land.
During the Shabat and Rosh Hodesh musaf service - the one after the Torah is returned to the ark/aron - we read, in part:
that is translated by the Orot Sephardic Shabat Siddur as :
May it be your will, Adonai, our G-d and G-d of our fathers, that you bring us up to our land with joy and establish us within our territory…
OK.
So seven days a week we - Jews - pray to pack our bags and make aliyah. Most people reading this are reading this חו''ל - "hutz l'aretz" or anyplace other than within Israel, this scrivener included.
Keep in mind that the עמידה/שמונע אשרי is the CORE prayer, the central prayer, so much so that it is known as "The Prayer." The prayer was formalized, according to Jewish Liturgy: A Guide to Research: 5.3, sometime after 70 CE (the second Temple's destruction). The Shema also was formalized during the same period, and although it's origins are in the Torah - vs. the Amidah's being primarily rabbinic - in the grand scheme of things, the Shema is the Shema, but the Amidah is "The Prayer."
I count a number of rabbis as acquaintances. Without exception they all reside in the U.S.
I know they can read and comprehend Hebrew - even the Reform and Conservative rabbis - and I wonder how they can justify their continued presence in the States.
I suppose it is because someone has to provide Jewish leadership, but I can't recall any rabbi waving the flag for aliyah. Perhaps that could be perceived as "un-American." (Given the dependence on American Jews' funding of Israeli organizations, it might be counter-productive for Israel if all of us suddenly packed up and moved to Israel.)
I lived in Israel but came back when I realized there was no opportunity for me to influence anything there. A prime minister - Peres - famously told an American woman who challenged his opinion on something to "go back to America"- if she didn't like how he was running things. (Truth in blogging: As a Beganite I am not fan of Shimon Peres or the Labor party.)
I don't want to go to Israel to take up space needed by younger, productive people, although being "closer-than-Skype" to my three grandchildren in Yavne would be nice.
Still, each time I read the weekday and Shabat musaf amidah I wonder if I'm not - just a little bit - hypocritical. I don' want animal sacrifices brought back when the Temple is restored; I think we - Jews - have matured and can replace sacrifice with prayer - not a new idea,
According to an oft-told story, R. Yohanan ben Zakkai once was walking with his disciple R. Joshua near Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple.
R. Joshua looked at the Temple ruins and said: "Alas for us! The place which atoned for the sins of the people Israel through the ritual of animal sacrifice lies in ruins!"
Then R. Ben Zakkai spoke to him these words of comfort: "Be not grieved, my son. There is another way of gaining atonement even though the Temple is destroyed. We must now gain atonement through deeds of loving kindness." For it is written, "Loving kindness I desire, not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6)
Both bilingual sidurim (siddurs) follow the Syrian (Aleppo) tradition.
