’m reading the Siddur on the English side today and I’m struck by the changes in the language from the Hebrew. I know, I read it all the time, why am I struck today? Who knows.
Things the editors felt were maybe too real have been replaced by euphemisms.
I mean, there are many. God is God, not Lord, although
that is the clear meaning of the term in Hebrew.
God is male in nearly every blessing (Barukh Attah) but in English, we take away the gender of the language.
God raises the dead, literally raises the dead in the
Hebrew. But not in the English.
Why is it OK to do this? Why did I used to think it was OK to do this? Why am I troubled now?
Because maybe it’s OK to do it in some circumstances, but
not in others. If you can change God’s sex just by editing the language, it
seems a small matter to change a person’s sex. If God is nonbinary, why can’t
people be nonbinary?
But you can’t change a person’s sex. In fact I submit to you it’s easier to change God’s sex, than a human’s, or any biological being that is not a hermaphrodite.
Maybe I’ll stick to the Hebrew side.
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