A Gender-Sensitive Liturgy:  Why Language Matters
Sermon, December 28, 2007
Rabbi Bruce Kadden

As we begin to become comfortable with Mishkan T’filah, our new prayer book, a few characteristics which differentiate it from Gates of Prayer –and many other prayer books, are noticeable.  One significant difference is that the English is gender sensitive throughout, no longer referring to God as “He” or “Him” or “His” nor translating Adonai as “Lord.” 

Although Gates of Prayer slowly began moving in this direction, replacing references to “Man” with other terms such as “human beings,” it retained male references to God, as the issue of language and prayer was just beginning to be raised by Jewish feminists. 

In recent years, however, the Reform movement has made a commitment that all of its published liturgy will be gender sensitive.  While most have supported this effort, some wonder what is all the fuss about, while others wonder if changing the English is enough, or does it only serve to cover up more serious problems with the Hebrew text from a feminist perspective.  This evening I want to address these issues in hopes that it will help us appreciate our new siddur.

While most of us know, on an intellectual level, that God is beyond gender, neither male nor female, we often find it difficult to imagine God as anything but an old man with a beard.  There are, no doubt, a variety of reasons that we envision God this way, including the language used to refer to God in scripture and in liturgy.  For almost all of us grew up with hearing God referred to as “He” in our prayer book and in the Torah. 

Young children need concrete images and the God-language used serves to create and reinforce the image of a male God.  Even when children grow up and are able to think more abstractly, it is difficult for them to rid themselves of this idea.  While some would argue that this situation is of minor importance others see it as a big deal because language helps create reality. 

We, of course, have been attempting to avoid referring to God as “He,” for quite some time in our services, leading to some awkward locutions.  The editors of Mishkan T’filah have sensitively translated the prayers, avoiding male references to God, while creating a meaningful liturgy. 

But while the English may be gender-sensitive, the Hebrew is another story.  Those who are familiar with Hebrew know that it is a gendered language:  all nouns, all adjectives and almost all verbs are either masculine or feminine.  The nouns that we commonly use to refer to God in Hebrew, Elohim and Adonai, are both masculine.  Thus all verbs and adjectives that accompany these words are also masculine. 

In fact, the only feminine term for God in Judaism is Shechinah, usually translated Divine presence.  It was occasionally used by the rabbis, but more widely used in Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism.  Virtually all other nouns which directly refer to God, words such as hamakom/the place, tzur/rock and most commonly avinu malkeinu/our father our king are masculine.  So it is virtually impossible to make the Hebrew gender-sensitive.

Mishkan T’filah has changed the Hebrew in a couple of places to deal with this issue, most noticeably in the first part of the Ahavah Rabbah prayer which precedes the Sh’ma in our morning service.  Where the traditional version read, “Avinu Malkeinu, ba’avur avoteinu shebatchu v’cha/our father our king, for the sake of our fathers who trusted in you…” the new version omits the words Avinu Malkeinu/our father our king and adds the word imotinu/our mothers.  It also eliminates other references to God as Father.  However, elsewhere, references to God as Melech/King are maintained, though it is translated as “Ruler,”

Only one person has tried to completely rework the Hebrew and create prayers that are gender-sensitive.  Poet Marsha Falk, in The Book of Blessings, offers a variety of prayers in both Hebrew and English.  For example… While some find her work moving and meaningful, few are willing to replace the traditional liturgy with such texts.

While changing words and phrases in Hebrew and English can eliminate most of the obvious male references to God, some have wondered if this is enough.  In her book Standing Again at Sinai, Judith Plaskow observes, “It is not simply male metaphors for God that need to be broken…but also the larger picture of who God is.  Were feminist objections to Jewish God-language confined to the issue of gender, the manipulation of pronouns and creation of female imagery would fairly easily resolve the difficulties described.”

In fact, according to Plaskow, beyond the issue of language is the underlying and more troubling issue “of images of God’s power as dominance” which are found throughout the Torah and our liturgy.  “The God of Jewish liturgy is a king robed in majesty, a merciful but probing father, and master of the world.  His sovereign Otherness is elaborated extensively:  his dominion over creation, his control of history past and future, his revenge against his enemies, his power over the human soul…The prayerbook as a paean to God’s glory and daily wonders, as a plea for his forgiveness and mercy, presents an image of God’s power as ‘power over’ others, a power that is partly defined through the contrast with human weakness and dependency.” 

Plaskow argues that such a view of God is most troubling because “the image of God as supreme Other would seem to legitimate dominance of any kind.”  This is the gist of her argument.  I do not have the time to fully explore it, nor to discuss its implications, but I present it to remind us of the complexity of the issue.

The editors of Mishkan T’filah were aware of the issues that Plaskow raises.  While they maintained much of the traditional liturgy, with its traditional understanding of God, they responded by trying to select readings and prayers to complement the traditional liturgy that reflect an “integrated theology.”  The Introduction points out that “the liturgy needs to include many perceptions of God:  the transcendent, the naturalist, the mysterious, the partner, the evolving God.”

Some of us will gravitate toward one particular theological perspective; others, who may be less certain about God, should appreciate the diversity of theological perspectives that challenge us to explore a variety of approaches to the Divine.  At the very least, it should remind all of us that there are many approaches to God in our tradition. 

We don’t have to choose between a transcendent God – who sends plagues upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians for example-- and an imminent God—whom Tevye can converse with as if he is conversing with his best friend.  Rather, we can embrace both of these paradoxical means of relating to God.

So Mishkan T’filah addresses the issue of gender-sensitive language by eliminating masculine pronoun references to God as well as avoiding the use of the word “Lord.”  It also changes the Hebrew liturgy in a few places to avoid referring to God as “Father.”  And it begins to address the more challenging issue that Plaskow raises by including English readings and prayers that offer a variety of approaches to God.

May its words help us develop a meaningful relationship with God.

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