have you ever thought that final "hey" in hebrew is feminine? that atah is really feminine?
dina dahbany-miraglia
Marc Sacks wrote:
> Hebrew is a more genedered language than English; even verbs, and pronouns
> like "you" and "they" have masculine and feminine forms, and there is no neuter
> gender. This makes it more difficult to express gender-free
> notions of God in Hebrew than it is in English, which we all know is hard
> enough.
>
> Havurat Shalom, a Jewish community in Somerville, MA best known as the
> communtity from which the Jewish Catalogues emerged, is in the process of
> creating a revised and interpreted prayer book that contains alternately
> masculine and feminine references to God and to the people (who are, by
> default, referred to by masculine pronouns, much as English traditionally
> uses "he," but because of the gendered "you," this is even more visible in
> Hebrew. The uses are not combined in a single prayer, but there may be
> both masculine and feminine versions of the same prayer on adjoining
> pages.
>
> For example, the standard "Baruch atah," blessed (m.) are you (m.) is
> replaced with "Bracha at," blessed (f.) are you (f.) in many prayers, and
> words referring to people are changed as well, for example "mechayeh
> hameitim," [God] who revives the dead [people], becomes "mechayah
> hameitot," which to a masculine-oriented reader looks like "Goddess who
> revives the dead women" but is not meant to apply only to females any more
> than the masculine version is supposed to apply only to men.
>
> To someone familiar with the Hebrew prayers, the effects can be jarring.
> This is a definite consciousness raiser well beyond what has been, or can
> be, done with degendering God in English.
>
> Marc Sacks
> [log in to unmask]
>
> On Fri, 17 Nov
> 2000, kathy schlossmacher wrote:
>
> > I like to spell godde in this unlikely manner. I do so as a way of reminding myself and maybe others that godde is an ungendered element. Recently in a Catholic Chat, i felt almost crucified. The men in the room were particularly hostile after i explained my spelling.
> >
> > They were obviously uncomfortable that godde could be consdered in a non-gendered langauge. At the same time I was discussing Hildegard's imagery of Godde as mother wrapping us in mystery and it was a free for all. It was so bad almost half the room put me on ignore.
> >
> > I think we have a long way to go in changing the language that reflects religious imagery. I have also found that older established churches are less likely to accept individual and even group developments in language unless they come from the central religious forum.
> >
> > Kathy
> >
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