old wounds

[gilana]

I went to shul last night. It's really a minor miracle that I've been going almost every week, and enjoying it; it's been a long time since I've found a Jewish community I liked so much, and I've frankly never enjoyed going to shul much. There was a guest rabbi leading the services last night. There are points in the davening when everyone is praying aloud to themselves at their own pace, and he made a point of encouraging everyone to really pray aloud, not just in a mumble under the breath. He said that it creates a kind of a buzz where you're not really aware of what anyone else is saying, and don't feel self-conscious.

The first time we got to that point, I started trying to read the prayer -- and found tears suddenly pouring down my cheeks.

I'd never thought of it this way before, but I am illiterate in Hebrew. And like many illiterates, I've gotten very good at hiding it. Most of the prayers that are commonly said out loud together or sung, I know by heart. I have a good ear, and I can follow most songs a split-second behind everyone else. And I've mastered the Orthodox speed-mumbling, including enough of the real words to be convincing. I had to; at the Yeshiva I grew up in, I was punished for not praying well enough or loud enough. They didn't actually teach me how, just yelled at me when I didn't do it.

I do know the Hebrew letters, and I can sound words out. But reading unfamiliar words out loud, I sound like a first grader. And as someone who prides herself on her literacy and language skills, in addition to having a history as being the most religious Jew in most groups I've found myself -- well, it's painful and humiliating.

And yet... I had to stop once to go find tissues, and each time I got to one of those out-loud bits the tears started again, but somehow with the sound of other people all praying out loud, it did help. I stopped being aware of everyone around me, stopped caring what they might think to hear me sounding the words out one at a time, and did it.

No one gave me any funny looks during the service, and afterwards a friend came over and held me and listened and didn't seem to think any worse of me. (I hope you know how much that meant to me; thank you from the bottom of my heart.) And I got other hugs from other friends who didn't even need to know what was wrong, just that I needed a hug.

I'm furious at Torah Academy that it made me feel this way. I'm furious at myself for letting my shame keep me from something that matters so much to me. But... I'm hopeful. I've finally found a community that I really want to be a full part of. And I've met a bunch of wonderful Jews-by-choice in the past year, many of whom seem more fluent with the prayers and laws and Jewish minutia than I am. And they've learned it all as adults. That means if I stop putting my energy into pretending and start trying to actually learn, I know I can.

Comments

Woohoo!

[hawkegirl.livejournal.com]

That's awsome! You go girl!

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

I so know how you feel. I've been asked to read Torah for my niece's batmitzvah. I can barely stutter through a sentence if it's not memorized. My ability to read hebrew is poor at best. I can speak it and understand most of what's spoken to me but that's it. I hope my sister lets me know what I'm going to be doing far enough in advance so I can memorize it.

I was always annoyed that if I stopped to try and actually read the prayers it would take me 3-4x as long as everyone else. By the time I'm done with one prayer they are very far ahead. When I would say shacharit at home I'd try to actually say all the words to one prayer each day. I didn't keep it up. Now it's been years since I've said prayers every day.

Good for you. Keep it up.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I'm at the same level of Hebrew fluency as you are.

I teach Hebrew school.

I'm desperately trying to improve my 3Leet Hebrew Skilz so that I can teach this better: my goal is that my class won't end up going through what all of us are.

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

Do you still daven at the shul on College Ave?

*hugs* I am also mostly illiterate in Hebrew, and spend a lot of time pretending that I know what I'm doing and watching the actions of those around me. :( I'm getting better about it, but it's a pretty intimidating thing when most of the people around you are praying silently or talking in the back.

[gilana]

Nope, this is Temple Beth Shalom in Central Sq, aka the Tremont St Shul. You should come some time!

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

I was going for a while, and then I started going to Harvard Hillel because that was where my rabbi was. Perhaps I will go back to TBS soon. :)

[emerlion.livejournal.com]

I used to be able to read Hebrew passably - came from living in Israel for a year when I was a kid. But now, when I go to shul (about once a month actually) I struggle with the Hebrew - I don't even recognize some of the letters anymore.

I really want to do an aliyah one day. So every time I go to shul I work at listening to how other people pronounce the words and then try to see how that pronounciation fits with the letters in front of me.

I know you can learn it too - and you are very lucky to have such a great shul community who are so supportive! I think you'll pick it up in no time. I'm envious!

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Like I said, my Hebrew reading is not actually fluent either. But the thing about coming to it as an adult is that you consciously begin in a place where you know nothing, so you do what you can. I've only learned as much as quickly as I have because I loved it so much that I threw my heart into it. (The last summer I spent back home in Indiana, in 1992, I mail-ordered myself an Artscroll prayerbook so I could work on learning more of the prayers while I couldn't go to services over the summer. I remember going on long walks day after day and singing the Aleinu to myself, trying to commit it to memory. It worked.)

Even now, I can read fluently through texts that are really familiar, but the moment I get to one that isn't, I still have to sound out every word just like that. And I only get familiar with them by having sounded them out slowly so many times, starting from the beginning every single time, until after weeks and months I've learned them well enough to get all the way through. To this day, I still stumble over the last line or so of, for instance, the Psalm for Shabbat (right before "Tzadik ka-tamar..."), because I never get that far before they pick up singing at the end. And that's the truth. :-)

Plus, you know, there's a big difference between "not fluent" and "illiterate"! I think it's exactly because you are so very literate in English that the contrast feels so shameful. It's not. But you can and will learn... if you want to. We're here for you, either way. *hugs*

[navrins]

Y'know, I read that, picked up on the word "aleinu," and internally chanted the rest of the thing. I'm certain of the tune my temple used, and reasonably confident I pronounced it close to correctly, or at least as my rabbi did. I don't think I've heard it more than three times in the past twelve years; maybe less, and I probably didn't say it any of those times. I have no idea what it means, except a couple of words and suffixes here and there, and probably never did.

If you actually care about it, you are FAR better off sounding it out but knowing what you're saying and why, than memorizing it as a stream of meaningless syllables. The latter is how my Hebrew school taught. It's possible that if they'd done the former, I might still care.

(BTW, if you're the Gilly I've met a couple of times at Serendipity as Robin's friend, Hi! I followed a post from chanaleh's journal, out of boredom.)

[gilana]

Who says I know what I'm saying? :) Although if I do know a prayer more or less by heart, I'll sometimes read the English as I say the Hebrew.

And hi! Yep, I'm pretty sure I'm the Gilly you're thinking of. I do love having an unusual name.

[navrins]

I'm making the (perhaps unwarranted) assumption that if you're attending shul regularly at your age (post-college, pre-kids) then it's because you genuinely want to be there and the religion means something real to you, in which case I'd think you would know what you're saying even if you don't know exactly what the individual words mean. As opposed to attending it in the pre-bar/bat-mitzvah years because your parents drag you, when you might well just do as much as you're expected to do and no more, which at my temple did not actually extend to knowing what you were saying in any meaningful way.

yay

[tcb.livejournal.com]

*hug*

be proud of yourself for letting that fear and trepidation go, even for a few moments..

and you will overcome it, and learn enough to make yourself proud enough to sing out loud, and cry in joy, not shame..

thanks to that rabbi...

[macthud]

from me, anyway.

Sounds like you were given the freedom to figure out that something was amiss, and now you have the freedom to choose how to go from here -- and you can adjust the bits that aren't as you would have them be.

*hugs* You will do fine. You always do.

Teaching/Training

[earthling177.livejournal.com]

This is a very touching entry indeed. But what made me post a comment was when you said you are furious at yourself and your old school.

While I understand feeling that way about your school, I guess there is nothing we can do about the fact unless there is some way to make them change so they won't make other students suffer. Which is a pity we can't fix it now. It took me a long time to understand that schools in general are not in the business to teach students as best as possible. Again, more's the pity.

But I suppose I can make a suggestion that might make things easier for you if you want to get better at Hebrew. Get yourself a copy of "Don't Shoot the Dog! The New Art of Teaching and Training" by Karen Pryor. While many people got the book when faced with a problem dog, we read it before getting our puppy.

And no, it's not about dogs, or pets. It is about teaching/training animals. Any animal: humans, dogs, cats, birds, fish, whatever. The main subject is how this group of people (including the author), when faced with training dolphins (which you not only can't punish, but would never want to) had to start using only positive reinforcement to train them.

It is *very* enlightening. We started training Sasha (our puppy) by this method (also called "clicker training") and I can't say enough good things about it. I have been getting better about an awful lot of things because now I think about the good progress I've been making, instead of how far behind I am on my to-do list, for example.

And in any case, just as a starting point for you, just think that you can read Hebrew, and I can't, so at worst you are better off than me... ;-)

Cheers!

Re: Teaching/Training

[gilana]

Thanks, I'll take a look at that!

And I may be able to read Hebrew, but I can't speak Portuguese, so I think we're about even :)

Re: Teaching/Training

[earthling177.livejournal.com]

Well, that reminds me of a story...

So this little old lady was sitting on a park bench in Russia during the worst part of Communism reading a teach-yourself book. The cop shows up and asks hers what she's doing:

Lady: "I am teaching myself Hebrew."
Cop: "Hm. I see. Why?"
L: "Well, I figured I would want to salute the Creator in His own language when I die and go to Heaven."
C: "Ah... well, apart from the fact that there is no god and it's not appropriate to own such books, what makes you think you would be going to Heaven if there was one? What if you went to Hell instead?"
L: "That's ok -- I don't worry about it -- I already speak Russian!"

Somehow, I don't think Portuguese will be useful to me after I die... ;-)