I’m going to be honest here: Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur davening is very boring, if you don’t know what you’re saying. It’s a lot of words to say to not know what you’re saying.
Way too many, I would say.
Not that we should complain either way. Imagine you were giving a speech to a king to plea on your family’s behalf for the year. And every few minutes in middle of your speech, you’re thinking, “Gosh, this is so long. Oh my goodness, I’m still talking. Why am I still talking? When am I going to be done?”
And you start checking how much longer the speech is going to be.
We don’t count the pages on a regular day. Just on the holiest days. Make sure they’re all still there.
You didn’t check the speech beforehand? Maybe practice it in front of a mirror?
No, you’ve been been breaking your teeth on the new words; making it a little obvious that you didn’t.
“Well, it was the same speech from last year, so I figured…”
It’s enough you’re reading it off the paper.
Your entire speech is written ahead of time by people who know the king a lot better than you, and they said, “These are the words that will connect with him. Just say these words.”
And then you’re saying the speech, and you’re wondering, “Did I remember to say that line to him that was literally written in my speech for today, or did I accidentally just recite an entirely different day’s speech from memory? I don’t think banging my chest was supposed to be part of today’s speech. Okay, now I just missed something else in the speech, while I was wondering about this. Why don’t I stop talking until I can figure this out?”
And then some of the words, as you’re saying them, you’re like, “I don’t even know what this word means. I hope the king doesn’t ask me any follow-up questions.”
“What did you mean by that line you just said?”
“I honestly don’t know. Someone else wrote it for me. I was kind of hoping you would know.”
So you’re thinking, “I don’t speak the same language as the king. What am I supposed to do?” And someone else comes along and says, “Look! I’m going to translate the whole thing for you, in your language, and print it alongside your speech!”
And you’re like, “Great! Now I have to keep turning pages.”
We keep thinking bad things about our own speech. You’d think that if anything, the king would say this.
“Wait, do you have an 800-page speech, double sided?”
“No, it’s okay. One side is in a language that I understand.”
“Which side are you going to read?”
And then sometimes you look at the translation and say, “I don’t know what these words mean either. I understood the actual words in the speech more than this.”
And I’m not just talking about obscure items, like when you’re saying Ketores, and you’re wondering, “What’s galbanum?”
“What do you mean? I put galbanum in my soup!”
“Wait, does this soup have spikenard? You know I’m allergic.”
I don’t even know what myrrh is, and it’s in my name. I don’t even know what frankincense is. Is it incense that smells like franks?
True, it could be that we don’t know them because these spices are from the other side of the world, but #1, nowadays our store carries fruit from the other side of the world right before Rosh Hashana, and #2, spices were literally the first thing people heard of. They opened the trade route for spices.
I’m talking about words in the siddur that might be English, but it’s an English that you can’t make heads or tails of without checking the Hebrew side for help. Thank goodness for the Hebrew side.
“Wait, what’s a holy convocation? Oh; mikrah kodesh.”
This is how I figured out that raiment was clothing. I was like, “What’s raiment? Oh; begadim.”
Ex.: Mordechai got his raiment dirty when he dropped the bucket of galbanum.
Sometimes they use big words because they’re dealing with the Ribbono Shel Olam. Like Hashem doesn’t have a face; he has a countenance. Whereas you have a face. I would never tell you, “Um, you have something on your countenance. You got it. Now it’s on your raiment.”
The translator says, “You know what? We’ll use big words, because they take up less space than the entire sentence of small words that’s needed to define a big word.”
And we say, “But we don’t know the big words.”
Or sometimes we know them, but their main definition doesn’t immediately spring to mind. And that’s not the siddur’s fault. Like whenever we talk about being satisfied with a bounty, I think paper towels.
The other option is for them to use slang, and then every couple of years they’re going to have to replace the machzor with a new edition, like Webster’s. Artscroll’s 87th Machzor! Unabridged! And they can have “cool” words, like rizz.
“Hashem, please grant us wisdom, understanding, and rizz.”
And then we can talk about how the malshinim should be deplatformed.
But instead of maybe taking the time to learn what the words mean in your own language, you say, “I’ll get it from context.” And you kind of do. Like at first, you wonder, “What’s an iniquity? It sounds like something you get from the bank.” And then you say, “Well, it’s mentioned among sin and error and transgression, so it’s probably some kind of sin or error or transgression!” And you’re pretty satisfied with that. And you never bother to ask yourself that if an iniquity is a sin, then why did the speechwriter put both of them in there?
And what are wanton sinners? I’m suddenly in the mood for kreplach.
So context isn’t as useful as we’re pretending it is. What’s the difference between wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and insight? I have neither the wisdom nor the knowledge nor the understanding nor the insight to know this on my own.
Also, context doesn’t always work. For example, I have no idea what splendor is, except in coffee. I can’t even picture splendor. I’m not fancy enough for splendor.
And don’t get me started on grace. People like to thank their “gracious hosts,” but then what’s Grace after Meals? Does grace just vaguely mean politeness? Then what does it mean if someone lands with grace? Or graces you with their presence?
What does it say about society that these are the kinds of words that never really come up except in davening?
We come across these words that we never learned in school, and it could be that the teacher tried to teach them, but we said, “When are we ever going to have to use words like these?” And our teachers did not take that as a teachable moment to say, “Someday, you’re going to be davening and you’re going to want to know the English, and the siddur is going to say these words, and you’re going to say, “I didn’t think, when I was packing my machzor for shul, to also pack a dictionary.””
Maybe every shul should have one in the back, hanging on a string.
The Artscroll is going to say “behold,” and you’ll say, “I never learned that word. I said, “When will I ever need it?””
I always thought behold meant, “I’m about to do something.” Magicians are always saying, “Behold!”
But I finally looked it up, and behold actually means look. But not just looking, like “Behold in the closet and see if we have a second bucket of galbanum.” It’s more like staring, but with positive connotations. Like you behold a nice menorah, but you don’t behold your friend’s back to see if his pimple has a whitehead.
Another thing we’re no longer taught in school is the purpose of the Shakespearean O, as in “O living eternal king,” or “O Hashem.”
Is this the O in OMG?
These are not words that yeshiva bochurim know. And the translators say, “It’s okay; we’re not writing them for yeshiva bochurim. It’s more for baalei batim.”
Yeah, these are words baalei batim use at work.
“Can I interest you in an iniquity?”
“You mean like a sin?”
And it’s not just the yeshiva system. It’s our whole country’s education. In fact, the frum world probably has a higher vocabulary because Artscroll is pulling it up with words like a fortiori and phylacteries. You go for a blood test, and they ask, “What are these lines on your arm?” and you say, “Those are from my phylacteries!” That doesn’t help. It sounds like a workout, like, “I do a hundred phylacteries every day. It’s good for the blood pressure.”
At the very least, Artscroll should come out with a vocabulary textbook for mesivtas that does keep getting updated. Just based on davening.
Now that would be something to behold. I think. If I’m using it right.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.