>> My parents do not share my religion and I can imagine that there could be things they would ask me to do to honor their memory that I simply cannot do. This case is different, but it got me thinking.
I will have to deal with this eventually. My mother made me the executor of her will, which specifies that she wants to be cremated. I don't know whether I am permitted to do this or, if I'm not, whether I can let someone else do it for me. I've asked the rabbi, but he indicated it would be best to ask again when it was a practical rather than theoretical question.
>> I thought the English was correct as far as it went, but tonight I asked Dani to tell me what's missing. He read both, laughed, and said "synonyms". Apparently there are some things that are said a few different ways, just to be clear I suppose.
I guess they can be described as synonyms in terms of all the words standing for a vow of some sort, but from what I know, they're all different types of vows. I can post the Artscroll commentary on this if you're interested.
>> We're not allowed to call God "Lord" any more, or use the masculine pronoun, it seems. Ok, whatever.
My personal opinion (based on nothing scientific, just my opinion) is that gender designations are a sensitive spot largely because the English language has lost almost all of its gender features. It has natural gender (e.g., calling a female human or animal "she" because, well, it's obvious that she's a she), but not much else -- just a few archaic holdovers, such as calling a ship "she" (which even Lloyd's List has stopped doing within the last few years). English doesn't have masculine and feminine (or neuter) nouns in the way so many other languages (such as Hebrew) do. And because of this, when you say "she" in English, female qualities are assumed. It's not just another type of noun or pronoun; it is assumed to be specifically and necessarily female. This in turn makes it (for some people) politically charged. I personally am not bothered by it, particularly in translations from languages that do have gender, because it seems to me to be more of a function of the language than political commentary. (That's what I get for studying several languages, I guess.)
On parents: I should clarify that I can imagine that there are things within their tradition that I find objectionable. My parents are very reasonable people and don't tend to surprise people with serious stuff, so if they asked me to do something that would be problematic, we'd discuss it and they would (I expect) withdraw the request. I don't expect to be surprised by deathbed instructions.
I don't envy you your situation. Do you have siblings? If so, would any of them be suitable as exeuctor so that you can just avoid the situation?
I'm kind of surprised by your rabbi's response. At the time of loss, when (1) your emotional state is presumably not great and (2) things have to happen quickly, seems to be the worst time to consider the question. Unless that's his point -- that he needs to evaluate the specific effect on you at that time, or something like that.
I guess they can be described as synonyms in terms of all the words standing for a vow of some sort, but from what I know, they're all different types of vows. I can post the Artscroll commentary on this if you're interested.
Interesting. Maybe Dani's Aramaic (it's Aramaic and not Hebrew, right?) just isn't fine enough to have picked up on this? If it's not burdensome I would be interested in seeing the Artscroll commentary; the only machzor I have is the Reform one. (I have an Artscroll siddur, but not machzor.)
I agree with you on the gender stuff. English doesn't have gender in the way that most other languages we come in contact with do, so to English speakers who haven't studied other languages much, it has conotations that aren't really there.
I also don't really have a problem with masculine pronouns for God even if they do have such conotations. I mean, it's impolite to use "it", and for better or worse, "he" is neuter in English in a way that "she" can never be. Saying "he" does not cause me to picture a man, but saying "she" would make me twitch badly (unless talking about the Shechina, but even then there'd be some twitch). Now in most cases you can just rewrite the sentence to avoid the pronoun, and I'm ok with that, but the second- and third-order effects, like "kingdom", just seem like overkill to me. Oh well -- it's not like I can actually do anything about it, but that doesn't mean I won't whine about it occasionally. :-)
>> I don't envy you your situation. Do you have siblings? If so, would any of them be suitable as exeuctor so that you can just avoid the situation?
I do have a younger sister, but Mom appointed me as executor because my sis has an unfortunate tendency to be difficult to locate. She works odd hours, goes out a lot and rarely returns phone calls. I, on the other hand, am easier to trace -- I work at home, am more of a homebody and can usually be tracked down on the phone within 24 hours. (I don't want to sound like I'm bashing her -- I love her to death and she's a wonderful person, but she doesn't have a good sense of time.) My dad also appointed me as executor of his will for the same reason.
I'm not sure why the rabbi wants to answer the question later. I got the impression from him that it would take a good bit of research for him to answer me and that he was pressed enough for time that he'd feel more comfortable addressing the issue when it was urgent. Or it may be that he feels like the question can't be answered without taking my mental state into consideration. I don't know. Meanwhile, thank G-d, Mom's healthy.
>> Saying "he" does not cause me to picture a man, but saying "she" would make me twitch badly
To be honest, this was the straw that broke the camel's back years ago when I was checking out a Reconstructionist congregation. It grated on me so badly that I never came back. This wasn't the only reason why I was having trouble, but it did lead me to think things over and come to the conclusion that this wasn't for me.
>> If it's not burdensome I would be interested in seeing the Artscroll commentary
Not a problem at all -- I haven't even put the machzor away properly yet, so it's still accessible.
For reference purposes, I'll include here the text that lists all the types of vows: "Kal nidrei ve'esarei ushvuei vacharamei v'konamei v'kinusei v'chinuyei ..." Artscroll translates this as "All vows, prohibitions, oaths, consecrations, konam-vows, konas-vows or equivalent terms ..." and adds commentary as follows.
Nidrei -- Vows. A vow through which one accepts a prohibition upon himself. In the standard form of a neder one says: This item should be forbidden as it it were a korban -- Temple offering. By saying this, the person making the vow declares that all prohibitions forbidding the use of an offering should apply to the item in question.
Ve'esarei -- Prohibitions. This, too, is a neder, whereby a person imposes a prohibition on himself simply by saying, for example, "All apples are forbidden to me."
Ushvuei -- Oaths. By means of a shevuah oath, one obligates himself either to do or to refrain from doing or enjoying something. The difference between a neder and a shevuah is that a neder alters the status of the object (i.e., this apple becomes forbidden to me) while a shevuah alters the status of the person (i.e., I am forbidden to enjoy the apples).
Vacharamei -- Consecrations. This is a specific form of declaration that was used to sanctify something in the property of the Kohanim or of the Temple.
Konam-vows, konas-vows. Essentially, these are substitute terms for the word korban -- offering. Thus they are substitutes for the classic neder form of "This should be forbidden as it it were a korban -- offering." According to R' Yochanan, these words are foreign-language equivalents for the word "offering". According to Reish Lakish, they are slang terms devised by the Sages. The Sages invented these expressions because it was common for people to use the Scriptural term korban laShem, a korban to Hashem, and the Sages wished to discourage the unnecessary use of G-d's name (Nedarim 10a).
V'chinuyei -- Or equivalent terms. Although there are standard terms used to effect a neder such as korban or nazir, corruptions of these terms are also acceptable provided their intent was clear. Konam and konas are examples of such equivalents. Another example is the case of nazik or naziach instead of nazir (Nedarim 2a and Nazir 2a).
I do have a younger sister, but Mom appointed me as executor
I have a younger sister too but I, too, am the named exeuctor. In our case, family consensus is that I am better able to maintain a level head in a crisis. Nothing against my sister -- just that I'm likely to handle it better.
To be honest, this was the straw that broke the camel's back years ago when I was checking out a Reconstructionist congregation.
I think the thing I found most difficult at Reconstructionist services was the changes to time-honored liturgy, Hebrew and English. It wasn't specifically the gender thing so much as that certain phrases are just ingrained for me and they changed them in ways that struck me as gratuitious. They had their reasons, of course, and I'm not saying they shouldn't (Reform has done some of that too, after all), but the changes make it difficult for me to pray.
Thanks for all the information on vows! Some of those differences do seem subtle, so I'm not surprised that Dani (who doesn't geek out on this stuff) missed them.
>> consensus is that I am better able to maintain a level head in a crisis
I think this might have been part of my parents' motivation as well. Even so, I think the fact that I'm easier to track down was the main factor in their decisions.
>> Thanks for all the information on vows!
You're quite welcome. Oh, I meant to mention this earlier -- the text is in Aramaic, but so far as I know, the roots of most of the words designating different types of vows are the same as in Hebrew. Nidrei comes from nedarim, esarei comes from isurim, shvuei from shvuos, charamei from cheramim, etc. Konam and konas maybe not, but most of them are nearly the same as the Hebrew. What, me being a geek about linguistics? Never! It's unheard of! ;)
>> They had their reasons, of course, and I'm not saying they shouldn't (Reform has done some of that too, after all), but the changes make it difficult for me to pray.
They do have their reasons, but the reasons -- or at least the way I saw the reasoning played out -- was part of why I had a problem. The last time I went, there was an adult bas mitzvah ceremony where several women from the congregation got up and leyned. Afterwards, they each gave a dvar Torah in which they made a point of referring to G-d as "She". To borrow your word, I twitched. At first, I couldn't figure out why. I thought about it all the way home (an hour's walk) and came to this conclusion: Based on the content and tone of the divrei Torah, I didn't feel like they were using the word "She" in order to make a point about G-d having feminine aspects or about the possibility that "she" could be used as a non-specific pronoun just as "he" can. I felt like they did it purposefully, to say that they were declaring G-d to be female, and by female I mean female in the same way that we humans understand it. And I was uncomfortable with that -- to me it felt like they were saying, "I can't/won't relate to G-d unless I can make G-d more like me," rather than trying to absorb G-d's characteristics into themselves. I know I'm reading a lot into this -- I can't read people's minds any more than I can read Chinese, so I can't say what exactly the intent was. But I do know how it made me feel -- like this was not the place for me. And given that I was at the time still terrified of entering an Orthodox synagogue, it was enough to make me back off and say, "I can't do this [explore Judaism further with a view to conversion] now. Someday I will, but not now." (This happened more than 9 years ago, and I didn't enter a synagogue again for another four years.)
Oh, I meant to mention this earlier -- the text is in Aramaic, but so far as I know, the roots of most of the words designating different types of vows are the same as in Hebrew.
Ah, that explains it. I thought the Kol Nidre declaration was in the lingua franca of its time, Aramaic, but some of those words definitely looked and sounded like Hebrew to me (like "neder").
Afterwards, they each gave a dvar Torah in which they made a point of referring to G-d as "She".
Oh. I see.
I've only been to a few Reconstructionist services (3 or 4, I think), but so far as I remember that isn't standard. (They make other changes I object to, but I don't remember being pummeled with that one.) I know you've since found a home elsewhere, but I wouldn't completely write off Reconstructionist services just from that.
That sort of thing is what drove me from the local women's group, though. (It's city-wide, not tied to a congregation. They get together for Rosh Chodesh -- sounds like a fine idea, right?) They object to the gender-insensitivity of "he", but fail to see that "she" is equally insensitive, really even if it's just women in the room. It's ok to say that God isn't male and to look for neutral alternatives like "Creator", but if God isn't male, God also isn't female, and you can't change all the pronouns to "she". So while I find some of the changes in the newer Gates of Prayer to be awkward, they are not offensive in the way that this women's group and that Reconstructionist service you went to are. At least to me.
I will have to deal with this eventually. My mother made me the executor of her will, which specifies that she wants to be cremated. I don't know whether I am permitted to do this or, if I'm not, whether I can let someone else do it for me. I've asked the rabbi, but he indicated it would be best to ask again when it was a practical rather than theoretical question.
>> I thought the English was correct as far as it went, but tonight I asked Dani to tell me what's missing. He read both, laughed, and said "synonyms". Apparently there are some things that are said a few different ways, just to be clear I suppose.
I guess they can be described as synonyms in terms of all the words standing for a vow of some sort, but from what I know, they're all different types of vows. I can post the Artscroll commentary on this if you're interested.
>> We're not allowed to call God "Lord" any more, or use the masculine pronoun, it seems. Ok, whatever.
My personal opinion (based on nothing scientific, just my opinion) is that gender designations are a sensitive spot largely because the English language has lost almost all of its gender features. It has natural gender (e.g., calling a female human or animal "she" because, well, it's obvious that she's a she), but not much else -- just a few archaic holdovers, such as calling a ship "she" (which even Lloyd's List has stopped doing within the last few years). English doesn't have masculine and feminine (or neuter) nouns in the way so many other languages (such as Hebrew) do. And because of this, when you say "she" in English, female qualities are assumed. It's not just another type of noun or pronoun; it is assumed to be specifically and necessarily female. This in turn makes it (for some people) politically charged. I personally am not bothered by it, particularly in translations from languages that do have gender, because it seems to me to be more of a function of the language than political commentary. (That's what I get for studying several languages, I guess.)
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I don't envy you your situation. Do you have siblings? If so, would any of them be suitable as exeuctor so that you can just avoid the situation?
I'm kind of surprised by your rabbi's response. At the time of loss, when (1) your emotional state is presumably not great and (2) things have to happen quickly, seems to be the worst time to consider the question. Unless that's his point -- that he needs to evaluate the specific effect on you at that time, or something like that.
I guess they can be described as synonyms in terms of all the words standing for a vow of some sort, but from what I know, they're all different types of vows. I can post the Artscroll commentary on this if you're interested.
Interesting. Maybe Dani's Aramaic (it's Aramaic and not Hebrew, right?) just isn't fine enough to have picked up on this? If it's not burdensome I would be interested in seeing the Artscroll commentary; the only machzor I have is the Reform one. (I have an Artscroll siddur, but not machzor.)
I agree with you on the gender stuff. English doesn't have gender in the way that most other languages we come in contact with do, so to English speakers who haven't studied other languages much, it has conotations that aren't really there.
I also don't really have a problem with masculine pronouns for God even if they do have such conotations. I mean, it's impolite to use "it", and for better or worse, "he" is neuter in English in a way that "she" can never be. Saying "he" does not cause me to picture a man, but saying "she" would make me twitch badly (unless talking about the Shechina, but even then there'd be some twitch). Now in most cases you can just rewrite the sentence to avoid the pronoun, and I'm ok with that, but the second- and third-order effects, like "kingdom", just seem like overkill to me. Oh well -- it's not like I can actually do anything about it, but that doesn't mean I won't whine about it occasionally. :-)
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I do have a younger sister, but Mom appointed me as executor because my sis has an unfortunate tendency to be difficult to locate. She works odd hours, goes out a lot and rarely returns phone calls. I, on the other hand, am easier to trace -- I work at home, am more of a homebody and can usually be tracked down on the phone within 24 hours. (I don't want to sound like I'm bashing her -- I love her to death and she's a wonderful person, but she doesn't have a good sense of time.) My dad also appointed me as executor of his will for the same reason.
I'm not sure why the rabbi wants to answer the question later. I got the impression from him that it would take a good bit of research for him to answer me and that he was pressed enough for time that he'd feel more comfortable addressing the issue when it was urgent. Or it may be that he feels like the question can't be answered without taking my mental state into consideration. I don't know. Meanwhile, thank G-d, Mom's healthy.
>> Saying "he" does not cause me to picture a man, but saying "she" would make me twitch badly
To be honest, this was the straw that broke the camel's back years ago when I was checking out a Reconstructionist congregation. It grated on me so badly that I never came back. This wasn't the only reason why I was having trouble, but it did lead me to think things over and come to the conclusion that this wasn't for me.
>> If it's not burdensome I would be interested in seeing the Artscroll commentary
Not a problem at all -- I haven't even put the machzor away properly yet, so it's still accessible.
For reference purposes, I'll include here the text that lists all the types of vows: "Kal nidrei ve'esarei ushvuei vacharamei v'konamei v'kinusei v'chinuyei ..." Artscroll translates this as "All vows, prohibitions, oaths, consecrations, konam-vows, konas-vows or equivalent terms ..." and adds commentary as follows.
Nidrei -- Vows. A vow through which one accepts a prohibition upon himself. In the standard form of a neder one says: This item should be forbidden as it it were a korban -- Temple offering. By saying this, the person making the vow declares that all prohibitions forbidding the use of an offering should apply to the item in question.
Ve'esarei -- Prohibitions. This, too, is a neder, whereby a person imposes a prohibition on himself simply by saying, for example, "All apples are forbidden to me."
Ushvuei -- Oaths. By means of a shevuah oath, one obligates himself either to do or to refrain from doing or enjoying something. The difference between a neder and a shevuah is that a neder alters the status of the object (i.e., this apple becomes forbidden to me) while a shevuah alters the status of the person (i.e., I am forbidden to enjoy the apples).
Vacharamei -- Consecrations. This is a specific form of declaration that was used to sanctify something in the property of the Kohanim or of the Temple.
Konam-vows, konas-vows. Essentially, these are substitute terms for the word korban -- offering. Thus they are substitutes for the classic neder form of "This should be forbidden as it it were a korban -- offering." According to R' Yochanan, these words are foreign-language equivalents for the word "offering". According to Reish Lakish, they are slang terms devised by the Sages. The Sages invented these expressions because it was common for people to use the Scriptural term korban laShem, a korban to Hashem, and the Sages wished to discourage the unnecessary use of G-d's name (Nedarim 10a).
V'chinuyei -- Or equivalent terms. Although there are standard terms used to effect a neder such as korban or nazir, corruptions of these terms are also acceptable provided their intent was clear. Konam and konas are examples of such equivalents. Another example is the case of nazik or naziach instead of nazir (Nedarim 2a and Nazir 2a).
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I have a younger sister too but I, too, am the named exeuctor. In our case, family consensus is that I am better able to maintain a level head in a crisis. Nothing against my sister -- just that I'm likely to handle it better.
To be honest, this was the straw that broke the camel's back years ago when I was checking out a Reconstructionist congregation.
I think the thing I found most difficult at Reconstructionist services was the changes to time-honored liturgy, Hebrew and English. It wasn't specifically the gender thing so much as that certain phrases are just ingrained for me and they changed them in ways that struck me as gratuitious. They had their reasons, of course, and I'm not saying they shouldn't (Reform has done some of that too, after all), but the changes make it difficult for me to pray.
Thanks for all the information on vows! Some of those differences do seem subtle, so I'm not surprised that Dani (who doesn't geek out on this stuff) missed them.
Reply
I think this might have been part of my parents' motivation as well. Even so, I think the fact that I'm easier to track down was the main factor in their decisions.
>> Thanks for all the information on vows!
You're quite welcome. Oh, I meant to mention this earlier -- the text is in Aramaic, but so far as I know, the roots of most of the words designating different types of vows are the same as in Hebrew. Nidrei comes from nedarim, esarei comes from isurim, shvuei from shvuos, charamei from cheramim, etc. Konam and konas maybe not, but most of them are nearly the same as the Hebrew. What, me being a geek about linguistics? Never! It's unheard of! ;)
>> They had their reasons, of course, and I'm not saying they shouldn't (Reform has done some of that too, after all), but the changes make it difficult for me to pray.
They do have their reasons, but the reasons -- or at least the way I saw the reasoning played out -- was part of why I had a problem. The last time I went, there was an adult bas mitzvah ceremony where several women from the congregation got up and leyned. Afterwards, they each gave a dvar Torah in which they made a point of referring to G-d as "She". To borrow your word, I twitched. At first, I couldn't figure out why. I thought about it all the way home (an hour's walk) and came to this conclusion: Based on the content and tone of the divrei Torah, I didn't feel like they were using the word "She" in order to make a point about G-d having feminine aspects or about the possibility that "she" could be used as a non-specific pronoun just as "he" can. I felt like they did it purposefully, to say that they were declaring G-d to be female, and by female I mean female in the same way that we humans understand it. And I was uncomfortable with that -- to me it felt like they were saying, "I can't/won't relate to G-d unless I can make G-d more like me," rather than trying to absorb G-d's characteristics into themselves. I know I'm reading a lot into this -- I can't read people's minds any more than I can read Chinese, so I can't say what exactly the intent was. But I do know how it made me feel -- like this was not the place for me. And given that I was at the time still terrified of entering an Orthodox synagogue, it was enough to make me back off and say, "I can't do this [explore Judaism further with a view to conversion] now. Someday I will, but not now." (This happened more than 9 years ago, and I didn't enter a synagogue again for another four years.)
Reply
Ah, that explains it. I thought the Kol Nidre declaration was in the lingua franca of its time, Aramaic, but some of those words definitely looked and sounded like Hebrew to me (like "neder").
Afterwards, they each gave a dvar Torah in which they made a point of referring to G-d as "She".
Oh. I see.
I've only been to a few Reconstructionist services (3 or 4, I think), but so far as I remember that isn't standard. (They make other changes I object to, but I don't remember being pummeled with that one.) I know you've since found a home elsewhere, but I wouldn't completely write off Reconstructionist services just from that.
That sort of thing is what drove me from the local women's group, though. (It's city-wide, not tied to a congregation. They get together for Rosh Chodesh -- sounds like a fine idea, right?) They object to the gender-insensitivity of "he", but fail to see that "she" is equally insensitive, really even if it's just women in the room. It's ok to say that God isn't male and to look for neutral alternatives like "Creator", but if God isn't male, God also isn't female, and you can't change all the pronouns to "she". So while I find some of the changes in the newer Gates of Prayer to be awkward, they are not offensive in the way that this women's group and that Reconstructionist service you went to are. At least to me.
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