Praying on autopilot,&other language-maven laments

“It’s no wonder I can’t hear your “mem sofits”—when you turn around and davven (pray) facing the congregation, I can see that you don’t close your mouth. You can’t make an M sound without closing your mouth! You do that all the time—you don’t pronounce all of your sounds.”

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“Well, you know it all anyway.”

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“Whether or not I know it all is irrelevant—as shaliach tzibbur (representative of the congregation [in prayer]), your responsibility is to recite the prayers for those who don’t know them. If they haven’t heard every word clearly, have they fulfilled their prayer obligation by listening to you pray and saying "Amen" after every b'rachah (blessing)? As a baal tefillah (prayer leader), you have to know not only when to open your mouth, but when to close it, too.”

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Okay, okay, I’ll try to enunciate more clearly.”

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For the record, this is an ongoing discussion. (Sigh.) He’s so busy worrying about the music that he doesn’t pay sufficient attention to the words.

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He’s not the only one.

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“Why do you say it this way:

‘V’al kulam, yitbarach v’yitromam,

shimcha malkeinu, l’olam vaed.’

Don’t you pay any attention to what the words mean? Listen!

‘For all of these things, blessed and extolled,

be Your name our Sovereign, forever and ever.’

Why do you break up the phrase by putting a pause there?”

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“But that’s the way the nusach (traditional tune) goes!”

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“Then fiddle around with the nusach until it matches the meaning of the words. The music should follow the words, not the other way around! When you put a “comma” in the wrong place in a prayer, you sound like an am ha-aretz (Jewishly-ignorant person) who doesn’t understand the words. Not only does that put you in an embarrassing position, it also puts the synagogue in an embarrassing position because of kavod ha-tzibbur (the honor of the community). It’s less than ideal to have an am ha-aretz leading services.”

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I can’t help it—I'm a language maven ("maven = expert" in Yiddish, from "mavin," meaning "understand" in Hebrew). As a former foreign language major with a B.A. in French and a few semesters of Spanish under my belt, not to mention a year or two of Hebrew Ulpan, I tend to notice it when people are playing fast and lose with language.

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Mind you, my ear for languages has not always stood me in good stead.

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Many years ago, a co-worker accused me of being a racist because I’d imitated her West Indian accent. I had to explain to her that race had nothing to do with it—it’s just that, as an ex-foreign language major, imitating accents is what I do.

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My all-time winner, though, was the time I was having a conversation with my then-rabbi and didn’t realize, until the conversation was over and I’d walked away, that I’d been “echoing” his British accent right back at him. Oy, how mortifying. I hope he got over being annoyed eventually.

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See also "Musical license,"* or the case of the misplaced comma--A different way of listening to words and More "misplaced commas" :).