I've been a member of Conservative synagogues for thirty years, but I grew up in a Reform congregation. I recall a student rabbi who was my 10th grade confirmation class teacher saying that his ideal prayer book would be a loose leaf notebook in which prayers could be continuously added and deleted. I was drawn to Conservative Judaism in part as a reaction to that kind of creative liturgy (and also, after living in Israel and acquiring Hebrew literacy, praying in English seemed inauthentic).
The congregation I belong to now has a mostly Hebrew service in which the Hebrew of the prayers is the same as it has been for centuries (an exception being the Aleinu prayer which I will get to later, and the last paragraph of the Kaddish where following the phrase al kol yisrael "on all Israel" we add v'al kol yoshvei teivel "and on all the inhabitants of the globe"). When English is used, however, the God language is neutralized by substituting "God" for the masculine singular pronoun and by saying the Hebrew word "Adonai" for "Lord" (even though Adonai means Lord). My take on this is that whether in literature or in liturgy, every translation is an interpretation of and a commentary on the original text. So the congregation is leaving the orginal text unchanged but using the translation to question and criticize the original Hebrew text's perceived shortcomings.
Another factor, as you've noted, is that Hebrew, like most of the world's languages, is rigidly gendered. In English the only parts of speech that have gender are pronouns. In most other languages nouns and adjectives are also gendered. Hebrew is the only modern spoken language in which verbs are gendered. This is because Hebrew's development was arrested early on, but now that it is a spoken language again changes are starting to occur, such as the dropping of the third person plural female forms (which to contemporary Israelis sound arch, overly formal, and old fashioned) and the use of the third person plural masculine for either gender.
But if you prefer the traditional language, which version of the Aleinu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleinu) prayer do you prefer? Would you restore the censored verses (which the Conservative siddur omits)?
no subject
The congregation I belong to now has a mostly Hebrew service in which the Hebrew of the prayers is the same as it has been for centuries (an exception being the Aleinu prayer which I will get to later, and the last paragraph of the Kaddish where following the phrase al kol yisrael "on all Israel" we add v'al kol yoshvei teivel "and on all the inhabitants of the globe"). When English is used, however, the God language is neutralized by substituting "God" for the masculine singular pronoun and by saying the Hebrew word "Adonai" for "Lord" (even though Adonai means Lord). My take on this is that whether in literature or in liturgy, every translation is an interpretation of and a commentary on the original text. So the congregation is leaving the orginal text unchanged but using the translation to question and criticize the original Hebrew text's perceived shortcomings.
Another factor, as you've noted, is that Hebrew, like most of the world's languages, is rigidly gendered. In English the only parts of speech that have gender are pronouns. In most other languages nouns and adjectives are also gendered. Hebrew is the only modern spoken language in which verbs are gendered. This is because Hebrew's development was arrested early on, but now that it is a spoken language again changes are starting to occur, such as the dropping of the third person plural female forms (which to contemporary Israelis sound arch, overly formal, and old fashioned) and the use of the third person plural masculine for either gender.
But if you prefer the traditional language, which version of the Aleinu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleinu) prayer do you prefer? Would you restore the censored verses (which the Conservative siddur omits)?