Over the past few decades, many temples-including the more traditional ones, like Chabad-have added more and more English text to the High Holiday prayerbook. The Chabad prayerbook really is the best of both worlds: It contains the unabridged, original version that was created thousands of years ago by various esteemed rabbis, poets, and sages, and offers it both in complete Hebrew and complete English, side by side. While many of the prayers are recited out loud in English, the majority of them are recited in Hebrew.
This is something that we should all savor, regardless of one's level of familiarity with our holy language. Just think, the very words the cantor and/or congregation are chanting are the very words that the Jews recited during the Spanish Inquisition in 1478 as Marranos in hiding, and during the Russian Pogroms in 1821 in a time of terror. When we sing as one "Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father, Our King...", we are singing the very song the Jews in Auschwitz sang on Rosh Hashanah as they held onto their faith and each other.
For some of us that are more comfortable reading and understanding English, it enables us to experience the prayers with our minds.
For all of us listening to these timeless, divine Hebrew words said by millions of Jews in millions of different circumstances, it enables us to experience the prayers with our hearts and souls.
Rishe wrote...