My husband came home from shul this a.m. and told me that a friend from shul is traveling to NY on Thursday to go to the OHEL, the Lubavitcher Rebbe's final resting ground, where people from all over the world come to pray at Rabbi Schneerson's grave, and often leave a "petek" -- the equivalent of the millions of notes stuffed into the Wailing Wall, notes that have prayers and requests for good health, peace, financial stability. The list goes on and on. The friend asked if we want to write a petek, so I began to write one this evening.
As I was writing, I realized I was writing in Hebrew, and then wondered WHY?? Does G-d only understand Hebrew? Are there not thousands of Lubavitchers who come from the world over to visit the OHEL? Are all the notes that are left at the gravesite written in Hebrew? Highly doubtful -- no doubt they are in Yiddish, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portugese, etc.
The language of prayer can be the language one is most familiar and most comfortable with, but I guess my subconscious had decided that the holiest language should be the language of choice for my prayer representing my hopes and desires for my family.
Let us hope that Rabbi Schneerson is as good an emissary as the thousands he's sent out into the world and that he will be able to get my message straight to G-d... And the fact that my message doesn't need any translation might even speed things up! :)
2 comments:
Just dropping by from COTM to say I heard (read) your words and they were beautiful. "Gracias a Dios" (He might even understand spanish)
I recently started to pray again. I am reading my prayers in Hebrew. I haven't read Hebrew since high school (20 years ago - oy vey has it been that long??)
I understand most of the words, but what is more important to me is the intention. Hebrew, English, Spanish, French...as long as the intention is there, I think G-d is there to listen. But you have to have your ears/eyes open to hear His words in return.
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