Thread by @JewishWonk

I have a goal of learning to do davening (Jewish prayer) in Hebrew, learn the structure of various services, and be able read some daily brachot (blessings) in the original Hebrew. Some thoughts for those who may share the same goal or overlap with it.

1) How come I don't know this already?

a) For the unfamiliar, I come from a secular Soviet Jewish family. The bulk of my Jewish education has occurred as an adult.
b) You'd be surprised how far you can get into Jewish study, observance, and community without knowing Hebrew!

b continued) Does this order of operations make sense?

For me, it is the order that did. Internalizing the *framework* for Jewish thought made practice and engagement far more intuitive than the reverse. Others may have different experiences and those are valid too.

2) What's the motivation for doing this now?

a) I've had this motivation for a while. I do not enjoy or take pride in my lack of Jewish literacy. Torah is the birthright of every Jew. I intend to claim mine.

b) The recent urgency to it is that I am married and contemplating what kind of environment, knowledge, and values I want to be imparting to any future children I am blessed to have.

I do not want to say "go ask ima (mom)" or "go ask rabbi/teacher" for things *I* deem important

I think back a lot on the ways my parents imparted values, ideas, and habits to me as a kid. So much of it was by doing it in their daily lives. I spent the vast majority of my life in the states, but I have a surprisingly Soviet Jewish brain and soul because of that experience.

The unspoken idea there was learn by doing. That your actions are important, not just your words.

It's the same thing that initially drew me to Judaism. It is a religion that expects and encourages action.

3) How is it going in that learning?

It's really freaking hard man! Quite slow too. And this is in the luckiest circumstances: I have a wife, friends, and in-laws who have each forgotten more Torah than I have ever learned.

I have never been particularly smart as that's usually defined. I do not pick things up easily. I do not intuitively understand things. I am a slow learner. What I lack in intelligence I try to compensate for in stubborn repetition.

It eventually sinks in.

There are many Jewish practices that I have incorporated into my life over the years. e.g., I have been trying to be daily in saying modeh ani, putting on my tallis with the accompanying prayer, and the same for tefillin.

I rely on transliteration and translation.

My slowness in learning things translates into meaningful satisfaction when it actually clicks.

I have heard the amidah in shul so many times that I could reflexively do it in response.

I read it in Hebrew for the first time this week. My relationship to it changed.

I felt a connection to it in the same way I do whenever we welcome in Shabbos: the knowledge that there are Jews like me and completely unlike me all over the world in that moment doing the same thing.

I thought about my ancestors who used these words in their daily lives.

A felt a connection to the amidah in a way that I never did when I used the transliteration. *I* said these words in the holy tongue of my ancestors. I was not pretending or performing or going through the motions.

The satisfaction was immense.

I am not sharing this to brag, though I am proud that the door finally feels like it is opening. I am sharing it for the Jewish adults who want this for themselves, but feel, each for their own reasons, that this path is closed to them.

It is not.

You do not have to learn Jewishly by anyone's standards, timelines, guidelines, or expectations but your own.

What you need is freely available to you: a desire to learn and ownership of the fact that you want this.