[Avodah] HaShem HaMelech

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Micha Berger wrote:

> We were discussing the new Maxwell House Haggadah and its use
> of gender neutral language. I commented that I found that "the
> four children" is more accurate than "the four sons" since that
> better describes the mitzvah of sippur yetzi'as Mitzrayim.
>
> That pasuq is a simile, not a metaphor. IOW, Hashem isn't called
> a Mother, Hashem says "Like a person who is comforted by his
> mother, so I will comfort you." The comparison is made without
> elevating Mother to a title.
>
> But in any case, even if I agreed with this example, it would
> reinforce the idea that the metaphor of Father and Mother are
> distinct, and the non-specific Parent is thus not identical to
> the original.

The problem we have here is that we are translating from a language which has only masculine and feminine into a language which also has a neutral gender. So it seems to me that in every case, the translator must carefully examine the context and ask, "Is this Hebrew word masculine because it is referring to a male person, or because it is just using the default form?"

For this reason, in the translation of the Hagada that I wrote for my family, the Arba Banim are "children". But if I were translating the Shema, "b'neichem" (Devarim 11:19) would be "sons" -- and not "children" -- because it refers only to males (at least according to Rashi there, though I'm not aware of any dissenters).

In the example in question, do people expect more mercy from a queen than from a king? I don't think so; the main idea of both is that of absolute rulership. Thus I would argue that the best translation would be one that does not carry any gendered baggage. Unfortunately, "monarch" is not nearly as common a word as "king", and has the potential for sounding stilted.

This gets more complicated with Father and Mother. It isn't always clear which aspect of Hashem we're referring to. Sometimes we even go in opposite directions at the same time: In "Avinu Malkenu" we appeal both to Midas Harachamim and Midas Hadin. But "our Mother, our King" just sounds too weird, and if someone thinks that "our Parent, our Monarch" is a better compromise, I'm not going to say they're wrong.

Akiva Miller

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