[Avodah] HaShem HaMelech

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 01:31:28AM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: 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...

Not for words denoting people. E.g. people are "he" or "she", it's
insulting to refer to someome as "it". And similarly, I wouldn't call HQBH
"It" in a translation -- because we believe in a G-d Who has something we
can call a "Will". Until feminists introduced the notion of sensitivity
to using gendered language, "he" was routinely used to mean "he or she",
rather than "it". When it came to people, English was once much like
Hebrew. It was the people clamoring for gender free grammar who /created/
the problem. But we can't turn back the clock. English has been altered,
and so we have to translate to the current dialect.

...
: 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).

To repeat RAM's point in different words:
The chiyuv of talmud Torah is only to boys, not so sippur yetzi'as
Mitzrayim. Therefore in one case "banim" is "sons", in the other case
"children".

: In the example in question, do people expect more mercy from a queen
: than from a king? I don't think so...

As I wrote on Areivim, we don't really have the ability to recapture
the baal hagadah's intent. Because none of us grew up under an absolute
monarchy, in a world where "king" and "queen" create visceral responses.

We can't turn back the clock on this either.

There is simply no mapping from calling HQBH "Melekh" to anything in
contemporary English. A translator has to choose what elements of the
original ambiguity -- King vs Monarch -- he will omit.

I had suggested that since we often pair "Avinu Malkeinu", and since
Hashem /is/ more like an Av than an Eim (imahos are more present during
childhood), we should keep "Melekh" in the same gender as "Av". But as
I just said, any such decision is really about which wrong choice to
make.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them,
micha at aishdas.org        I have found myself, my work, and my God.
http://www.aishdas.org                - Helen Keller
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