Ask the Rabbi
- Halacha
- How to Pray?
- Customs of Pronunciation and Wording
Question
I am an Ashkenazi Jew who lives in Canada. I now go to a Chabad synagogue there and I find it insulting when I hear the Chabad Rabbis pray using there Ashkenazi accent (The Saf instead of Taf and mispronouncing some of the Hebrew words)!! Is that proper Hebrew?
Answer
HaRav Moshe Feinstein writes that all pronunciations of Hebrew which have been adopted by Jewish communities are proper Hebrew, much as English- whether spoken in England, in Boston, in Georgia or in Australia or South Africa- is still English. Belong to that Orthodox synagogue where the custom is most similar to what your father and grandfather davened and if this is impossible or irrelevant, to the Orthodox synagogue where you feel you can daven best.

Correct pronunciation
Rabbi Elchanan Lewis | Iyyar 20, 5769

Variations within the same Nusach
Rabbi David Sperling | Adar II 27, 5779

Hebrew or English?
Rabbi Eliezer S. Weisz | 24 Shevat 5764




