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Praying in Hebrew

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Rabbi Ari Shvat

Tammuz 6, 5772
Question
Rabbi, if as you have said, speaking to G-d directly from your heart is the most important praise and prayer, especially for non-Jews who don’t speak Hebrew, then what advantage is there to Jews who speak Hebrew? Do Hebrew speaking non-Jews have the same advantage? Your answers to my questions have been very helpful to me. Todah rabbah!
Answer
Hello Byron, Speaking from the heart is of utmost importance, for our direct connection with G-d, should be without intermediaries, like a child speaking to his Father. But in addition, if one can understand and speak to Him in His Holy Language, especially if you can truly identify from your heart with the holiest of the wordings of the most choice prayers and hymns ever written by the prophets and sages over 3,300 years, you gain that much more connection with Him and all those great people who composed those ideal and educational prayers. Hebrew has such deep kabbalistic meanings in every letter, root and word, that G-d actually created the world with the Hebrew language (the verb used 10 times throughout creation is "and He said", i.e. in Hebrew). Gentiles are clearly not expected, at this stage, to speak Hebrew, but if you do speak, or at least understand Hebrew, than you can gain those meaningful, mystical and historic advantages, as well. In the end of days, we have a tradition that the entire world will once again speak the Jewish language of Hebrew, like we all did before the Tower of Babel, so if you are "ahead of your time" than good for you! The fact is that globalization is clearly setting the stage for the world to speak one international language, it's just a question when that one language will return to being Hebrew, and inherently, this will entail a world-wide return to true Hebrew values as well (for a language also entails values). With Love of Israel, Rav Ari Shvat
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