Of course Reuven knows how to daven. He has been
saying his prayers since he was a child and knows most of
them by heart. In fact, when he davens, he barely
needs to look into the siddur.
On Rosh Hashona, a unique idea occurred to him: how about
giving his davening a thorough overhaul? The speed of
prayer is slower than usual and he would have time to be able
to look at each word as if he had never seen it before.
Reuven was shocked by the results of his trial.
Reuven found that he had been misreading hundreds of words!
He repeated the exercise on the next day of Rosh Hashona and
found even more mistakes. During the following week, he
invested more time in his praying and became more sensitive
to the correct pronunciation of words -- and then his ears
started to detect the mistakes of people around him --
including those of the shaliach tzibbur.
Reuven's first reaction was that he should go around rebuking
everyone (including the shaliach tzibbur) and showing
them their mistakes. However, after reconsidering this, he
realized that such a direct approach might not be the most
productive, and he decided to discuss the problem with his
Rav before taking action.
Though Reuven said selichos every morning, he had
always found it almost impossible to relate to most of them
and he had had to rely heavily on an English translation.
Now, to his pleasant surprise, he found that he was beginning
to understand more of the text and appreciate much of the
`music' of their rhyming poetry.
Reuven found that some of the words he had been reading
incorrectly were just childish mistakes because he had first
read the prayers when he was a child and had learned to say
them by heart -- with the childish mistakes! He also realized
that he had been ignoring some of the vowels.
Other mistakes came because he found the letter-vowel
combinations difficult to pronounce. So he would `short-cut'
the pronunciation and, for example, read velimadtem as
velimatem. Some mistakes came from not noticing when a
letter was `hard' or `soft', such as, for example, the
changing of the peh to feh or the kof to
chof, as in the following:
"Mi-K-lal u-F-rat umi-P-rat u-CH-lal. K-lal u-F-rat u-CH-
lal," and so on, as a very elucidating example
passage.
Most of the other mistakes involved the letters alef, hei,
ayin. Sometimes, Reuven found that he was ignoring them
completely, as in "Lema'an shmo b'ahava" which he had
been swallowing as "Leman shmo b'ava."
At other times, he had transferred the vowel to the next
letter, as in the word, "nor'osecheicha," reading it
as noroseicha and forgetting about the alef
altogether.
During Yom Kippur, Reuven resolved to upgrade his reading
even more. He was able to get a machzor which
indicated which shva was sounded (na) and which
was passive (nach). It also indicated where to put the
stress of the word when it does not go on the last syllable,
as it usually does in Hebrew (milra). He also paid
attention to stress the hei when it had a
dagesh [technically called a mapik, where the
breath is contained], occasionally appearing at the end of a
word.
And once again, Reuven found that much of the piyutim
began to `open' for him. For the first time, he understood
most of the Yom Kippur avoda and appreciated the terse
vigor of the style in which it is written. The heart- rending
account of the deaths of the `Ten Martyrs' evoked tears,
which the English translation had not been able to do.
Inaccurate reading of Loshon Hakodesh will always lead to
significant mistakes in meaning [since the change of a single
vowel or an interposed letter can make a major difference].
Therefore, a person who tries to read conscientiously might
feel pressured and make davening into a traumatic
experience. But reading needs to be relaxed and automatic.
Reuven found that after a few days of working hard on the
accuracy of his reading, the words began to flow and reading
became enjoyable and meaningful.
People who find that some words are physically difficult to
pronounce can invest time before tefilla to practice
saying those words, or word- combinations.
Naturally, a child listens to the way his parents
daven and says brochos, and that sets an
example for him. When a parent listens to his child reading,
he feels obligated to jump in and immediately correct every
mistake he makes. However, this might not be the best
approach. Constant correction interrupts the flow of reading
and can seriously undermine a child's self confidence.
A more gentle approach is to sit with the child after he has
completed his reading/praying and point to each `problem'
word in turn, asking him how he reads it. If he now reads it
correctly, you can continue to the next word. If he errs, try
to guide him to seeing the source of his mistake, by himself.
If the child cannot detect his error, do not pressure him but
tell him the correct pronunciation. He should then repeat it
after you and then you can continue on to the next `problem'
word.
Of course, you should only attempt correction if you feel
completely relaxed and have endless patience. If YOU feel
pressured, the child will probably detect the feeling and
then the parent runs the risk of making the child feel that
reading is an unpleasant activity.
The parent also needs to be flexible in his standards of
correct and incorrect. Total perfection of reading is a
highly sophisticated activity which demands very high levels
of development and instruction.
I once asked the principal of a top Jerusalem cheder
what level of sufficiency I was to aim for when working with
children from his cheder. The realistic low level he
required pleasantly surprised me. As he explained,
development of reading skills is an ongoing process extending
beyond the years of cheder. And, as Reuven discovered,
it can even extend into the advanced years of gray-bearded
adulthood.
