The root metaphor, which for our ancestors most captured their sense of the Divine was that of King or Lord. For many of us, this is no longer our deepest way of conceiving the Divine. Fills All Being, we have begun to alter the language of prayer. At Elat Chayyim, other God names drawn from our tradition have been used in place of the four letter name. In addition, Hebrew is a gender-based language.
Every noun has either a masculine or feminine connotation.
Traditional references to the Divine are in the masculine. At Elat Chayyim we try to balance references in Hebrew by using both masculine and feminine forms. Our changes in liturgy are intended to open hearts and minds rather than to be prescriptive. Participants in prayer at Elat Chayyim freely use whatever language of prayer works best for them. We often pray in English or use very short Hebrew phrases in order to maximize the accessibility to the content and meaning of the prayers.