Prayer/Tefilah 101: Language of Blessing

-Yehuda Ha'Levi
Today we're going to focus on the basic blessing formula - six words that introduce nearly all statements of blessing in Jewish practice.

Let's examine each of these 6 words one at a time...

The personal name of the God of Israel is written in the Hebrew Bible with the four consonants YHWHand is referred to as the "Tetragrammaton." At least until the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. this name was regularly pronounced with its proper vowels, as is clear from the *LachishLetters, written shortly before that date. But at least by the third century B.C.E. the pronunciation of the name YHWH was avoided, and Adonai, "the Lord," was substituted for it, as evidenced by the use of the Greek word Kyrios, "Lord," for YHWH in the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that was begun by Greek-speaking Jews in that century. Where the combined form ʾAdonai YHWHoccurs in the Bible, this was read as ʾAdonai ʾElohim, "Lord God." In the early Middle Ages, when the consonantal text of the Bible was supplied with vowel points to facilitate its correct traditional reading, the vowel points for ʾAdonai with one variation – a sheva with the initial yod of YHWH instead of the ḥataf-pataḥ under the aleph of ʾAdonai – were used for YHWH, thus producing the form YeHoWaH. When Christian scholars of Europe first began to study Hebrew, they did not understand what this really meant, and they introduced the hybrid name "Jehovah." In order to avoid pronouncing even the sacred name ʾAdonaifor YHWH, the custom was later introduced of saying simply in Hebrew ha-Shem (or Aramaic Shemā ʾ, "the Name") even in such an expression as "Blessed be he that cometh in the name of YHWH" (Ps. 118:26). The avoidance of pronouncing the name YHWH is generally ascribed to a sense of reverence. More precisely, it was caused by a misunderstanding of the Third Commandment (Ex. 20:7; Deut. 5:11) as meaning "Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain," whereas it really means either "You shall not swear falsely by the name of YHWH your God" (JPS) or more likely, "Do not speak the name of YHWH your god, to that which is false," i.e., do not identify YHWH with any other god.
The true pronunciation of the name YHWH was never lost. Several early Greek writers of the Christian Church testify that the name was pronounced "Yahweh." This is confirmed, at least for the vowel of the first syllable of the name, by the shorter form Yah, which is sometimes used in poetry (e.g., Ex. 15:2) and the -yahu or -yah that serves as the final syllable in very many Hebrew names. In the opinion of manyscholars, YHWH is a verbal form of the root hwh, which is an older variant of the root hyh "to be." The vowel of the first syllable shows that the verb is used in the form of a future-present causative hiphʾil, and must therefore mean "He causes to be, He brings into existence." The explanation of the name as given in Exodus 3:14, Eheyeh-Asher-Eheyeh, "I-Am-Who-I-Am," offers a folk etymology, common in biblical explanation of names, rather than a strictly scientific one. Like many other Hebrew names in the Bible, the name Yahweh is no doubt a shortened form of what was originally a longer name. It has been suggested that the original, full form of the name was something like Yahweh-Asher-Yihweh, "He brings into existence whatever exists" or Yahweh Ẓevaʾot (I Sam. 1:3, 11), which really means "He brings the hosts [of heaven – or of Israel?] into existence." "The Lord of Hosts," the traditional translation of the latter name, is doubtful.
According to the documentary hypothesis, the literary sources in the Pentateuch known as the Elohist and the Priestly Document never use the name Yahweh for God until it is revealed to Moses (Ex. 3:13; 6:2–3); but the Yahwist source uses it from Genesis 2:4 on and puts the name in Eve's declaration, "I along with Yahweh have made a man," thus implying that it was known to the first human generation (Gen. 4:1; cf. 4:26). The apparent purpose of Exodus 6:2–3 is to glorify Moses at the expense of the patriarchal traditions.

(Names of God, EJ, Authors: Louis F. Hartman, S. David Sperling, Louis Isaac Rabinowitz, Moshe Idel and Marvin Fox
Editors: Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, Date: 2007)

The oldest Semitic term for God is ʾel (corresponding to Akkadian ilu (m), Canaanite ʾel or ʾil, and Arabic ʾel as an element in personal names). The etymology of the word is obscure. It is commonly thought that the term derived from a root ʾyl or ʾwl, meaning "to be powerful" (cf. yesh le-el yadi, "It is in the power of my hand," Gen. 31:29; cf. Deut. 28:32; Micah 2:1). But the converse may be true; since power is an essential element in the concept of deity, the term for deity may have been used in the transferred sense of "power."
In Akkadian, ilu (m), and plural ilū and ilānu, is used in reference to any individual god as well as to divine beings in general; but it is not employed as the personal name of any god. In Ugaritic Canaanite, however, il occurs much more frequently as the personal name of the highest god el than as the common noun "god" (pl., ilm; fem., ilt). In the Ugaritic myths El is the head of the Canaanite pantheon, the ancestor of the other gods and goddesses, and the creator of the earth and its creatures; but he generally fades into the background and plays a minor role in the preserved myths.
In the Bible ʾel is seldom used as the personal name of God, e.g., ʾEl-ʾElohei-Yisrael, "El, the God of [the Patriarch] Israel" (Gen. 33:20; cf. Ps. 146:5). Almost always, ʾel is an appellative, with about the same semantic range as ʾelohim (see below). The word can thus be preceded by the article: ha-ʾel, "the [true] God" (e.g., Ps. 18:31, 33, 48; 57:3). Like ʾelohim, ʾel can be employed in reference to an "alien god" (Deut. 32:12; Mal. 2:11) or a "strange god" (Ps. 44:21; 81:10). It can also have the plural form ʾelim, "heavenly beings" (Ex. 15:11). In contrast to the extremely common word ʾelohim, ʾel occurs relatively seldom, except in archaic or archaizing poetry, as in Job and Psalms. But ʾel and, rarely, ʾelohim are used when the term is modified by one or more adjectives, e.g., "a jealous god" (e.g., Ex. 20:5; 34:14), "a god compassionate and gracious" (e.g., Ex. 34:6; Ps. 86:15). Moreover, ʾel, not ʾelohim, is used when the divine is contrasted with the human (Num. 23:19; Isa. 31:3; Ezek. 28:9; Hos. 11:9; Job 25:4). As an element in theophoric names, ʾel, not ʾelohim, is used often as the first element, e.g., Elijah, Elisha, and Elihu, and even more often as the last element, e.g., Israel, Ishmael, and Samuel. Of special interest are the divine names of which El is the first element: ʾEl ʿElyon, ʾEl ʿOlam, ʾEl Shaddai,ʾEl Ro ʾi, and ʾEl Berit.
(Ibid., EJ)

We tend to translate Olam as a term for space/physical area, but the root Ayin/Lamed/Mem carries more meanings:

• Space/physical area (e.g. The world stands on 3 things...)
• Time/Eternity (e.g. Adon Olam)
• Mystery/What is hidden (Deuteronomy 22:3)

The root E/L/M then suggests God is Sovereign infused with 4 different spirits/foci:

• God is Sovereign of the entire universe, of all space/area known and unknown (So, in theory, God is also God of the Klingons...)
• God is God of all time, God is within time and also transcendent of it - Erich Fromm once asked how we as finite/mortal beings can relate to an infinite/incorporeal God - One answer: Because God wants the relationship!

R. Nahman of Breslev refers to a teaching made famous by R. Issac Luria that at the "earliest moments of Creation when the Holy One, whose light filled the illness, contracted* that one endless light, withdrawing Self into Self to make space into which Creation could issue forth. From this teaching we understand that for Creation to exist, God must withdraw and limit full intensity of the divine light. To nurture existence divinity must self-conceal. It is through this self-diminution that the Infinite gives life to, supports, and cherishes the finite...

Marcia Prager, p. 60

*Tzimtzum = contraction
Activity: Think about the six words of the blessing Baruch Atah Ado-nai Elo-henu Melech Ha'olam

Read through the six words and see which words your attention falls on at this moment.

Write that word down and a sentence or two about what may be connecting you to this word at this moment.

Prayer is reaching out to God, but with the poem where we started, God was coming toward us, looking for us.

We first see this in the early days of Creation.

Rashi here:
God knew where he was, but God asked this in order to open up a conversation with him...

Bekhor Shor:
It's God's way to speak to people in the language of people...

Malbim:
Where are you spiritually?