This week’s parasha, Va’etchanan, contains a second reading of the Ten Commandments. The third commandment is the prohibition to take the name of God in vain. Some people mistakenly believe that this means we are not allowed to ever pronounce the Tetragrammaton, יהוה, commonly transliterated as YHVH or YHWH. This is not true at all, though it is true that later in history the Sages instituted using other words to be used instead of the Tetragrammaton (such as “Adonai” or “Hashem”) so that people do not accidentally take the name of God in vain, or misuse this powerful name of God. Since the Tetragrammaton is so sacred, it was thought too holy to invoke on a regular basis. Today, no one invokes the proper name at all. It’s gone so far that many believe we have forgotten how to properly pronounce the name. This is false. How can we be God’s people if we don’t even know His name? Continue reading
Tag Archives: Birkat Kohanim
The Meaning of Minyan
This week’s parasha (in the diaspora) is Shlach, centered around the infamous incident of the Spies. While highly unfortunate, we do learn from it the rule of having a minyan, the quorum of ten men needed for various prayers and rituals. Recall that Moses sent twelve spies total, and two came back with a positive report (Joshua and Caleb), while the other ten convinced the nation not to proceed with entering the Holy Land. God then refers to these ten as the edah hara’ah, the “wicked congregation” (Numbers 14:27). Rashi comments here that we learn from this the minimum number of men to be considered a “congregation” is ten. He cites the Talmud in Megillah 23b which uses this Torah verse as proof that a proper minyan needs at least ten. The Mishnah there starts the discussion by listing various practices that require a minimum of ten, including public Torah and Haftarah readings, birkat kohanim, the repetition of the Amidah, weddings, and funerals. (The Gemara goes on to clarify that the groom at a wedding or the mourner at the funeral do count among the ten.) While Talmud here does not explain why it is exactly that ten men are needed, the Zohar does.
The Ten Sefirot
The Zohar (I, 24a) says, as one might expect, that the ten men of a minyan correspond to the Ten Sefirot. Each person takes on one of the Sefirot, and serves as a “conduit” for one of the Sefirot, allowing the prayers to properly ascend Heavenward. Moreover, it is only in the presence of ten that the Shekhinah can be manifest. Elsewhere, the Zohar (I, 67b) finds an even earlier source for a minyan, pointing out that Abraham had asked God to spare Sodom for the sake of ten righteous people (Genesis 18:32). God replied that He would not destroy Sodom if there even ten good people there. From this we learn that ten good people who recognize God and pray to Him can potentially avert even the most catastrophic decrees—another excellent reason to regularly pray with a minyan! The Zohar here also notes that had there been ten righteous people in the times of Noah, the Great Flood itself would have been averted. Unfortunately, there were only eight good people at the time, the eight-member family of Noah that merited to be saved in the Ark.
Later still, the Zohar (I, 201a) points out another important minyan in the Torah: the sons of Jacob initially came down to Egypt in a quorum of ten (having left Benjamin behind). The Zohar says they were strong and protected as long as they stayed together as ten. Once Joseph imprisoned Shimon, only nine of them were left, and they were now spiritually unprotected and subject to harsh din. The Zohar here says that Hashem gets upset when one member of the minyan leaves and only nine are left. Meanwhile, the Talmud in Sotah (33a) brings another important teaching involving the story of Joseph:
The Talmud says that a person should not pray in Aramaic because angels do not understand Aramaic. This is specifically referring to when a person prays alone, and needs the assistance of angels to carry his prayers up. When it comes to communal prayers with a minyan, however, this isn’t necessary, presumably because the Shekhinah is already there anyway, and the assistance of angels is not required. Thus, communal prayers can be said in Aramaic, which would explain why Kaddish is in Aramaic and needs a minyan to be recited. (Lots more on the meaning and power of Kaddish here.) The Talmud here notes an exception to the general rule of angels not speaking Aramaic, pointing out that the angel Gabriel does speak Aramaic, and knows seventy languages, which were all taught to Joseph on that fateful night when he was released from prison and came before Pharaoh for the first time.
Children and Women in Minyan
Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer (Ch. 19) comments on the asor, King David’s ten-stringed instrument, that “All faithful testimonies of Israel need ten.” It goes on to list that “the testimony for the dead is through ten. The testimony for the public benediction of God’s Name is through ten. The testimony of the covenant of circumcision is through ten. The testimony for chalitzah is through ten, as it is said, ‘And he took ten men of the elders of the city…’” (Ruth 4:2) Based on this same verse in Ruth, the Talmud (Ketubot 7b) derives that a wedding and a Sheva Berakhot needs ten as well, since Boaz went on to marry Ruth immediately after. All of these rituals need a quorum of ten to parallel the Ten Sefirot and make the ceremony complete; to serve as conduits for blessings to effectively come down, and for prayers to effectively go up.
And that’s why it’s so powerful to be among the first ten in a minyan. Every additional person that comes afterwards is important, too, and compounds the effect. But the first ten make it all happen. The Talmud adds that the first ten get a reward equivalent to all the others that show up later, combined, even if there were a hundred more people (Berakhot 47b). But what if there are not ten? What if one is missing? The same page of Talmud discusses this, too. First, it suggests that a slave can count as the tenth, or a newly-emancipated slave. Rav Huna proposes that a Torah scroll in the aron can count as the tenth. Rav Ami suggests that Shabbat can count as a tenth, or that two great Torah scholars can count as three people! Rabbi Yochanan says a minor who is old enough to know how to pray and recognizes to Whom he is praying can count as the tenth, or at least as the third for a zimun before birkat hamazon.
Later rabbinic texts discuss that last point at length. The Shulchan Arukh (Orach Chayim 55:4) concludes that while there were those who permitted including a minor (over the age of 6) in extenuating circumstances, it generally should not be done. Surprisingly, there is one source (the Mordechi on Berakhot, #158) that suggests a woman might count in extenuating circumstances as well. Halakhah never went with that opinion. The general position is that, since women are technically exempt from praying, they cannot count in a minyan for prayer. (This is aside from the modesty issue, since men and women need to be physically separated as well.)
Rav Yosef Messas, rabbi of Tlemcen (now Algeria), and later chief rabbi of Haifa, Israel.
But what about something like a Megillah reading, in which women generally are obligated? (Megillah 4a) At least one opinion held that a woman might count for this, as the Meiri wrote: “Some say that for all cases in which a minyan of ten is necessary, if a woman’s obligation is equivalent to that of men, they may join the minyan.” (More on that here.) Today, it is not uncommon in the Modern Orthodox world for women to hold their own women-only Megillah readings. A related issue is reading publicly from the Torah. The Talmud (Megillah 23a) suggests that a woman theoretically could be called up to the Torah and read from the Torah publicly, but it shouldn’t be done due to issues of respect and modesty. But what if it’s an all-women congregation? Might that be allowed? Amazingly, Rav Yosef Messas (1892-1974), one of the great Sephardic chakhamim of the 20th century and chief rabbi of Haifa, wrote in his Nahalat Avot that there were indeed Sephardic communities in the past where women formed their own minyanim, read from the Torah, and even donned tallit and tefillin!
When we look back at our prophecies, they do describe a future time when “a woman will encircle a man” (Jeremiah 31:22) and, when the light of the moon—understood to represent the female—will once again be restored to its former glory and be equal to the “male” sun (Isaiah 30:26). Intriguingly, in Exodus 15:20-21 it says that Miriam took the women to sing their own song after the Splitting of the Sea, and the word used in reference to the women is lahem, instead of the feminine lahen. The Kli Yakar (Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Luntschitz, 1550-1619) comments: “It should have said lahen but because at the Sea the women reached the same level as the men in attaining prophecy, it says lahem, as if speaking to males, and so too this will be in the future, as it is stated, ‘A woman will encircle a man.’”
So perhaps the recent rise of women’s minyanim, along with the proliferation of beit yaakov schools for girls, women’s prayer groups, women’s Torah classes, women’s Megillah readings, women’s siddurim, and so many sefarim custom-tailored for women; yoatzot halakhah and popular rabbanit speakers; Rosh Chodesh gatherings, communal challah bakes, and the like, is yet another sign that we are in the times of the Final Redemption.
Calling in the Name of God
At the end of this week’s parasha, Chukat, the Torah tells us about the war between the Israelites and the Moabites. The Torah says woe to “the people of Chemosh” who will be lost and destroyed (Numbers 21:29). Chemosh is the name of the chief deity of the Moabites. It is interesting that the Torah names this idol, considering that there’s a clear mitzvah to completely obliterate the names of false idols and never so much as mention their names! (Exodus 23:13) The Talmud explains that if a name of a certain idol is recorded in the Torah, then we are obviously permitted to pronounce it in the course of learning and reading the Torah (Sanhedrin 63b).
Others comment that the prohibition of mentioning idol names is only if actually employing the names like idolaters might, such as in the form of worship or reverance, or by swearing on an idol’s name for business deals or in a courthouse. (See the Rambam’s Avodat Kochavim 5:10-11, and the Ramban on Exodus 23:13). It would even be forbidden for a Jew to make a gentile swear in the name of his false god, or for a Jew to tell a fellow Jew to meet him by the statue of a certain idol. That said, it is not prohibited to mention the names of idols for valid educational purposes and warnings about idolatry. (If you can’t clearly name and identify the idols, it might be difficult to educate people on avoiding them!)
The Haftarah for this week’s parasha builds on the same theme, with the hero Yiftach delivering a long historical speech, and telling the Moabites: “that which Chemosh your god gives you to possess, you may possess; and all that which יהוה [YHWH], our God, has driven out from before us, we shall possess!” (Judges 11:24) The Haftarah makes a point to specifically name Hashem multiple times, highlighting the greatness of YHWH over the false idol Chemosh. This reminds us of the mitzvah mentioned countless times throughout the Tanakh that the Jewish people should spread the name of God far and wide, to “call in God’s Name”—a practice that goes all the way back to Abraham himself, who “planted an eshel tree at Beer-Sheva, and from there called in the name of YHWH, the Everlasting God.” (Genesis 21:33, also 12:8 and 13:4)
The parts of God’s Ineffable Name (the four letters and the “crown” atop the Yud) correspond to the five levels of soul, the five mystical dimensions or olamot, the five groupings or “faces” of the Sefirot, as well as the five books of the Torah.
This begs the question: what does it mean to “call in God’s Name”? And are we even allowed to pronounce the various names of God? It is common knowledge that we don’t pronounce the “Ineffable Name”, YHWH, but what of all the other titles for God, such as Elohim, Adonai, and El Shaddai? Can we utter these names outside of prayers and Torah readings?
The Evolution of Ineffable
Originally, the Ineffable Name of God was not “Ineffable” at all. In Biblical times, it was used freely by Israelites, and frequently embedded within people’s names (usually without the final letter Hei) like Eliyahu, Yeshayahu, Yirmiyahu, Yehudah, Yehoshafat, Yehoyada, and so on. In the Book of Ruth we read of the common greeting YHWH imachem, “God be with you”, to which the recipient would reply: yevarekhekha YHWH, “God bless you!” (Ruth 2:4) Even today there is a fairly widespread custom to say these phrases when a person gets called up to the Torah, before reciting the blessings, except that now YHWH is typically replaced with “Hashem”.
Meanwhile, the Torah commands the kohanim to pronounce the Name when blessing the congregation: “And they shall place My Name upon the Children of Israel, and I will bless them!” (Numbers 6:27) The Name itself is the conduit of God’s special blessing. We still do the priestly blessing today, but without the actual pronunciation of God’s Name, in which place the kohanim say Adonai or Adonoi. It makes one wonder if the blessing still has the same effect if the kohanim are not actually placing God’s Name “upon the Children of Israel” as the Torah commands. So, how did Adonai come to replace YHWH?
Clearly, the Tanakh does not prohibit pronouncing God’s Name, and only warns against pronouncing God’s Name in vain, which is one of the Ten Commandments. The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 10:1) presents a minority opinion that someone who pronounces God’s Name has no share in the World to Come. Again, this must be referring to someone who pronounces the Name in vain, since we know the Name was known and used even in Talmudic times. Alternatively, it refers to one who pronounces the expanded name of God, of twelve or forty-two letters, not the standard four-letter Name. In one place (Avodah Zarah 18a), the Talmud speculates on the deeper reasons for why Rabbi Chanania ben Teradion was executed by the Romans, with one opinion suggesting he may have been too careless with pronouncing the Ineffable Name in public, and should have been more discrete. Again, it is likely referring to the expanded name, not the standard four-letter Name. In another place (Kiddushin 71a), the Talmud says the Sages would indeed teach the proper pronunciation of the four-letter Name once or twice in seven years. It is here that the Talmud affirms to avoid pronouncing the Name with its actual four letters, and instead to say “Adonai”.
The earliest origin of using Adonai in reference to God is Genesis 18:3, when God appears to Abraham. Three angels then show up, and Abraham says: “Adonai, if it please you, do not go on past your servant!” The classic question here is: to whom does Adonai refer? Was Abraham speaking to God, or to the three angels that suddenly showed up? At first glance, the latter makes more sense, and Abraham was referring to the three mysterious figures as Adonai, “my lords”, in the plural. Hospitable Abraham was asking the three to stick around and not pass him by.
Rabbinic tradition, however, concludes that Adonai refers to Hashem here, and Abraham was telling God not to “pass by” or leave while he goes off to assist the three unannounced guests. This identification is partly based on an earlier verse, Genesis 15:2, where Abraham referred to God as Adonai YHWH, “my Lord YHWH”. The fact that “Adonai” is plural is not an issue, the same way “Elohim” is plural. The plurality is a form of respect, as is still found in many languages (including Russian and French) to refer to an elder or authority figure. It used to be the case in English, too, where “you” used to be the plural and “thou” the singular. Over time, the respectful plural “you” became the standard singular, while the informal “thou” disappeared.
Interestingly, while Adonai was instituted in order to avoid pronouncing the Ineffable Name in vain, over time Adonai itself became a holy name that shouldn’t be said in vain! Today, it has become common for people to instead say Hashem, “The Name”. Sometimes people (especially musicians) will say “Amonai” instead of Adonai—but this is highly problematic because Amon was the name of a chief deity of the ancient Egyptians! Other times, people will refer to the Ineffable Name by saying the actual letters sequentially, as Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei. This is perfectly appropriate, and was the practice of the Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, 1534-1572). Yet, as expected, people tend to add extra fences and now many will say Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei.
In Sha’ar haMitzvot (on parashat Shemot), the Arizal’s primary disciple Rabbi Chaim Vital notes how “My master of blessed memory [the Arizal] told me that one should not pronounce the four letters of God’s Name unless he does so through a milui, as follows: Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei”. (אמר לי מורי זלה”ה כי אמיתות פי’ דבר זה הוא שלא יקרא ד’ אותיות ההוי”ה ככתבן בלי מילוי אבל אם גם יקראנו במילוי כזה יו”ד ה”י וי”ו ה”י.) Rabbi Vital goes on to explain that the Arizal was careful to avoid pronouncing the names of certain angels, so Rabbi Vital asked him: “If we are allowed to always pronounce names of God like Adonai and Elohim, why would we be forbidden from pronouncing names of created angels?” (ופעם אחת שאלתי למורי זלה”ה כי הרי שמות אדני ואלהים וכיוצא אנו מזכירים אותם תמיד ואם כן למה אסור להזכיר שמות המלאכים הנבראים.) In other words, the names of angels are obviously less holy than names of God, so why are we careful with the former and not the latter? The Arizal explained that names of God are pure and can never receive any impurity, while names of angels can be manipulated, misused, and attract impurity. Hence, we can use names of God freely, but we should be more careful with the names of certain angels. The passage concludes by saying that, of course, when it comes to the names of common angels which have also become people’s names (examples given are Michael and Gabriel), these are permitted to use freely and as necessary.
We learn from this that it is not necessary to replace Elohim with Elokim, like many today do, or to fear using titles like Adonai. Similarly, names like El Shaddai are not ineffable, and can be pronounced as is, assuming it is done in a respectful manner or in the course of education or recitation of verses—so there is no need to say “Shakkai” in place of “Shaddai”. In fact, it is inappropriate to do so: Over the years, I’ve spoken to many recent baalei teshuva, converts, new students, and the like, and oftentimes these well-meaning people do not realize that Shakkai or Elokim are not genuine names of God at all. Because they heard others speak this way, they were unaware of the true name of God—and this is highly problematic and unfortunate.
For God’s sake, we really must use the appropriate titles, and “call in God’s Name” as the Torah reminds us many times. Our mission is to spread Godliness and awareness of Hashem far and wide, and to do so we must use the proper names of God, or else we spread confusion and misinformation. This sentiment was echoed in a detailed analysis of the issue by Rabbi Yitzchak Ratzavi in his Olat Yitzchak (II, 74 on Orach Chaim). There, he argues that such distortions of God’s names were never used by our Sages or referenced in any early Jewish holy texts, and that this is a recent phenomenon which actually denigrates God’s holy names!
דע שהזכרת שם אלקים בקו״ף במקום ה״א כפי שנפוץ בזמנינו, וכן קל במקום אל, קה במקום יה [שק״י במקום שדי, צבקות בשם צבעות] וכיו״ב לא נזכר שמץ מנהו בדברי חז״ל והקדמונים… ואדרבה י״ל שהוא גנאי לכנות כך לשמו ית׳
Know that mentioning “Elokim” with a kuf instead of a hei, as is common in our days, and similarly “Kel” instead of “El”, “Kah” instead of “Yah”, “Shakkai” instead of “Shaddai”, “Tzvakot” instead of “Tzva’ot”, and the like – these are not mentioned at all in the words of our Sages of blessed memory or the early rabbis… on the contrary, one could say that it is a denigration of God’s Names!
One thing that Rabbi Ratzavi points out in his historical examination is that these name-distortions were innovated by Ashkenazim who sought more stringencies, but were unheard of in the Mizrachi world, including the Yemenite community from which he hails. Indeed, Sephardic sources have always been far more balanced and logical in this regard, and truer to the Torah’s call for Jews to invoke God’s proper names. Rav Ovadia Yosef, for instance, was known to use the proper names of God in reciting verses both while learning and teaching.
To summarize: the Tetragrammaton YHWH is generally not to be pronounced; Adonai is the proper replacement when reciting verses—and does have its own status as a genuine name of God as well, so should not be misused. In colloquial speech, Adonai is replaced by Hashem. Other titles and appellations of God may be used, too, respectfully and not in vain, of course. These include six more names of God that are considered especially holy and, like the Tetragrammaton, are forbidden from being erased if written down: El, Elo’ah, Elohim, Elohai, Shaddai, and Tzva’ot (see Rambam’s Yesodei HaTorah 6:2). On the point of “not in vain”: saying names of God while reciting verses during prayers or Torah study (including Talmud study) is obviously not in vain, nor is it in vain in the course of teaching Torah or in the context of a shiur. It is also not in vain when singing verses from Psalms, various piyyutim and Shabbat zemirot (and I would even add: kosher Hebrew songs by modern-day artists), since it is a legitimate shevach or praise of God, sung with positive and spiritual intentions. Plus, they help to spread knowledge of God’s names throughout the world, as the Torah instructs us to do.
On that note, everyone agrees that we are now in Ikvot haMashiach, the “Footsteps of the Messiah”, and are gradually transitioning into the long-awaited Olam haBa, the “World to Come”. It is therefore worth noting that the Talmud (Pesachim 50a) states in this current world, we pronounce the Ineffable Name as Adonai, but in the World to Come, we will go back to properly pronouncing the four letters YHWH as in ancient times. In fact, the Talmud (Bava Batra 75b) says that in the future, three will be called by the Ineffable Name: the four holy letters will be appended to the name of the holy city of Jerusalem, and to the name of Mashiach, and to all of the tzadikim that will merit to be alive then:
עֲתִידִין צַדִּיקִים שֶׁנִּקְרָאִין עַל שְׁמוֹ שֶׁל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״כֹּל הַנִּקְרָא בִשְׁמִי וְלִכְבוֹדִי בְּרָאתִיו, יְצַרְתִּיו אַף עֲשִׂיתִיו״. וְאָמַר רַבִּי שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר נַחְמָנִי אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: שְׁלֹשָׁה נִקְרְאוּ עַל שְׁמוֹ שֶׁל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, וְאֵלּוּ הֵן: צַדִּיקִים, וּמָשִׁיחַ, וִירוּשָׁלִַים. צַדִּיקִים – הָא דַּאֲמַרַן. מָשִׁיחַ – דִּכְתִיב: ״וְזֶה שְּׁמוֹ אֲשֶׁר יִקְרְאוֹ ה׳ צִדְקֵנוּ״. יְרוּשָׁלַיִם – דִּכְתִיב: ״סָבִיב שְׁמֹנָה עָשָׂר אָלֶף, וְשֵׁם הָעִיר מִיּוֹם ה׳ שָׁמָּה״…
In the future, the righteous will be called by the Name of the Holy One, Blessed be He; as it is stated: “Every one that is called by My Name, and whom I have created for My glory, I have formed him, and I have made him.” (Isaiah 43:7) And Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani says that Rabbi Yochanan says: Three will be called by the name of the Holy One, Blessed be He, and they are: The righteous, and Mashiach, and Jerusalem. The righteous, as already explained. Mashiach, as it is written: “And this is his name whereby he shall be called: YHWH-Tzidkenu.” (Jeremiah 23:6) Jerusalem, as it is written: “It shall be eighteen thousand reeds round about. And the name of the city from that day shall be YHWH-Shammah.” (Ezekiel 48:35)
One could therefore argue that it may be the task of Mashiach himself to re-teach the world the true pronunciation of God’s Ineffable Name, and to restore the primordial task of “calling in God’s Name” wherever we go. Indeed, right after describing Mashiach in chapter 11, the prophet Yeshayahu tells us that in that future era, “you shall say: thank YHWH, call in His Name, publicize His deeds among the peoples; keep it in remembrance, for His Name is exalted!” (Isaiah 12:4) And the prophet Tzfanyah adds: “For then I will make the peoples pure of speech so that they will all call YHWH by name, to serve Him together.” (Zephaniah 3:9)
May we merit to see that day very soon!
For a detailed analysis of how to properly pronounce God’s name YHWH, see here.