The Tetragrammaton, often spelled
“YHWH,” is the distinctive personal Name of
the God of Israel. Of all the names of God,
it appears most frequently in the Bible:
6,823 times. (Wikipedia)
In Judaism, the Tetragrammaton is the
Ineffable Name of God, and is therefore not
to be pronounced. (Reference.com) The
Four-Letter Hebrew Name of God (Yod,
Heh, Vav, Heh ) indicates that God is
timeless and infinite. During prayer, when a
blessing is recited, or when Torah is read,
the Four-Letter Name should be pronounced
as if it were spelled Adonai. (Complete
Artscroll Siddur ) Adonai is the name that
refers to the immanent (indwelling) Divine
Presence. The predominant custom in
prayer, study and blessing has been to hold
the unpronounceable Name in conscious
meditative focus while vocally substituting
the name Adonai. (Path of Blessing, p. 100)
When used in everyday speaking and according
to many, in learning, the
Tetragrammaton is pronounced Hashem,
literally “the Name.” (Reference.com)
Nothing in the Torah expressly
prohibits a person from pronouncing the Name of
God. Indeed, it is evident from scripture
that God’s Name was pronounced routinely in
ancient times. Many common Hebrew names
contain Yah or Yahu, part of God’s
four-letter name. (Jewish Virtual Library)
According to rabbinic tradition, the
Name was pronounced by the high priest on
Yom Kippur, the only day when the Holy of
Holies of the Temple would be entered.
With the destruction of the Second Temple in
the year 70 C.E., this use also vanished,
resulting in the loss of the correct
pronunciation. In one midrashic tradition,
only seven
Cohanim, individuals of priestly lineage,
know the Name of God, which is passed
down throughout the generations in order to
be ready for invocation during the rebuilding
of the Third Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.
(Reference.com) This Name contains that
much power! But what is this Name?
Most scholars believe that it is a
form of the verb “to be.” Others say that it
is also
the sound of the breath, both human and
Divine, which is the source of life. Ultimately,
we do not know. “For YHWH by any other name
is still YHWH.” (A Reconstructionist
Dvar Torah for Va’era )
According to Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan
and those who follow his Reconstructionist
Judaism, God is “the power that makes for
salvation.” God is seen as a force in the
universe that enables us to strive to better
our lives, the lives of all human beings and
the entire world. Both the term ‘God’ and
‘human’ are symbols that represent
something far beyond that which our limited
minds can comprehend. “That is the
beauty of God’s ‘true’ Name YHWH.” (A
Reconstructionist Dvar Torah for Va’era )
13th century Kabbalist, Joseph
Gikatilla, described the relationship between
the Torah and the letters of God’s name as
follows: “The entire Torah is like an
explication of, and a commentary on, the
Ineffable Name of God.” How is this
Ineffable Name explicated? The Torah is
formed from the many names of God, out
of which the one Ineffable Name emerges. The
four-letter Name or Tetragrammaton
can be compared to the mystic body of the
Godhead. “Indeed, God Himself is the
soul of these ineffable letters.” (Kabbalah)
This perspective suggests that the
Torah is a living organism, and all its
narratives
and chapters are bound together in a single
organic pattern. (Kabbalah)
In Jewish thought, a name is not
merely an arbitrary designation, a random
combination of sounds. The name conveys the
nature and essence of the thing
being named. It represents its history and
reputation. Because a name represents
the essence of the thing named, it should be
treated with the same respect as the
thing’s reputation. God’s Names, in all
their forms, are treated with enormous respect
and reverence in Judaism. (Jewish Virtual
Library)
The Name Yah is composed of the
first two letters of YHWH. It appears in
names such as Elijah, as well as in the
joyful expression, Hallelujah. (Wikipedia)
In the
Jewish Renewal Movement, some pronounce ‘Yah’
in such a way as to recall the
feminine aspect of the Divine and also to
recall the breath of God. (Muse)
It is true that we cannot pronounce
the Name of God! But “cannot” does not only
mean forbidden; it also means it is simply
not possible in any ordinary way. One way
to understand this is that the Holy One
revealed to us an unpronounceable name,
thwarting our temptation to appropriate God.
Just at the point where our use of
language to define, limit, and control might
be activated, Jewish tradition has inserted a
profoundly counteractive experience. If we
try to speak a limiting and confining name,
we experience just the opposite; “We try to
pronounce the Name... and we breathe!”
“Then we understand that the Name of God is
neither Yahweh or Jehovah; it is the
breathing of soul and life energy into
existence.” (Path of Blessing, p. 87)
As we breathe, we remember not only
that we cannot define and control the
Source of Life but that the Source of Life
unites us in a chain of reciprocity. My
breathing
out is your breathing in. The very molecules
that were a part of me, become a part
of you. Breathing in oxygen, I exhale the
carbon dioxide everything green “breathes”
in to make more oxygen. “Each breath
revitalizes.” With each breath we recall God’s
Name and are inspired. “Each breath is
life.” (Path of Blessing, p. 87)
The letter Heh, the dominant letter
of the Name, is the letter-energy of life force.
With each breath we once again sing with the
psalmist, “Kol ha’neshama t’hallel
Yah!” “Every soul-breath praises God, the
breath of life!” (Path of Blessing, p. 87)
In the Torah the Holy One gives us a
whisper. Moshe hears: “I am the Eternal
Being. I am Being calling Being into Being
each moment.” Here is a glimpse of the
divine essence as “existence itself.”
Through this hint we begin to learn a Name that
is not a name, a Name transcending names, a
name including and subsuming all
names. (Path of Blessing, p. 82)
This glimpse of the divine essence as
existence itself leads us to look more closely
at how Hebrew fashions the words for
existence. When we look at the Hebrew verb
of being, we see verb forms for “was”: hayah
; “is”: haveh ; “will be”: yihyeh . (Path of
Blessing, p. 84) Recall that Moshe heard
“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” — “I am
Eternal Being, Eternally Becoming.” Eternal
being coalesces past, present, and future
in a unitive now. Eternal being encompasses
is-ness, was-ness, and will-be-ness,
but is in itself none of these words. Or is
it all of them? If we could somehow conflate
“is,” “was,” and “will be” into one word,
an “iswaswillbe,” perhaps we would be closer
to expressing the “power of eternal
becoming.” (Path of Blessing, p. 84)
One way to know God’s Name is by
linking our own life-breath with the life-breath
of Creation. Consider how it will affect
even our casual conversation when we realize
that each time we breathe, we call God’s
Name. Whenever we breathe, we invoke
the Sacred. “How this awareness will change
the way we use our breath and our
speech!” (Path of Blessing, p. 88)
With every breath we invoke the Name
of God. Each breath contains Divine
energy and is a gift from God! What an
awesome responsibility this entails in our
daily interactions and, in particular, in the
words we use with each other.
Words have the power to heal or
wound; to buildup or destroy. We should not
waste this precious breath-gift from God and
the Divine energy it contains in speaking
words that are unkind, hurtful or
destructive. We are all made in the image of
God.
Therefore, we should use our life-breath and
speak words that buildup rather than
destroy; that are kind rather than harsh; and
that heal rather than wound.
Sources
1.
Wikipedia
2.
Reference.com
3.
Jewish
Virtual Library
4.
Muse,
Chava Weissler
5.
Kabbalah
6. The Path of Blessing, Rabbi Marcia
Prager, Bell Tower, New York, 1998.
7. The Complete Artscroll Siddur, Mesorah
Publications, New York, Third edition,
1990.
8. A
Reconstructiuonist Dvar Torah for Va’era,
Rabbi Steven Pik-Nathan
