What’s in a Name? Holy Letters.

“Ma’ayan ha-Hokhmah” - Asher Tsevi of Ostrog on Parshat Va-era

We opened our learning of Shabbat Va-era with a question to be answered in hevrusa (study pairs). “What’s your name? If someone at different stages of your life wanted to catch your attention, what name would they call out?”

Which brings us to the first verse of the parsha, Exodus 6:3 -

וָאֵרָא אֶל־אַבְרָהָם אֶל־יִצְחָק וְאֶל־יַעֲקֹב בְּאֵל שַׁדָּי וּשְׁמִי יְהֹוָה לֹא נוֹדַעְתִּי לָהֶם׃

I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai (God Almighty), but I did not make Myself known to them by My name יהוה (YHVH).

But wait! Haven’t we read in Genesis 18:1 concerning Abraham, that -

וַיֵּרָא אֵלָיו יְהֹוָה בְּאֵלֹנֵי מַמְרֵא וְהוּא יֹשֵׁב פֶּתַח־הָאֹהֶל כְּחֹם הַיּוֹם׃

יהוה (YHVH) appeared to him (Abraham) by the oaks of Mamre; he was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot.

If יהוה (YHVH; Adonai) appeared to Abraham in the book of Genesis, what was it that Abraham did not know that was made known to Moses in the book of Exodus? Those at our learning table suggested that making oneself known is different from appearing. There is something deeper about becoming known.

That’s where most inquiries stop – just that Moses was granted deeper knowledge. The rabbis as a rule do not reveal the deeper knowledge to us.

In previous Shabbat learnings we encountered this graphic.

This is the Divine Name written as the stick figure of a human form. It reflects one’s spiritual image. Every time one looks at it, one makes a spiritual adjustment. Is this what the Holy One made known to Moses?

Or perhaps it was this graphic, the four-letter Name drawn in perspective, representing a mystical journey through the four worlds.

Asher Tzevi surely knew the meditational practices associated with these graphical representations of the Divine Name but chose instead to delve into the mysteries of the primal elements of creation, the letters that were formed into the words which brought the universe into being.

My translations of Asher Tzevi’s words below are indented and in italics. My commentary is interspersed.

I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, but by My name YHVH I was not known to them. (Ex. 6:3).

As is known to all of the sages of blessed memory, each and every letter is a name of the Holy one of blessing.

The Hebrew alphabet may be unique in that each letter is crafted as a holy vessel. In the weekday liturgy, in the blessing following the bar’chu, we find this alphabetic acrostic, each Hebrew word hinting at a Divine Name. Regrettably, the English cannot convey the spiritual power of the Hebrew.

אֵל בָּרוּךְ גְּדוֹל דֵּעָה, הֵכִין וּפָעַל זָהֳרֵי חַמָּה, טוֹב יָצַר כָּבוֹד לִשְׁמוֹ, מְאוֹרוֹת נָתַן סְבִיבוֹת עֻזּוֹ, פִּנּוֹת צְבָאָיו קְדוֹשִׁים רוֹמְמֵי שַׁדַּי, תָּמִיד

The blessed God, great in knowledge, prepared and made the rays of the sun. [The] Good [One] created [everything] for the glory of His Name: the luminaries He set around His strength (His throne). The chiefs of His hosts are holy beings, the exalters of Shadai continually….

(translation adapted from sefaria.org)

Asher Tzevi continues:

It’s clear, it shouldn’t require saying that the blessed one is not a letter, or a punctuation mark, or a cantillation sign. But one could imagine something like this, that the name by which a person is called might be considered the essence of his life. Proof of this is that it’s easier to wake a person who is sleeping by calling out his name than by touching his body. That’s because his name is the essence of his life.

What name is the essence of your life? That name may change from time to time as your life situation changes. I recall one of my earlier existences when I was a pulpit rabbi attending a rabbinic convention. Many dozens of us were milling about in the hotel lobby when an assistant with a message for her rabbi called out from the mezzanine above, “Rabbi!” As if we were a unified startled herd, every head turned simultaneously to look up toward her. At that time the name “Rabbi” was the essence of my life.

One might say that the Holy One of blessing is wrapped in the holy text, that is in the letters of the Torah. If so, a person who is pronouncing the letters of the Torah or words of prayer needs to be in deep awe of the Creator….

We have in our tradition many volumes written on the divine intentions within the Hebrew letters. The first is Sefer Yetzirah, likely formulated in the second century. The hyperlink will take you to Aryeh Kaplan’s translation and commentary. Among the more recent books are Ben Shahn’s Alphabet of Creation and Lawrence Kushner’s The Book of Letters. During the Covid years our Zoom group at the Center for Jewish Life in Miami met for 22 weeks to descend into the letters. I edited the summaries of those sessions into The Kabbalist’s Aleph-Bet. Each volume on the letters has inspired the next.

Writing on the Holy Letters is an awe-inducing experience. Asher Tzevi advises even pronouncing the letters is awe-inducing. Why?

…. for He is the creator of all worlds – Emanation, Creation, Formation and Action. The Holy One deserves such deep reverence.

Asher Tzevi spells out the kabbalistic names of the four worlds in Hebrew – from the spiritual (atzilut) to the conceptual (bri-ah) to the emotional (yetzirah) to the physical (asiah). This is rarely done in such a direct manner. In his translation Arthur Green refers to them simply as “the many worlds”. Is it possible that Asher Tzevi by naming them is hinting at the mystical journey through the letters of the Divine Name?

The letters and words of prayer and learning surely deserve reverential care. What of the words of ordinary speech? They also are formed through combinations of the holy letters.

And so it is when one speaks any words at all, one must consider first what will emerge from one’s mouth. This is because the Holy One is wrapped in a Torah of living holy letters (that constitute those words). Surely the Lord of blessing is infinite, but had to shrink (tzimtzum) Itself so that each and every letter would contain the name YHVH…  

Even the words we use in the ordinary discourse of the day are holy. The rabbinic Hebrew word for human is mi-daber, one who speaks. Every word that emerges from our mouth is a small act of creation, most often with minimal effect, but from time to time with such creative energy as to change the direction of a world.

Asher Tzevi concludes with a gematria, the art of attaching numerical value to the Hebrew letters. Gematria is not a proof but rather an embellishment of that which has already been established.

And the name Shedai (Almighty) hints at this reduction. The name YHVH has the numerical value of 26, and the name Shedai 314, and together they are 340 which is the value of the Hebrew letters Shin Mem – which together spell the word Shem (Name). From this we learn that each and every Hebrew letter is a Name of the Holy One.

Really? Is each and every Hebrew letter a Name of the Holy One? We can put that to the test. Here’s the first letter of the Aleph-bet: Aleph.

The Aleph might be written in three strokes. The long diagonal resembles an inclined letter Vav which has the numerical value of six, being the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. To the diagonal one might append two Yods, top right and bottom left. Yod has the numerical value of ten. Altogether, Vav-Yod-Yod has the numerical value of 26 which is equivalent to the value of Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey, the four-letter name of God. Aleph itself has the value of one. So, we have a gematria that teaches God (יהוה) is One, as we are reminded at the conclusion of every service: On that day the Lord shall be one, and his name shall be One (Zechariah14:9).

It's not only the Aleph. Each and every letter of the Hebrew alphabet has secrets to reveal.