Three weeks ago, I talked about the Kohanim, so it seems relevant that this week's parashat includes the priestly blessing (In Hebrew: ברכת כהנים, birkat kohanim).
In Orthodox services, Kohanim deliver the priestly blessing during the Amidah. In Progressive Judaism, rabbis often say it at the end of services. Many parents say it to their children on erev Shabbat.
Here are several translations:
The JPS Contemporary Torah:
יהוה spoke to Moses:
Speak to Aaron and his sons: Thus shall you bless the people of Israel. Say to them:
יהוה bless you and protect you!
יהוה deal kindly and graciously with you!
יהוה bestow [divine] favor upon you and grant you peace!
Thus they shall link My name with the people of Israel, and I will bless them.
From the New King James Bible:
"And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying:
Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying: In this way you shall bless the children of Israel; you shall say to them:
May the LORD bless you, and keep you;
May the LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
May the LORD lift up His face to you, and give you peace.
So shall they put My name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them."
From Mishkan T'filah (page 121)
May God bless you and keep you.
May God's light shine upon you, and may God be gracious to you.
May you feel God's presence within you always, and may you find peace.
From Bob Dylan:
May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
And from Star Trek:
Live long and prosper.
During the High Holy Days, the kohanim spread their hands over the congregation, and the custom is to spread their fingers to form the letter Shin, the same letter found on the mezuzah. Spock used a single-handed version of this gesture for the Vulcan salute. (Both Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner were Jewish.)
In 1979, two silver scrolls were uncovered at Ketef Hinnom, southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem, which contained a variation of the Priestly Blessing. The amulets were dated paleographically to the late 7th or early 6th century BCE, during the First Temple period, making them the oldest known Biblical text that has been found.
Of the priestly blessing, Rashi wrote: “Do not bless them in haste, nor in hurried excitement, but with full consciousness (kavannah), and with a whole heart.”
The text is clear, these blessings come from God, not the priests, and the last line emphasizes this. “Thus they shall link My name with the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” Rabbi Neal Loevinger wrote, “In other words, God did not want these ritual leaders to have Divine powers, but rather, a full humanity — and maybe that’s why these words still move us today.”1
Rabbi Alex Israel wrote, “The priests are to bless the people by putting into the public consciousness the notion of God as a source of all goodness. Once the nation understands that their fortunes are intimately tied up with God, then, and only then, will God issue the blessings for the nation”2
Rabbi Elisa Koppel noted the next line after the birkat Kohanim is: “On the day that Moses finished setting up the Tabernacle, he anointed and consecrated it and all its furnishings.”
She writes, “When we bless others, the place in which we find ourselves becomes a holy place. Only after the people have been blessed could the structure that allowed for God to dwell among them be complete. Holy community must precede holy space.”3
Rabbi Lord Sacks wrote, “If you seek to understand a people, look at its prayers. The Jewish people did not ask for wealth or power. They did not hunger after empire. They had no desire to conquer or convert the world. They asked for protection, the right to live true to themselves without fear; for grace, the ability to be an agent for good in others; and peace, that fullness of being in which each of us brings our individual gifts to the common good. That is all our ancestors prayed for, and it is still all we need.”4
And no drasha would be complete without a reference to kabbalah. “koh tevarkhu” (כֹּ֥ה תְבָרְכ֖וּ) is translated as, “thus shall you bless…” The Zohar (III, 146a) says koh is an allusion to the divine light of Creation. The value of koh (כה) is 25; the 25th word of the Torah is “light.” During the High Holy Days, Kabbalah teaches the hands come together in a samekh, not a shin, the only circular letter in the Hebrew alphabet, representing infinite cycles and endless blessings. Sefer haTemunah teaches that the proper shape of a samekh is a combination of a kaf and a vav. Kaf literally means the “palm” of the hand, and the vav represents a shining ray of light. These are the hidden rays of light, the light of koh, emerging through the hands of the kohanim as they bless. It is also why it is customary not to look directly at the kohanim when they relay the blessing, as the hidden light may be far too intense.5
1. Rabbi Neal J. Loevinger, https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/human-vessels-for-blessing/
2. https://www.etzion.org.il/en/tanakh/torah/sefer-bamidbar/parashat-naso/naso-priestly-blessing-1
3. Elisa F. Koppel, https://reformjudaism.org/learning/torah-study/torah-commentary/blessing-faces-and-places
4. https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/naso/the-priestly-blessings/
5. https://www.mayimachronim.com/secrets-of-the-priestly-blessing/
