God's name written vertically |
When we were created, God breathed a soul, a bit of himself, into us. "וייצר יהוה אלהים את האדם עפר מן האדמה ויפח באפיו נשמת* חיים ויהי האדם לנפש חיה" "And God formed the man (Adam) of dust from the ground (adamah), and he breathed in his nostrils a soul of life and the man was a living soul." (Breshit:2:7) If God created us and gave us life by breathing a soul into us, it would make sense that our breathing would mirror God's name and the creation cycle. After all, all the words for soul (רוח, נפש, נשמה), how we relate to God, all have to do with breathing. So we connect to God through breath/soul. In other words we say God's name, just by breathing. The same teacher I mentioned above also taught us a breathing meditation on God's name (יהוה).
It goes something like this:
Start with nothing in your lungs and hold it for a moment. There is a moment before you begin inhaling where there is nothing in your lungs, except the absolute overpowering need to begin breathing. That moment before beginning is the letter י (yod). It is the smallest letter, a singularity, complete potential, the drive create. Next, inhale. This breath is like a ה (heh), which itself sounds like a breath. Breath in until you are completely full, so full that you can't bend, like a balloon animal about to be twisted into shape. Hold the breath for a moment, feel your fullness, how it forces you to be straight, like a lulav (palm branch), how straightening yourself further allows you to breathe in more. This is ו (vav). Once full, breathe out slowly. The exhale is the last ה (heh) of God's name. Breathe out until you are completely empty and need to breathe again. This places you back at the beginning, י (yod), and you can continue breathing God's name (as if you could stop!) to continue the meditation.**
So, keeping in mind that we were created to have a relationship with God and that our souls have part of God in them, let's now look for some letters in our body that spell our name and define our nature. Let's start with איש (man) and אשה (woman). Originally, Adam (אדם) was called אדם (Earth-being) because he was taken from the earth (אדמה/adama). It's not until the end of chapter 2 of Breishit, when אשה (woman) is formed, that אדם is ever called איש (man). The two terms are created in relation to each other, actually. It says, "ויבן יהוה אלהים את הצלע אשר לקח מן האדם לאשה ויבאה אל האדם. ויאמר האדם זאת פעם עצם מעצמי ובשר מבשרי לזאת יקרא אשה כי מאיש לקחה זאת" "And God built the rib/side that he took from the Adam/Earth-being (אדם) into woman (אשה), and he brought her to the Adam/Earth-being. And the Adam/Earth-being said, 'this time it is bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh. This will be called woman (אשה) because she was taken from man (איש).'" (Breishit: 2:22-23) This is the first instance of the words איש and אשה being used in the Torah. The weird thing is that, presumably woman (אשה) gets her name from man (איש), as Adam says, but if you read carefully, you will see that the word איש (man) is never used until after the word אשה (woman). This qualifies as weird in my book, so let's look deeper.
What is איש (man), and how did Adam know he was an איש without being told? The latter is "easy" if you accept the idea that Adam was able to see the essence of each animal and name it as it was brought before him. When he names man and woman, he is actually continuing his former activity of naming the animals (Breishit:2:19). We can tell this because he says, "this time it is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." He means "this time" as opposed to all the other times that a being came before him and he named it. So, he names woman. And in doing so, he names himself as well, giving himself a new name in relation to her...or her in relation to him...or him in relation to her. His name came second, but she was taken from him, but איש and אשה are a pair and only exist in relation to each other since before this, there was only אדם. And, if you read carefully, the word אשה is used by the text immediately before Adam uses it, so really the חדוש (new thing) that Adam brings out is his own name.
Rotating א |
אש (fire) |
Splitting י into two הs |
Relational letters form God's name |
So, the vertical and breathed יהוהs, which define some of our nature, are clearly in our bodies, but where can we find this last set? This should definitely be in our bodies because the names אישה/איש (her man) and אשהו/אשה (his woman) were given to us because of a physical change that was made to אדם (Adam)'s body. As we saw above, the relational letters of the paired beings אישה and אשהו form יהוה (God's name). יהוה has the numerical value 5+6+5+10=26, which is the same as the numerical value of the letters inside the א, which are י, י and ו and add up to 10+10+6=26, which has been explained in more depth in a footnote (***). I am not normally swayed by gematria, but I find it compelling that numerical value of God's name could be contained in a letter, whose actual numerical value is 1. To bring this full circle, in Breishit 2:24 it explains, "Therefore a man (איש) will leave his father and mother and stick to his wife/woman (אשתו) and they will be one flesh." The Hebrew for this last phrase is "בשר אחד"--"one flesh." אחד means 1, and it also starts with an א, which has the numerical value of 1. א has a unifying property, which is illustrated by its ability to be made of many letters, contain the value 26, but still be 1.
א acting as a function on the ח to form a ד (a.k.a. Midas touch) |
There's always more, isn't there, but this is too long as is. So, let's leave it that there's more...
* נשמה (soul/breath) has the word שם (name) in it. It seems fitting that our נשמה (soul/breath) that God breathed into us says God's name (יהוה) as we breathe. There is a prayer, said in the mornings on Shabbat and holidays, that begins, "נשמת כל חי תברך את שמך יהוה אלהינו" "The soul (נשמה) of every living thing will bless your name (שמך), God (יהוה)." How? Their soul/breath says "יהוה" over and over again.
** This meditation helped me swim (in jeans) all the way across the lake and back at NHC that summer, and I don't have much of a swimming background. It kept me from panicking at the warm and cold spots, inhaling water, getting tired, drowning... To give you a better sense, my swimming partner, who I've always admired for his strength among other things, threw up when we reached the other side of the lake, and then we had to swim back. It wasn't an easy swim. I sort of trust this meditation, but you should test it out for yourself. (It even stops my hiccups when I focus hard enough! ;) )
*** יהוה=י+ה+ו+ה=5+6+5+10=26=10+10+6=ו+י+י=א In another post, we will talk about how ש exposes things. God's name is hidden in א. In אש, the ש exposes it. An example of this in the Torah is with the burning bush, where the conversation Moses has with God while watching the bush burn teaches Moses a name for God, אהיה אשר אהיה.