When my seventh grade bible teacher asked me to memorize fifteen words in Biblical Hebrew, I was not happy to say the least. I felt no connection to the words and did not see any application for using them in the future.
Little did I know how wrong I was at the time. Because these were no ordinary fifteen words, but in fact, the words to the Priestly Blessing:
Y’var-ekh’cha A-do-nai v’yeesh’m’recha: Ya-eir A-do-nai pa-nav ei-ley-cha vee-chu-nei-cha: Yee-sa A-do-nai pa-nav ei-lay-cha v’ya-sem l’cha sha-lom: May God bless you and guard you: May the light of God shine upon you, and may God be gracious to you: May the presence of God be with you and give you peace.
Buried at the end of the fourth aliyah of this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Naso, the oldest of all of our blessings, pops off the page. In a portion dedicated to obscure priestly rules, like those regarding Nazirite priestly and what to do with adulterous wives, the Priestly Blessing have little in the way of introduction.
The text simply says for Moses to tell Aaron that this is the way he and the other priests should bless the People of Israel. We know from archeological evidence that individuals carried amulets with the Priestly Blessing from the seventh century BCE onward.
In terms of how we use them today, they have been inserted intermittently inside prayer services and included in various life cycle events. For me personally, my wife and I use them to bless our children every Friday night, and then, in my professional life, I use them at weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, baby namings, etc.
One of my favorite rituals is one I learned from Rabbi Tanenbaum, where the Bar or Bat Mitzvah is given the Priestly Blessing before the service begins, and told that the next time they hear the words they will be done with all of their work. We then bring the child in front of the ark near the end of the service to be blessed a second time publically.
Just this past Shabbat, Cantor Frank and I used the Priestly Blessing to bless the hands of the craftsmen who built our new Bima Furniture. It is my go to blessing, any time and any place it is needed. And, every time I use it I thank God for my seventh grade Bible teacher, Rabbi Steve Stroiman, who insisted I put the words to memory.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex