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The reason I moved this here is because a Jew is not permitted to write of say the name of G-D, any attempt for a Jew to answer the OP is offensive to some Jews.
The reason I moved this here is because a Jew is not permitted to write of say the name of G-D, any attempt for a Jew to answer the OP is offensive to some Jews.
OK.
One of the interesting issues is that this goes along with what I am saying in the OP about the importance of the name of God itself and the value of interpreting it.
Question: In Hebrew, is "H" pronounced the same way as in English, exactly?
I know that in Yiddish, there is a common h/kh/ch sound that is like H, but different (like the H/Ch in Hanukkah).
Here is where I read about h being a vowel. Joel Hoffman, Hebrew professor at Hebrew Union College, writes in his book "In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Alphabet":
Quote:
A religious leader... may have realized that writing was central to spreading the word of God. And vowels were central to letting people read and write. In one short paragraph we find the name of the one member of the Hebrew god-set as marked by the letter heh, and the instruction to write down the creed that the Lord is in fact one.
[The word YHWH is] amazing in its connection to the vowel letters invented by the Hebrews, for it contains nothing but those letters...
The reason why YHWH was chosen for God's name, he says,
Quote:
is that the letters in yhwh were chosen not because of the sounds they represent, but because of their symbolic power in that... no other culture had [them]; yhwh has no traditional pronunciation... because it never had a pronunciation to begin with. After all, the Hebrews' great invention was the doubling up of yud, heh, and vav as vowel letters. ... We also see the heh, so prominent elsewhere [ie because added into Abrahm, Saray, Elym], used twice.
I saw a DVD that outlined how the paleo-hebrew letters have meanings which, when looked at on a word by word basis, reveal deeper insights into God's truth.
In this case, I believe based on the link you gave that the meaning of YHVH's letters is:
Worship and live in line with (work), The Revealed Spirit (Breath) and set your gaze upon Him. Add to yourself, and make it secure on yourself, that Revealed Spirit (Breath) and do not stray from gazing upon Him.
Here is a problem I have with this whole exercise. You are saying that the meaning is work (I guess because of yod=arm) and breath (for heh). But I have seen several other Christian writers imagine several very different meanings instead.
A common one is hand, behold, nail, behold, and they see this as referring to the crucifixion or to Thomas seeing Jesus' hand wounds in John 20.
And the big differences in peoples' answers to this is the kind of thing making me question whether there is any credibility in this method at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Risen
I'd be curious how an Orthodox Rabbi would interpret that.
From a New Testament perspective, this fits with the message being that we are to receive the Holy Spirit in us, live according to God's direction empowered by His Spirit. It also fits in well with something Paul said in 2 Corinthians about why setting our gaze on the Spirit is so important:
"And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
The fact that the nature and things of the Spirit has to be revealed to us also fits with 1 Corinthians 2:
"these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God."
One problem with what you proposed is that you didn't use the concept of the letter Waw in YahWeh anywhere. Waw is nail/hook, and I heard it could also refer to a kind of connector.
One of the problems is that I don't want to get sucked into pseudoscience or guessing things that aren't there. Do you understand what I mean?
It would require an understanding of what shapes of what letters are actually relevant and how Judaism approaches the value of the shape of those letters (which is, mostly, it doesn't. Only in rare cases is the shape significant.)
Thanks for your reply, rosends.
In the Jewish Encyclopedia's online entries for Yod and Waw, it says these letters mean arm and nail, respectively. (see eg. YOD - JewishEncyclopedia.com).
I haven't noticed many cases where they use these kinds of shapes to draw deeper meanings, but I found a few, like their treatment of the words passover and pharoah using the letter that means mouth.
Here is one place of several where I saw passover deciphered this way:
Quote:
Passover (Pesach) - Open Your Mouth & Speak
The Jewish holiday, Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) is almost upon us. There's a myriad of messages within it for anyone, of any religion or no religion. There are universal truths waiting to be discovered
Perhaps the most important message, per my “unholy silence series,” is this: Pesach is composed of two Hebrew words – “Peh” (Mouth) & “Sach” (Speak).
Pesach is about facing life’s darkest moments and not allowing them to define us, imprison us, or enslave us. Pesach is about finding our mouth, our voice and learning how to truly speak. Passover (Pesach) Open Your Mouth & Speak | JewishBoston
Here is where I saw pharaoh deciphered:
Quote:
In the Book of Exodus,2 Pharaoh, whose name also begins with a pei, said, “Let us [confine the Jews to slavery] lest they multiply.” The word for “lest” in Hebrew is פן, pen: pei-nun. G‑d was displeased with Pharaoh’s declaration, so He “knocked out his tooth” by knocking out the tooth of the pei in Pharaoh’s “pen,” which made it a kaf. Now the word was no longer pen (“lest”) but כן, ken: kaf-nun, meaning “surely.” Surely the Jews will multiply.3
...
The letter pei actually means “mouth”—peh. A mouth is some*thing we use to speak, and the entire purpose of speaking is to communicate with another individual. That ability to commu*nicate is the essential aspect of eighty’s special strength.
...
Pesach represents the antithesis of Pharaoh, who, as the Megaleh Amukos12 explains, signifies peh-ra, a “bad mouth.” Pharaoh was someone who denied G‑d’s providence in every act of nature. Our mouths were not given to us to slander or denigrate others, but to speak of G‑d’s greatness and wonders.
Yahweh is a very important word in Judaism, but I don't know explicitly of Jewish tradition deciphering it using those meanings (eg. nail , arm, and behold).
Question: In Hebrew, is "H" pronounced the same way as in English, exactly?
I know that in Yiddish, there is a common h/kh/ch sound that is like H, but different (like the H/Ch in Hanukkah).
Here is where I read about h being a vowel. Joel Hoffman, Hebrew professor at Hebrew Union College, writes in his book "In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Alphabet":
The reason why YHWH was chosen for God's name, he says,
The Hoffman quote makes no sense. He refers to the "god-set" and, according to what you posted, he writes, "In one short paragraph we find the name of the one member of the Hebrew god-set as marked by the letter heh"
Ignoring whatever he means by "god-set", without seeing what paragraph he, in turn, is referring to, it seems that he is mistaking the convention of writing a reference to God in Hebrew just as the letter Hey with an apostrophe for the writing of the name itself. The Hey is short for "hashem" which is the word we use to replace God's actual name. The word means "the name" but is not a name, itself.
Here is one blessing ברוך אתה ה' א‑לוהינו, מלך העולם, פוקח עורים
Note the third word, the Hey with an apostrophe.
Next, Hoffman says "[The word YHWH is] amazing in its connection to the vowel letters invented by the Hebrews, for it contains nothing but those letters... "
Now, unless we are defining "vowel letters" differently I have to call BS on this. Hebrew has no vowel letters. It has diacritical markings which indicate vowel sounds. Note the difference between בְּרֵאשִׁית and בראשית
According to what you say Hoffman wrote, all the letters in the name of God would be vowels and that's simply not the case in Hebrew. The Hey in Hebrew is sometimes vocalized and sometimes silent. But it isn't a vowel.
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