BirdofPrey wrote:Jrosemary wrote:HaShem's actual name--the Yod Heh Vav Heh (the letters that translate, sorta, into YHVH or YHWH)--seem to be connected to the verb 'to be' as if HaShem is the ground of being itself.
That's what I've been trying to look into in that other thread.
Hebrew is highly poetic; we'll never have a definitive translation of either
Eyeh asher Eyeh or the Yod Heh Vav Heh. And that's ok by me--it shouldn't be possible to pin God down and fit Him into a neat little box.
I don't believe in the untranslateable. There's no thing you can comprehend but can't describe. While engeneering an English version of the name would take understanding of language that's beyond anyone's grip, detailing the things hebrew speakers see in the word isn't impossible, and I don't see what's wrong with boxing. So, if there's more, please go ahead, and thank you very much for posting this already.
Who said anything about comprehending God? Many Jews will tell you He's utterly beyond us--we can't even ascribe attributes to Him.
We know the idea behind
Eyeh asher Eyeh: "I will be what I will be" or "I will be what I become." The name suggests sheer potentiality--and dynamic potentiality, at that. In other words,
Eyeh asher Eyeh is not a way to describe a static, changeless God.
When I said that we'll never have a definitive translation, I should have said we'll never have a definitive interpretation.
The trouble with translating the Yod Heh Vav Heh is that we just can't. Whatever precise meaning or meanings the Name may have had, they're lost to us. All we have are educated guesses. As I said above, it seems to suggest the ground of being. . . but that's just an educated guess.
BirdofPrey wrote:JRosemary wrote:(And yes, this is another reason we should all learn Hebrew to read the Tanakh--what Christians call the 'Old Testament.' We miss too much reading it in translation . . .)
Agreed. Someone could also make a list of the things we miss in English, and append it to the Bible or as a separate book.
It'd be easier to just learn Hebrew.
The Jewish Study Bible by JPS and
The Etz Hayim Torah and Commentary both give good information on the Hebrew--but you still miss so much imagery.
For example, an English Bible might say, "The Lord was angered" whereas the Hebrew might read, "HaShem flared His nostrils." No English translation I've ever seen talks about HaShem flaring His nostrils. Some people don't care: they say the idea is that God is angry and so you don't miss anything in the translation. But why rob your translation of imagery like that?
BirdofPrey wrote:JRosemary wrote:
*HaShem is Hebrew for 'The Name.' It's a way of referring to the God of Israel without using the Name itself, which Jews traditionally don't pronounce.
I knew about this, I just didn't know it's HaShem. Very helpful post. Thanks again.
While thinking about all this though, I ended up wondering, why would God even have a name ? It's almost as He'd have weight...
We also use Adonai in place of the actual name. Adonai means 'Lord.' However, we generally reserve Adonai for formal settings: when we're praying, reading from Scripture, etc. For more every-day use, we use HaShem. (In general, the Conservative-to-Orthodox crowd uses HaShem for every day; the Reform and Reconstructionist crowds use either God or even sometimes Adonai; though there's still a prejudice against using Adonai in any informal situation.)
In fact, even Christians have traditionally made this replacement. In many English Bibles, when you see the Old Tesatment saying 'The Lord' or especially 'THE LORD,' you know, even without looking at the Hebrew, that they're substituting 'The Lord' for the Yod Heh Vav Heh.
Why wouldn't He have a name? First off, early Israelites probably conceived of HaShem as our tribal deity, leading to a sort of monotheism-within-polytheism. In other words, there are lots of gods: El, Ba'al, Ashera . . . but HaShem is our God.
But as Judaism groped its way to real monotheism, we co-opted the names of other gods: 'El' became, in Hebrew, a generic term for God or, in its plural form, either God or gods, depending. In Hebrew you can see when we use derivatives of Ba'al to describe HaShem and so on.
The book of Deuteronomy is pretty monotheistic. It contains the Sh'ma, which is the central proclomation of Judaism. Look at 6:4.
ש×�ְמַע, יִשְׂרָ×�ֵל: יְהוָה ×�Ö±×œÖ¹×”Öµ×™× ×•Ö¼, יְהוָה ×�ֶחָד
Sh'ma Yisrael, Adonai elohenu, Adonai echad.
It translates either to:
Hear, O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is one.
or
Hear, O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai alone.
or both. Echad (�ֶחָד) means one, alone, only, etc.
The power of the Sh'ma, for me, comes largely from the fact that even though we're monotheists (or monists, as many mystical Jews are), we're still talking about Adonai/HaShem . . . the Yod Heh Vav Heh . . . the same God who (mythically speaking, at least) brought us out of Egypt. We're not talking about a generic god. We mean this God in particular.
I think it's the same with other religions. Hindus choose an ishta-devata--one Hindu may be devoted to Vishnu, another to Durga, another to Shiva. Many of those Hindus will tell you that all of these are just aspects of the same Eternal One. (And I'd agree.) But it's still different to worship Vishnu than Durga. Not better or worse, just different.
And even if Vishnu and HaShem are different Names of the same God, it's still different to worship Vishnu as opposed to the God of Israel. Not different in a bad way, mind. But different all the same.
So that's my answer as to why the God of Israel has a name. This isn't a generic god--HaShem is the God who brought us out of Egypt. HaShem is the God we experienced at Sinai. HaShem is the God we made an eternal covenant with.
Try this: next time you read Exodus, every time you see 'the Lord' read HaShem or Adonai instead. The text instantly becomes more lively when you force yourself to be aware that we're talking about this particular deity.
