Altar Ego

by Eliezer Segal

The Mishnah offers us a stirring description of the Sukkot celebration during the days of the second Jerusalem Temple. As is still the practice on joyous festivals, it was customary to recite the chapters from the book of Psalms that are designated “Hallel” [= praise] while the priests encircled the altar—once on each of the first six days, and then seven times on the seventh day.

The rabbis focussed on one particular verse in the Hallel, the one that goes “I beseech thee, O Lord! Save now! I beseech thee, O Lord, send now prosperity!” At this point the Mishnah inserted an alternative version: “Rabbi Judah [ben Ilai] says: “Ani Vaho, please save us!” 

In order to better understand this odd passage, it is helpful to explain a few basic facts about Hebrew usage and the norms of English translation. For one thing, the convention of rendering the divine name as “Lord” reflects traditional Jewish religious practice, but is not exactly what the Hebrew says. The original text employs the four-letter name of God [the “Tetragrammaton”] that is deemed so sacred that it is not pronounced, for which reason we substitute a less sublime epithet, usually “Adonai” [= Lord]. If somebody were to utter the actual four-letter name, it might have sound something like Rabbi Judah’s “Vaho.”

The standard English Bibles employ a rather cumbersome phrase “I beseech thee” to convey the Hebrew particle “anna,” which usually has the simple meaning of “please” or another such expression indicating a request or entreaty. Apparently, it is identical to the more common shorter form “na.” However, “anna” also sounds like the Aramaic pronoun for “I.”

If we combine all these factors, it appears as if Rabbi Judah was playing with the sounds of the Hebrew Psalm to produce a statement along the lines of: “I and he” or “me and him, please save us!”

What in Heaven’s name did he mean by this?

Rashi resorted to numerological mysticism to explain Rabbi Judah’s words. He calculated that the prayer was numerologically equal to the words in Psalms. Furthermore, he found in those words an allusion to the “seventy-two names of God,” an array of three-letter combinations derived by combining letters from three consecutive verses in the Torah (Exodus 14:19-21). Each of these verses contains exactly seventy-two letters. This obscure bit of arcane mysticism played a significant part in the spiritual and magical lore of medieval Ashkenazic Jewry, and was also known to Spanish scholars like Abraham Ibn Ezra.

A midrashic work taught that the seventy-two-letter name of God was the means through which the Almighty will redeem Israel. From ancient magical papyri and occult manuals, we learn that a similar name could be derived through graphic permutations of the four letters of the Tetragrammaton. Tales of its miraculous powers circulated in the medieval Babylonian schools, but the Ga’on Rav Hai advised that those reports should be treated with skepticism.

The Tosafot, not satisfied with Rashi’s verbal intricacies and apparent arbitrariness, proposed an alternate explanation that was far more poignant emotionally and theologically: The words, read as “me and him save please!” imply that God suffers personally in exile alongside his beloved people, and therefore is equating our redemption with his own — a boldly touching sentiment that had numerous precedents in the Bible and in rabbinic homilies. 

Maimonides cited a similar interpretation in the name of some Ge’onim—this is quite surprising, in light of his firm rejection of any notion that imputes human emotion or weakness to the Supreme Being. Indeed, in his Guide of the Perplexed he explained that when rabbinic texts mention lengthy names of God, they have in mind sublime metaphysical teachings; and only fools or charlatans would read them as magical formulas. 

Maimonides cited commentators who explained that “I” and “He” should be read as abbreviated biblical quotes that serve as epithets for God. He suggested that they were based on verses like “See now that I myself am he!” which appears in Deuteronomy in a promise of deliverance, making it an appropriate way of addressing a prayer for divine salvation.

Rabbi Joseph Engel derived a remarkable insight from the notion that “I” is a name of God. He noted that among the sages of rabbinic literature, Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, [= “Rebbi,” the redactor of the Mishnah] had a distinctive custom of beginning his statements with the words “I say.” For other persons this might be taken as a symptom of self-importance, and yet the Talmud states in several places that Rebbi was renowned for his extreme humility! 

Rabbi Engel therefore concluded that what Rebbi really meant was that he was not presenting his views as indisputable facts, but only as his tentative personal opinion, analogous to expressions like “in my humble opinion.” It is possible to understand Rebbi’s usage in light of a Hasidic teaching that spiritual giants do not speak by virtue of their own authority, but rather from the divine force—the “I”—that permeates them. Perhaps what he meant was: I cannot claim personal credit for the correctness or wisdom of my teachings, but attribute them to the divine “I” who speaks through me.

Rabbi Samuel Edels (Maharsha) objected that previous interpretations did not explain satisfactorily why Rabbi Judah related only to the Sukkot rites and not to other occasions when Hallel is recited. He therefore argued that the crucial factor here was the encircling of the altar. This, he noted, recalls the battle of Jericho where the Israelites also encircled the city once on each of six days, and then seven times on the seventh day. The ritual thus serves as an archetype of divine protection (for the Israelites, not the Jerichoans), as expressed by the psalmist: “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.”

We can surely use all the protection we can get, as we are enveloped in the physical and spiritual shelter of our frail sukkahs.

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