I’m reading “In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language
The book brought to my consciousness something rather obvious, but that I’d never really thought about. Since the Torah was written without any vowels — are we REALLY sure we’re getting it right? There certainly aren’t any recordings from 3,000 years ago. And as the book has illuminated for me how the modern Torah came to be, it opens all kinds of fascinating possibilities.
One of the things that keeps going through my mind is that written in Hebrew, without vowels, HaShem (the name) and HaSham (the there) look identical. Come to think of it — the same is true in English. HShm and HShm look exactly alike. Based on the context you can decide which I would mean. HaSham isn’t a known name of the Divine in a Jewish context that I know of, but I’ve come to believe that it’s a lost name, and here’s why.
HaMakom (the place) is a well known name of the Divine. I believe it comes from the what Jacob says the the night becomes Israel. “And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said: ‘Surely the YHVH is in this place (makom); and I knew it not.” (Genesis 28:16 - JPS 1917). There’s a great book by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, God Was in This Place and I, I Did Not Know
עקב משנתו ויאמר אכן יש יהוה במקום הזה ואנכי לא ידעתי
This line from Genesis, talks about the “thereness” of the Divine. The Shekhniah when you feel her presence. This is why I’ve started to think of HaSham as a Divine name. It’s speaks of the presence of the Divine in all things. It’s speaks of the immanence. It speaks of the thereness. The Divine is not just a transcendent, incomprehensible thing as when considering the Ayn Sof, but also something we can see, feel, touch, taste, hear, and experience every day and in everything.
Imagine what happens to the idea of the common phrase, “Baruch HaShem” when you turn it into “Baruch HaSham.” Now you are not blessing an ineffable name, but the presence of the Divine. Think about how the meaning of “BeEzrat Hashem,” with the help of the Name, when you turn it into “BeEzrat Hasham.”
Technorati Tags: divinity, god, hashem, names, visions, hebrew
HaShem is not a name mentioned in the bible (where god is known in many names, like Yehova-Yahwe-YHVH, Elohim etc…), but rather was invented by jewish orthodox people that did not want to speak the name of god. Because of this, the word is punctuated, and we knoe it can’t be “HaSham” (although it’s a nice interpretation). I think that “HaMakom” works the same.
BTW, I use the name Yehova in my work, because of my attempt to reconstruct a genuine hebrew earth-based spiritual path. The ancient Hebrews knew their god as Yehova, rather than “the name”. As you mentioned, “the name” is a very transcedent way of looking at the divine.
riiiight….I knew HaShem wasn’t a name from the Torah, but that didn’t seem to cross my mind while all these other things did. Yeah. Well, I still like HaSham, even if my logic is faulty in this case.
I still think there’s a lot to be gained by taking the perspective that we add our breath to the Hebrew letters to give the Torah interpretation, even if this single instance wasn’t exactly true, Carly.
Ever read David Abram’s _Spell of the Sensuous_? Although the entirety of the book goes in another direction, he makes some good points about the connection between spirit, language and ancient alphabets and breath as well as hour our sensuous relationships with all beings are reflected in our language. He shows the importance between spelling (the letters) and creating spells (like magick) with those relationships.