![]() ![]() The Talmud (Berachot 31a) explains that this was the first time any human being had called God by this name: If I am of the earthly beings let me multiply, and if I am of the heavenly beings let me not die.' (Rashi on 1 Samuel 1:11) The heavenly beings do not multiply, neither do they die, while the earthly beings both multiply and die. She said before Him: 'O Ruler of the Universe, You created two hosts in Your world. Rashi, a medieval French commentator, explains that Hannah's use of this name was no coincidence she seemed to be intentionally commenting on God's power: ![]() “Adonai Tzeva'ot, if You will look upon the suffering of Your maidservant and will remember me and not forget Your maidservant, and if You will grant Your maidservant a male child, I will dedicate him to Adonai for all the days of his life and no razor shall ever touch his head.” (1 Samuel 1:11) Hannah, who is bereft over her childlessness, will remain behind to address God personally. The name Adonai Tzeva'ot first appears in the book of Samuel, when a man named Elkanah heads to Jerusalem with his two wives, Hannah and Penina, to make sacrifices to God - or, specifically, to Adonai Tezva'ot (1 Samuel 1:3). The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array (וְכָל־צְבָאָֽם) - all the atoms, molecules, and particles had been arranged in the right order to result in the physical world as we know it. Consider the following verse from Genesis 2:1, which describes a completed creation: are what is meant by "hosts." This latter idea alludes to God as the commander of all available physical particles that can come together to form tangible entities. Various commentators and interpreters have described God's "armies" or "hosts" as consisting of angelic beings, but have also suggested that all the elements of creation - atoms, molecules, etc. The name is not used in the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) but appears frequently in the later prophetic works, including Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi, as well as many times in the Psalms. It is often translated as "Lord of Hosts." The Hebrew word tzeva'ot ( צְבָאות) can also be translated as "armies," giving the idea of God as a commander of all heavenly forces. The Hebrew phrase Adonai Tzeva'ot ( יי צְבָאות) is one of the many names of God. ” The composer of the ha-ma’ariv aravim prayer took the liberty of giving l’ha’ariv an additional, transitive meaning and coupled it with aravim, the plural of erev, to arrive at “who evenings evenings.” The verb l’ha’ariv, for example, which comes from erev, “evening,” existed before, but only with the intransitive meaning of “to come in the evening,” as in the verse in Chapter 17 of the first book of Samuel, “And the Philistine came morning and evening. This was an era in which, paradoxically, Hebrew religious poetry was going through a period of great verbal expansion and experimentation at the same time that the last vestiges of spoken Hebrew were disappearing - a paradox explainable by the fact that the spoken language’s final demise freed the written language from the checks and restraints of spoken norms. The phrase ha-ma’ariv aravim occurs nowhere else in rabbinic literature and was the invention of the anonymous composer of this prayer, which dates to the early centuries of the Common Era. ![]() Mishkan T'filah (like Gates of Prayer before it) gives the full traditional text. The Union Prayer Book, for example, in all of its editions, omitted the phrase "rolling light away from darkness and darkness from light"-although it is unclear at this distance whether the imagery was deemed objectionable or simply redundant. Because this benediction is relatively short, it has rarely been further abbreviated in Reform liturgies (unlike its morning counterpart), although individual prayer-book editors have taken literalist offense at some of its poetic imagery and pruned the text accordingly. It is noteworthy that although this is an evening blessing, it does not leave us (figuratively, at least) "in the dark" rather the dark is seen as part of a constantly recurring cycle of light and darkness that demonstrates the wisdom of its divine Creator. God eternally "rolls light away from darkness and darkness from light" (this phrase already occurs in the Babylonian Talmud, B'rachot 11b). The evening Maariv Aravim (literally, "who mixes the twilight") blessing praises God for having created the cosmic order-the regular changing of the times and seasons as the celestial bodies rotate in their courses. ![]() Divrei Mishkan T'filah: Delving into the Siddur ( Rabbi Richard S. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |