God Bless You. Three words said so easily when someone we care about sneezes. Grateful that the loved one’s breathing has been restored and hopeful that illness is not coming near, we invoke God’s blessing without hesitation and with joy and glee. Yet, these same three words – God bless you – in almost any other context leaves some of us squirming, wondering how un-Jewish it sounds to walk around saying God bless you to everyone and under any circumstances.
So, it might be surprising to note that this is exactly what this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Naso, instructs:
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The Lord spoke to Moses: to Aaron and his sons. Thus, shall you bless the people Israel: May the Lord Bless you and protect you! May the Lord shine God’s light on you and be gracious to you! May the Lord lift God’s face on you and grant you peace! Thus shall they link My name with the people Israel and I will bless them!
God tells Moses to have Aaron and his sons bless the people using the language of the individual. For centuries, these words have been central to Jewish worship and liturgy transforming the ways in which Jews offer blessings to one another. Priests to the community, those leading the repetition of the Amidah to those with whom they are praying, rabbis to those celebrating special moments of life, parents to their children on Shabbat and Yom Tov – every day, these words express the dreams and capture the heart of warm wishes and personal sentiment that Jews have for one another.
The three-fold blessing of Birkat Cohanim – the Priestly Blessing - stands out as one of the most famous and unique statements in all of Torah. Each line is a bit longer than the one before it (3, 5 and 7 lines respectively) and each contains the very personal name of God. Only after the pronouncement of this blessing, after people blessed other people, did God bless the people.
Furthermore, as we continuing reading in the Torah we come to the very next verse describing the consecration of the Temple: “On the day that Moses finished setting up the tabernacle, he anointed and consecrated it and all its furnishing…” (Numbers 7:1) People blessing people not only invokes God’s blessing, but is also a prelude to the readiness of the temple to become a place of offering and holiness.
So, just what was it about this three-fold blessing that held such power over God, had the ability to invoke God’s action, and becomes the prelude to meaning and prominence of the Temple?
The Midrash Tanhuma explains that when the priests aspired to bless the people, God endorsed their efforts and participates in the blessing, deeming more authentic the priestly efforts. Robert Alter, in his translation and commentary, explains, “After the pronouncing of the threefold blessing, God’s name, a kind of divine proprietorship, will be set over Israel, and God Himself will carry out the blessing” (Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses[New York: Norton, 2004], p. 714). God is transformed and God’s actions impacted by one human blessing another. God is motivated to bless when God sees humans blessing one another. Thus are the people linked with God and connected to the Divine presence.
One commentator, the Yeshuat Yaakov suggests that God will “lift up” the Divine “Face” toward Israel when Jews lift up their faces toward each other’s ideas and points of view with tolerance. When we offer a blessing of another person, we are, in some ways, acknowledging their uniqueness and their divine origin, one giant step towards acceptance and tolerance. For that, it is indeed worthy of challenging ourselves to find reason to bless others.
God bless you – three words that perhaps we should say everyday to as many people as we can? After all, could we not all benefit from greater tolerance? Could we not all use a bit more of God’s blessing?
Shabbat Shalom and may God bless you!