Reflections on Ritual – August 2025

Reflections on Ritual – August, 2025

“May God bless you and protect you. May God deal kindly and graciously with you. May God bestow favor upon you and grant you peace.”

Y’varechecha Adonai v’yishmerecha; Ya’er Adonai panav eleicha vichuneka; Yisa Adonai panav eleicha v’yasem l’cha shalom. Numbers 6: 22-27.

These three sentences are among the oldest, continuously said blessings in Judaism. They appear first in the Book of Numbers, as God directs the Priests to bestow these blessings on the people of Israel. If you were to ask what my favorite blessing is, this would top the list.

The Priestly Blessing, formulated three thousand years ago, is older than the ubiquitous blessing form that begins with “Baruch atah,” which itself goes back some two thousand years. Modern archeology recently established how long the Priestly Blessing has been a ritual. In 1979, an archeologist discovered a one-inch long scroll of Birkat kohanim in a burial cave near Jerusalem, one of several kemayot, amulets, dating to the sixth century B.C.E., the era of the prophet Jeremiah and the last days of the First Temple. The next time you hear the Priestly Blessing, know you’re hearing words that have been recited for more than 2500 years. Though the words remain the same, in our time the ritual has been democratized, so that each of us, not just kohanin, may confer the blessing on others.

Duchenen and Nesiat Kapayim. You may know the Priestly Blessing by other names. Traditionally, when Ashkenazic Jews recite Birkat kohanim from the bimah, they call it “duchenen.” “Duchen” is the Yiddish word for a platform or bimah. In the days of the Temple, the Priests would say the blessing standing on a platform.

Another name is “Nesiat kapayim,” which means “raising of the hands” in Hebrew. This describes how the Kohen would hold his hands as he blessed the congregation. The two hands with fingers apart are an iconic image found in synagogues, as well as on matzavot, gravestones, of kohanim. In TBHBA, you’ll see a depiction of the hands above the ark, near the Eternal Light. This unique shape has been interpreted in a number of ways. Some say the hands represent the Hebrew letter shin, the first letter of the word for Shaddai, Almighty.
Some say the space between the hands is a window through which to see the world, or windows through which God’s blessings can flow to us. Still others say the hands form a Star of David, Magen David, when the thumbs are facing downward.

Birkat kohanim in the home and Synagogue. In many synagogues, including ours, you’ll hear the Rabbi saying Birkat kohanim as a closing benediction, a tradition that goes back to the Talmudic period when the Rabbis recalled Aaron’s blessing at the consecration of the Tabernacle in the wilderness (Leviticus 9:21-22) You’ll hear it on other occasions, too, such as when the Rabbi blesses a bar or bat mitzvah, and a bride and groom.

Many families have a lovely tradition on erev Shabbat, where parents bless their children with Birkat kohanim, holding their hands over their children, sharing love and expressing desire for their physical and spiritual well-being.

In Orthodox synagogues, the Priestly Blessing is recited during the repetition of the Amida, as well as on festivals and the High Holy Days, when descendants of kohanim bless the congregation, a millennia-old tradition. In traditional congregations, each word of Birkat Kohanim is chanted very slowly two times: first by the prayer leader and then by the kohanim, enhancing the blessing’s power through the attention given to every word. After each blessing, the congregation responds, Kain Y’hi Ratzon, “May it be his will.”

If you’re old enough, you may have grown up in a congregation where you saw traditional dukhening, a moment of great awe and drama. Picture the sight of people standing on the bimah with their hands extended and with their heads and upper faces covered by full-length tallitot. Parents would sometimes cover their children with their own tallitot during the blessing as though to protect them from the awe of looking directly upon the kohanim.

No post on Birkat kohanim would be complete without mentioning its most famous appearance in popular culture. If you’re a Star Trek fan, you know Mr. Spock’s famed “Live Long and Prosper” greeting, as he held one hand with fingers divided, studiously in the manner of a kohan. Leonard Nimoy often spoke about his impressions as a young boy, watching kohanim perform the ritual in shul, so powerful that he made it part of his storied Vulcan character.

What is the significance of the Priestly Blessing? On the surface, Birkat kohanim is simple and straightforward, disarmingly so. It is one of the shortest blessings – only fifteen words in Hebrew, but among the oldest and arguably most profound. Let’s take a closer look at the three verses.

The first verse has three words in the original Hebrew, the second has five, and the third has seven. As we experience it, we bring together elements of a more comprehensive blessing whose power grows as we proceed. And it’s easy to overlook the fact that each verse is actually two blessings.
The blessings progress from the physical to the spiritual. It works so naturally, we barely notice it. The first verse, “May the Lord bless you and protect you” seeks God’s basic, material blessing for sustenance and physical health. Physical needs must always be satisfied before the spiritual.

The second verse, “May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you” is a transition to the moral, ethical realm. It asks God to help us behave as we should, to show grace to other people and they to us – in essence, how we relate person to person. We ask God for her grace so that we can learn to live together as caring, empathetic human beings. The essence of the second blessing was expressed eloquently by the great Hasidic master, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev: “Whether a person really loves God can be determined by the love that person shares with others.”

The third verse, “May God bestow favor upon you (literally, ‘raise his face to you’) and grant you peace,” takes us inward. This is most spiritual of the blessings. We are God’s children. God cares for us as a parent, and raises her face toward us with love. Having established this connection, the blessing ends as we ask that God grant the most precious blessing of peace.

Is such an ancient prayer relevant to our lives? In Birkat kohanim we ask a power greater and wiser for help in providing sustenance, grace, love and peace, but more importantly, the blessings serve to heighten our awareness of our responsibility to take action to protect, love and care for one another.

On this point, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has said:

“We live with much brokenness in our world, we need a sense that we can strive to create shalom—peace and wholeness—even when it seems far away, and we need to hear this from people who know and love us . . . Birkat kohanim can be the start of a blessing that we give to another, but not its end. We should continue with our own words that are specific to the needs of the person or people in front of us . . . to listen to each other and to then give another a blessing, a berakhah that they specifically need.”
May we each have the wisdom to understand the blessings we need to give each other. May we act to bring blessing to an entire world in need. May we each be open to receiving the blessings we need. And may we have the wisdom to know that we have received those blessings.

Questions, comments and suggestions for future topics are always welcome. Until next time. L’hitraot. Zeit gezunt. Stay healthy.
May you and your families be inscribed for a new year of health, happiness and peace.
Stephen Freed, TBH-BA Ritual Committee