Dear Friend,
Many months ago (almost 9 now!) when I started sharing my thoughts on this platform with you, I decided to create a recurring segment called, “D’var Torah” (which means word of Torah). In this segment I would peel back the curtain on Hebrew words commonly found in Torah and liturgy. This idea did not pan out and I only shared the following before deciding I felt done. But today, I wanted to expand and reshare these teachings for you to enjoy! So DJ turn it up, it’s that time for a REMIX!
Thanks for being here. It matters.
Love, Meg
OLAM עולם – Eternal Expansion
Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech haolam … even non-Jews know these infamous six words. They begin so many blessings that I dare not count. This is what these words mean:
“Blessed are you, Adonai our God, king of the olam.” I grew up with that last word, olam, translated as “universe” but was spiritually sparked when I learned that olam has another dimension.
In our second favorite book, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (the BDB,) we find olam entered under the entry for alam, a verb that itself has many definitions and uses. The first being “to conceal.”
Further down in the entry, we find this word defined as “world or creation”. But then...and this is the exciting part…a little further down, olam is defined as “long duration, antiquity, futurity.”
Huh. So, olam can mean not just the infinity of space (universe) but infinity of time. In other words, “Blessed are you, Adonai our God, king (or, I often substitute ruach in here, which means spirit) of eternity.” Spirit of time. That constant container for life. “Blessed are you, Adonai our Divine Source, Spirit of Eternal Expansion.” I like that one.
If this sounds like I’m heavily influenced by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, it’s because I am. In his seminal reflection on Shabbat, The Sabbath, he writes:
“For where shall the likeness of God be found? There is no quality that space has in common with the essence of God. There is not enough freedom on the top of the mountain; there is not enough glory in the silence of the sea. Yet the likeness of God can be found in time, which is eternity in disguise.”
MALAKH מלאך – Messenger
It was an angel who saved Isaac from his own father’s attempt to sacrifice him on Mt. Moriah. And before that, it was an angel who spoke to Hagar in the wilderness, reassured her, and brought her home. It was an angel who summoned Moses to the burning bush and it was an angel who led the Israelites through the desert and it was an angel that stopped Balaam’s donkey in her tracks. And every shabbat when we sing Shalom Aleichem, we welcome angels into our homes.
But what the heck is an angel?
The word for angel in Hebrew is malakh מַלְאָך it occurs 213 times in the Hebrew Bible. Primarily, malakh means “messenger” but can also mean, as we are discussing, “angel” or “ambassador.”
Here’s my question – if the God is so all powerful, why does God need a messenger? At other times God just shows up to talk to Abraham or Moses. So why angels at all?
Allow me a metaphor. Image God as all of the intelligence of the universe, typed out on a typewriter. The typewriter is constantly clicking away, considering creation is happening all the time. Ok, and then imagine, every once in a while, a piece of that writing is ripped off, sealed in an envelope, and delivered to you.
An angel is like a letter carrier from the great beyond – bringing you a tiny piece of the infinite. An angel is an intermediary. I happen to consider my cats angels… but that’s for another post (and I’m half serious). Sometimes a poem feels like an angel.
Not all interactions with the divine can be like receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai, where God reveals Herself completely. How could we live like that?
But what if we started looking for angels more liberally, like sacred sticky notes, throughout our lives? What if we considered angels to be like little hints on the most ancient treasure hunt? And the treasure is getting closer and closer to peace.
May you meet an angel today.
SHALOM שלום – Wholeness
For many people, shalom is the only Hebrew word they know. It is commonly taught to mean “hello,” “goodbye,” and “peace.” That is what I was taught it means, and, that’s true. But wait, there’s more!
We learn from the BDB that shalom comes from the root word shalaim, which means “to be complete, sound, safe or finished,” among other iterations. The masculine noun form, shalom, appears under this entry with its first definitions being “completeness,” “soundness,” “welfare,” and “peace.”
According to Strong’s Concordance, The word shalom appears 237 times in the Hebrew Bible. And for those who are familiar with even a little Jewish liturgy, boy is it prevalent!
But let’s think about the English word “peace.” For a word so commonly printed on trinkets or flow-y shirts in painfully cheesy script, “peace” can feel hard to pin down. In my experience, when asked to define it off the cuff, people generally say “calm,” “stillness,” or “everything is ok.” When you look it up, similar definitions appear in addition to “tranquility,” “harmony,” or “ceasefire.” But what if we thought of it more like we think of shalom – a synonym for completeness? Wholeness. Enough-ness.
Next time you wish someone a Shabbat Shalom or pray for peace or see something scrawled with those five letters in a gift shop, let it mean that, if just for a moment, all is done – all of the healing, all of the work in the name of justice. Let it be for a moment that our hearts are whole. That we lack nothing.
TOV טוב – Good
Tov means “good,” as in booker tov (good morning) or shavuah tov (have a good week). The BDB also gives us “pleasant and agreeable.” It’s a pretty straightforward word that occurs many, many times (562 times in the Hebrew Bible to be exact) and a whopping seven times in the first chapter of Genesis alone. Why? Because that is the beginning of creation. And what do we know about creation? It was good.
But not everyday of creation received the declaration, ki tov, “it was good.” The first day (Sunday), yep, good. Monday… no mention of it being good. Tuesday, it is good twice! There are two mentions of ki tov, “that it was good.” Why?
Rashi says it is because the work God began on the second day of creation (Monday, if you will) had not been completed yet. But on the third day (Tuesday), God completed two things, and so it was good, twice. For Rashi, it cannot be good if it is not completed yet.
Let us play with the thought that “good” might mean some version of done – that completing something, in and of itself, is good. Finishing something moves us forward in our lives. When we complete something, we feel a sense of relief and accomplishment, and self worth – for better and worse. In verse 37 of the Tao Te Ching we read, “The Tao does nothing, yet leaves nothing undone.” Even in this configuration, there is the sense that “nothing undone” is an admirable goal – the way. You know another way to say “nothing undone?” Everything done.
When we finish things, for just a split second we have played the part of God – creators and completers. I did that. I made that soup. I painted that picture. I folded that pile of laundry. I took that walk. I sent that email. And what comes after creation or done-ness? Even in the busiest of days, after we finish something, we get the slightest slice of rest. And it was good.
Yes! I so love how each word in these ancient texts can hold space for a multiplicity of meaning. A superposition of thoughts. They defy dichotomies.
I really do look forward to each of your writings.
Thank you for your ever thought-provoking writing. This entry in particular really speaks to me; as with so many aspects of Judaism, there's so much more there beyond the simplicity on the surface.
Sh'koiach!!