Before that Chanukah detour, I promised to discuss the berakhah of ShehaKol further.

To review what we said so far: In this berakhah we conclude “nihyeh bidevaro – is existing through His Word”. With speech, the words only exist while they’re being said. Creation is “vayomer Elokim“ because Hashem still speaks. In fact, the existence is the very speech itself. This meat, egg, or candy I am about to eat, or juice I am getting ready to drink, they exist because Hashem is still “Saying” them.

The phrase “Barukh Atah Hashem” is complex with a numerous of approaches to understand what “blessing Hashem”, One Who is both unchanging and lacking anything that He would need to be blessed with. That’s a post in and of itself, sometime in the future. Here we will work with just one of them.

Barukh can be taken to be a statement of fact. Rather than trying to find a way to understand how we can bless, or increase, the Almighty, the Avudraham (technically, Abu-Dirham) says that “barukh” is a description. Like a berakhah, a spring of water, Hashem “flows” us and everything around us into being. The Source, the One Who provides increase.

The Avudraham’s definition also fits the subsequent use of Sheim Havayah, י-הו-ה. The root of this Name of Hashem is “hoveh“, to exist. Hashem as the Cause of existence, if the vowelization of those letters fit the hif’il (causative) pattern. Chazal say the name is used in Tanakh when Hashem’s Action appears to be from Middas haRachamim, the Attribute of Compassion. But rachamim comes from the word rechem, womb. The name isn’t about Compassion in general, it’s about Parental Compassion from the Cause to the caused existence.

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There is a literary device used heavily in Tanakh called Chiastic Structure, an instance of which is a “chiasm”. The name refers to the shape of the capital Greek letter chi, which looks just like an English “Χ”. It is a way of drawing attention to an idea, by making the unit’s topics symmetric around that point. For example, the first half of Bereishis 9:6:

• שֹׁפֵךְ – One who sheds
  • דַּם – the blood
    • הָאָדָם – of a person,
    • בָּאָדָם – through a person
  • דָּמוֹ – shall his blood
• יִשָּׁפֵךְ – be spilled

An A-B-C-C-B-A structure, drawing our eye to the word “adam“. Attention is being given to the idea that a crime committed against a human needs to be judged by humans. Aside from Noach being told that murder is prohibited, he is also being told that a society is obligated to have a judicial system.

Given our previous idea and the Avudraham’s take on the word “barukh“, we can see the berakhah of ShehaKol as having a similar structure:

• בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה – You are the Source, the Wellspring, of all blessing and existence
  • י-הו-ה – Hashem, our Compassionate Cause
    • אֱלֹקֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם- G-d, Master of all the Forces, King of the Universe. Elokeinu is a name of the One that yet has a plural form, because refers to His being the One who Controls the full multitude of forces and potential that Hashem is Master of. Whereas the King of the universe refers to how that multitude is united into a harmony under His Rule.
    • שֶׁהַכֹּל – that the everything. Note this refers to many items, but they are “the everything”. Both divided and unified.
  • נִהְיֶה – exists, using the same root (הוה / היה) as the Sheim Havayah, the Cause of existing.
• בִּדְבָרוֹ – though His Word, the word being the “water” of existence that flows from the Wellspring.

In this chiasm, the focus is Hashem as Master of that which He created. We may eat this meat, or enjoy this morning coffee, but we do so knowing that Hashem provided it to us for a single Ultimate Purpose.

Another thing to note is that this, like all berakhos (or “nearly all”, depending on your nusach), starts out with Hashem in the Second Person, “You”, but ends with Him in the Third “bidvaro – though His Word”. Perhaps we are mentally following the flow from the Wellspring, and being close to Hashem, down to the item we are about to consume.

Speaking of morning coffee, I try to make a meditation on the above out of the ShehaKol I say before my first cup of the day. I hope to at least once a day say this gem of a berakhah with a little more attention to its beauty.

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Next post I intend to return to the Amidah.