Why do you recommend prayers in which people bless G-d?

Question: How it is that a person can be in a position to bless G-d?  That is implied by the prayer from the traditional Jewish communal liturgy, “Bless the L-rd Who is blessed.” Rabbi Moshe Weiner approved that for your booklet of recommended Noahide community prayer services.

Ask Noah

Answer

by Rabbi Sholom Ber Bloom and Dr. Michael Schulman)

In order to understand this, we first have to understand how we are able to praise G-d at all. Who are we to think that we understand the greatness of G-d, so that we can praise Him adequately? G-d is infinite, so seemingly any praise that we finite people give to G-d could be considered an insult. G-d is infinitely greater than any praise we could give Him. In fact, in Exodus 15:11, the Torah describes G-d as being “fearful in praises.”

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki (“Rashi”) gave this explanation on the basic level. “People are afraid to declare Your [G-d’s] praises, lest they say less than they really are.” Similarly, it is related in the Talmud that a certain person, while leading the prayer services in the presence of the sage Rabbi Hanina, decided to add more praises about G-d than were included in the standardized liturgy. After he had finished, Rabbi Hanina rebuked him by saying, “Why are you adding all those [additional] praises? For even if you will mention all of the praises in the world, you would be insulting Him, for G-d is infinitely higher than the praises that you are ascribing to Him.”

The answer is that the reason we have certain praises of G-d in our prayers is because Moses, the greatest prophet of all time, praised G-d with certain descriptions as recorded in the Torah. Many generations later, the Men of the Great Assembly (the sages of the Great Sanhedrin when the Second Temple was built) established the standardized prayer services for Jews. They included those praises in the prayer services for various spiritual reasons.

If Moses had not revealed to us that it is permitted to say those praises, which is the reason why the Men of the Great Assembly included those praises in the prayer services, we wouldn’t have the audacity to mention them. This same principle was applied in using praises of G-d that are found in other Books of the Hebrew Bible. Those are from the subsequent Biblical prophets.

So now back to your question. How can a person be in a position to bless G-d? You are right that on our own we wouldn’t have the right to say such things. But the words of these praises and blessings to G-d were put into the Hebrew Bible by the prophets. The Jewish prayer services were authored by very great and holy sages. They were blessed by G-d with “ruakh ha’kodesh” (holy inspiration). They understood the mystical (kabbalistic) meanings of these statements. Therefore, based on their authority, we are able and permitted to recite them.

However, to answer your question briefly, the Hebrew word which we translate as “blessing” is “brokha.” This has the same root as the word “mavrikh,” which means “to bring down.” In kabbala it is taught that when one gives someone else a sincere blessing, his intention is to focus on a level of G-dliness which will enable the spiritual blessing to be manifested in a physical way.

Examples are seen at then end of the Book of Genesis when Jacob blessed his sons. And at the end of the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses blessed the 12 Tribes. So when we say in the prayer liturgy, “Bless (bor’khu) the L-rd Who is blessed (mevorach),” we are asking for G-d to “bring down” (mavrikh) into this physical world a level of G-dliness which is the spiritual source of all blessings.

Question: How is it that we bless G-d? It still seems that you’re saying that it’s something we can do. But G-d is the “direct object” of that action (in grammatical terms).

Answer

Here is one way to understand this. When you bless someone, you are wishing for him to have something that’s in addition to what he has now. We can acknowledge and bless G-d for His influence in this world, and we proclaim G-d’s blessedness in our prayer services. Through those acts of verbal recognition, we are bringing about additional recognition and acceptance of G-d’s Presence in this world.

Step-by-step, this creates more of a dwelling place for G-d’s Presence in the world, and this accomplishment will be openly revealed in the Messianic Era. At present, G-d is still “lacking” that completed dwelling place. Our “blessing” Him is one of things we can do to help bring this about.

Share