Most of you will recognize the following prayer:
May The Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
My first memories of it are from childhood. My pastor recited it during the Benediction and my grandmother and father often whispered it to me as I feel asleep. I passed on that family tradition to my son, saying it lovingly into his ears at bed time. That it is still chanted daily in churches and synagogues worldwide, is indicative of its importance to Judeo-Christian tradition. But where does it come from? A bit of research reveals the prayer’s Jewish roots.
It first appears in the Torah (Old Testament), in Bamidbar (Numbers) chapter 6, verses 23-27 as a directive from G-d to Moses to his brother Aaron, high priest of Israel, to bless the people. Known as the Birkat Kohanim (beer-khat ko-ha-neem), the ‘blessing of the priests’, it is the oldest known Biblical text yet unearthed by archaeologists. Amulets with these verses have been found in burial chambers dating from the First Temple Period of Solomon, beginning over 3,000 years ago.
When spoken by rabbis, it is accompanied by the simple ritual of spreading hands out over the congregation, with the fingers of each hand splayed open in roughly ‘W’ shape.
hand blessing
The ‘W’ resembles the Hebrew letter Shin, the first letter in Shaddai, the Hebrew name of G-d as Protector. Thus the ritual saying of this prayer echoes the priestly responsibility to channel the protective power of G-d to the people.
Hebrew Shin
If the blessing’s hand placement looks the least bit familiar, it should. Try this on for size:
Vulcan Hand Salute
Leonard Nimoy, who was raised in a traditional Jewish home, used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock. He explains that while attending Orthodox services as a child, he saw the gesture. Many years later, when introducing the character of Mr. Spock, he and series creator Gene Roddenberry thought a physical component should accompany the verbal “Live long and prosper” greeting. The Jewish priestly gesture looked sufficiently alien and mysterious, and thus television and science fiction history was made.
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