JUNE 13 • 2024 | 37

The God of Abraham is 
not a mere force of nature or 
even all the forces of nature 
combined. A tsunami does 
not pause to ask who its vic-
tims will be. There is nothing 
personal about an earth-
quake or a tornado. 
The word Elokim means 
something like “the force of 
forces, cause of causes, the 
totality of all scientifically 
discoverable laws.” It refers 
to those aspects of God that 
are impersonal. It also refers 
to God in His attribute of 
justice, because justice is 
essentially impersonal.

A PERSONAL GOD
But the name we call 
Hashem — the name used in 
the priestly blessings, and in 
almost all the priestly texts 
— is God as He relates to 
us as individuals, each with 
our unique configuration of 
hopes and fears, gifts and 
possibilities. Hashem is the 
aspect of God that allows us 
to use the word “You.” He 
is the God who speaks to 
us and who listens when we 
speak to Him. How this hap-
pens, we do not know, but 
that it happens is central to 
Jewish faith.
That we call God 
“Hashem” is the transcen-
dental confirmation of our 
significance in the scheme of 
things. We matter as individ-
uals because God cares for us 
as a parent for a child. That, 
incidentally, is one reason 
why the priestly blessings are 
all in the singular, to empha-
size that God blesses us not 
only collectively but also 
individually. One life, said 
the Sages, is like a universe. 
Hence the meaning of the 

last of the priestly blessings. 
The knowledge that God 
turns His face toward us — 
that we are not just an indis-
cernible face in a crowd, but 
that God relates to us in our 
uniqueness and singularity 
— is the most profound and 
ultimate source of peace. 
Competition, strife, law-
lessness and violence come 
from the psychological need 
to prove that we matter. We 
do things to prove that I am 
more powerful or richer or 
more successful than you. 
I can make you fear. I can 
bend you to my will. I can 
turn you into my victim, my 
subject, my slave. All of these 
things testify not to faith, but 
to a profound failure of faith.
Faith means that I believe 
that God cares about me. I 
am here because He wanted 
me to be. The soul He gave 
me is pure. Even though I 
am like the child on the hill 
watching the ship pass by, 
I know that God is looking 
for me, waving to me as I 
wave to Him. That is the 
most profound inner source 
of peace. We do not need to 
prove ourselves to receive a 
blessing from God. All we 
need to know is that His face 
is turned toward us. When 
we are at peace with our-
selves, we can begin to make 
peace with the world.
So the blessings become 
longer and deeper: from the 
external blessing of material 
goods to the interpersonal 
blessing of grace between 
ourselves and others, to the 
most inward of them all, the 
peace of mind that comes 
when we feel that God sees 
us, hears us, holds us in His 
everlasting arms.

A BLESSING ‘WITH LOVE’
One further detail of the 
priestly blessings is unique, 
namely the blessing that the 
Sages instituted to be said by 
the Kohanim over the mitz-
vah: “Blessed are You … who 
has made us holy with the 
holiness of Aaron and has 
commanded us to bless His 
people Israel with love.”
It is the last word, be’aha-
vah, that is unusual. It 
appears in no other blessing 
over the performance of a 
command. It seems to make 
no sense. Ideally, we should 
fulfill all the commands with 
love. But an absence of love 
does not invalidate any other 
command. In any case, the 
blessing over the perfor-
mance of a command is a 
way of showing that we are 
acting intentionally.
There was an argument 
between the Sages as to 
whether mitzvot in general 
require intention (kavanah) 
or not. But whether they do 
or not, making a blessing 
beforehand shows that we do 
have the intention to fulfil 
the command. But inten-
tion is one thing, emotion is 
another. 
Surely, what matters is that 
the Kohanim recite the bless-
ing and God will do the rest. 
What difference does it make 
whether they do so in love 
or not?
The commentators wrestle 
with this question. Some say 
the fact that the Kohanim are 
facing the people when they 
bless means they are like the 
cherubim in the Tabernacle, 
whose faces “were turned 
to one another” as a sign 
of love. Others change the 
word order. They say that 

the blessing really means, 
“who has made us holy with 
the holiness of Aaron and 
with love has commanded 
us to bless His people Israel.” 
“Love” here refers to God’s 
love for Israel, not that of the 
Kohanim.
However, it seems to me 
that the explanation is this: 
The Torah explicitly says that 
though the Kohanim say the 
words, it is God who sends 
the blessing. “Let them put 
My name on the Israelites, 
and I will bless them.” 
Normally when we ful-
fil a mitzvah, we are doing 
something. But when the 
Kohanim bless the people, 
they are not doing anything 
in and of themselves. Instead, 
they are acting as channels 
through which God’s bless-
ing flows into the world and 
into our lives. Only love does 
this. Love means that we are 
focused not on ourselves but 
on another. Love is selfless-
ness. And only selflessness 
allows us to be a channel 
through which flows a force 
greater than ourselves, the 
love that as Dante said, 
“moves the sun and the other 
stars,” the love that brings 
new life into the world.
To bless, we must love, 
and to be blessed is to know 
that we are loved by the One 
vaster than the universe who 
nonetheless turns His face 
toward us as a parent to a 
beloved child. To know that is 
to find true spiritual peace. 

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 

served as the chief rabbi of the 

United Hebrew Congregations of the 

Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teach-

ings have been made available to all 

at rabbisacks.org.

