On the “Original Text” page I posed a few questions, so I’ll begin with my concise thoughts on those:
The first word of the blessing asks for God blessing - so what is the need for the rest of the words?
The short answer is that we are multifaceted beings, and the three sentences of the blessing relate to three aspects of our natures – our physical, our mental and our spiritual aspects. The first sentence (and therefore the first two words of blessing) relate to our physical needs. The second sentence to our cognitive selves, and the third to our spiritual wholeness. Please vwrite if you’d like me to explore this more fully.
The blessing uses an explicit name of God - but using that name in vain is prohibited (in the Ten Commandments) - so has the Kohane transgressed, retrospectively, if the blessing fails to come to fruition?
To begin my answer, I must first note that throughout much of my adult life I have struggled to believe that everything in this world is a revealed aspect of a good and loving God, especially when truly sad and upsetting things happen. For the various tests and travails of years ago I believe there are retrospective glimpses of how Godliness was expressed in those time, and in the steps that led me through those times into better times. For current tests and travails I am left merely believing that Godliness is in evidence, and that I am too close to see it clearly.
I think that fulfilling a mitzvah cannot intrinsically be a transgression of another mitzvah – so my answer is that the Kohane cannot transgress as long as their consciousness and intent are focused on the fulfillment of this inherently selfless mitzvah.
The words of the blessing, in Hebrew, are in the male form, and singular - so do we change the words when blessing more than one person, or blessing a woman?
The short answer is No, we don’t change the words. To me the answer is that the words are directed to the universality of one’s being, and the gender is therefore inherently intended universally. I can imagine asking if the text is exclusionary, but I believe that such a reading is inconsistent with the verses which surround and explain the use of the blessing.
Is the English translation given here, or given in other translations, the only possible translation - can the words be legitimately read differently?
Jewish tradition and scholarship always looks for alternative meanings in every word of Torah. So of course different translations are possible, and if they are based on the actual words and letters then they certainly carry some truth with them. Many traditional scholarly texts analyze words by looking at their roots, rearranging the letters, and looking for connections between the varying surface meanings. Using the two letters of my Hebrew name Noach as an example (the “n” letter and the “ch” letter). Noach means the state of comfortable. When reversed they spell “chein” – which means the attribute of grace. In hebrew these mirror image words share a deeper meaning that lies somewhere inside both grace and comfort. The root letters of the words of the blessing can also be analyzed this way, and such an analysis woul;d certainly reveal underlying meanings far beyond the literal surface meanings, but such analysis is beyond the scope of this website at this time.
When I bless people I like to point out that the verses before and after the blessing are in plural. Moses is commanded to tell Aaron that he and his sons are to bless the people (plural) saying to them (plural), etc. But the blessing is in the singular – which seems strange. The blessing is to be given to multiple people, and yet it is a singular blessing.
For me this seeming contradiction is the core of the beauty of the blessing – that multiple people are blessed as one, because in the deepest spiritual sense, we are all one.
