Live Long and Prosper
End of summer, 1994.
A hot classroom on Hebrew Union’s downtown Los Angeles campus.
A dozen of us just back from our first-year of rabbinical school in Israel sit facing a rabbi in a bespoke suit.
It’s bootcamp for budding rabbis.
In fourteen days, we will each be deployed to Podunks around the western United States, dots on the map that each have Jews—but not enough to support a resident rabbi. They contract with the school to take fresh recruits like us to conduct services for the High Holy Days.
I will be playing the part of “rabbi,” leading Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services in a community center in Sierra Vista, Arizona.
I’ll be so nervous the days before I’ll clench my jaw to the point I have difficulty eating.
Meantime, in this hour-long class, Rabbi Rosove, who works at Temple Israel of Hollywood, asks, “How many of you know what dukhanen is? It’s Yiddish for birkat hakohanim.”
Mona, as though she isn’t certain says, “The priestly benediction?”
She’s the Hermione Granger of our group. She knows everything.
“Yes,” the rabbi before us continues, “one of the most famous blessings in the Torah. In the Book of Numbers, parshat naso—the only real thing of interest in the portion.”
And then enunciating in Hebrew clearly so we can pick up—and then hopefully emulate—his cadence, he recites:
“May Adonai bless you and protect you.
“May Adonai deal kindly and graciously with you.
“May Adonai bestow favor upon you and grant you peace.
“In Yiddish, these words Aaron and his descendants bless the community are called dukhanen—from the Yiddish word for platform, because it used to be given from someone standing on a platform. You’ll give this blessing at the end of weddings, at the end of bar and bat mitzvahs, and if you choose to, at your high holiday pulpits.”
Later, doing research I’ll find out these words originate from outside the Book of Numbers. Archeologists found these words on silver amulets in a burial cave outside of Jerusalem dating to hundreds of years before the Bible which quotes it.
People have been using this blessing for more than two-and-a-half millennia. That’s so cool.
I ask, “Rebbe, how about some tips, pointers, how to’s on delivering the blessing?”
“First, know while it used to be only priests, you can do this even if your last name isn’t Levi or Cohen. Second, many people close their eyes when they do it. My grandfather used to say if you looked at the rabbi who was doing it, you would go blind and if you looked a second time, you would die. Which never really made sense, because if you went blind the first time…”
We laugh politely.
“Third, some rabbis put their prayer shawls over their heads when they do the blessing. I’d say this is completely optional. And fourth, there is the issue of the hands.”
Mona pantomimes the Star Trek Vulcan-salute with both hands and says, “Both sets of hands, two fingers, space, two fingers, with thumbs touching.”
“Yes,” Rosove approves.
He leans in, toward us, as though to tell a secret.
“I don’t do the Dr. Spock Vulcan thing. It’s not that I can’t.”
He demonstrates, doing it perfectly with both hands.
“The problem is that Leonard Nimoy sits front and center in my congregation and I always start to laugh when I think of doing it in front of him.”
These ancient syllables of blessing summarized in the four words by Gene Roddenberry—Live long and prosper.
—
I thank you for reading this.
-💙rB
