Scripps Sunday #115
‘I AM” is the English translation of the Hebrew letters YWHW (or YHVH), which is called the Tetragrammaton, the sacred name of God. In Hebrew, the original language in which this passage was written, the four letters YHWH are pronounced Yod, Hay, Vav, Hay. Growing up, I’d learned that this holy word was written as such because it was unspeakable. But the writings of some rabbis, in particular, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, provided clarity. Rabbi Waskow suggests that while it is true that YHWH is unpronounceable, it is not because we are forbidden to pronounce it, but rather that in order to pronounce these letters, part vowel, part consonant, labeled by linguists as aspirate consonants- without any vowels between them, one has to do so simply by breathing. Try it for yourself: say each letter and its corresponding sound, without adding any vowels, and you find yourself making some breaths that sound a lot like exhales.
The Jewish prayer book, The Siddur, says of this embodied
spirituality, “Every breath praises the breath of life.” Rabbi Waskow says it
is the breathing of all life that is the name of God. He goes on to say that this
invites us to see God in all breathing beings--- there is no language, no
culture, no “those people” or “that person” who does not breathe. What we
breathe in is air that is mixed with the breath of all others- or what Waskow
calls “interbreathing.” What we put into the world with our bodies is taken up
by other bodies and living beings. He suggests that our interconnectedness to
all living things through breath, the way we breathe life into one another, is
somehow the sound of the name of God.
-Hillary McBride The Wisdom of the Body
So with that, take a deep breath tonight….. inhale, exhale… and know that God is with you, closer than we can ever know....
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