BLESSING OF KOHANIM BRACELET

The Priestly Blessing in part is written in Hebrew on a sterling silver cuff bracelet. you adjust it to fit your wrist.

The Priestly Blessing / Birkat Ha Kohanim / The Blessing of the Kohen

This special Blessing is that it is the oldest surviving fragment of biblical literature, some 2700 years old. It comes from the era of the First Temple, built by King Solomon. It is so old that it is not written in the Hebrew alphabet as we recognize it today, which dates from the Babylonian exile, but rather in the ancient Semitic script, the first alphabet known to mankind.

The Blessing of the Kohens has survived 27 centuries. By a wonderful stroke of fate, it contains perhaps the oldest liturgical formula still in regular use: the priestly blessings, set out in today’s sedra. Why someone wrote them down on this piece of parchment, it is impossible to say, though it is likely that it was used as a kamea – a charm of good luck or blessing. These words, first said so long ago, still stay with us in this physical form as well as in our prayers.

The Torah sets out the blessings in a simple passage:

The LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:

“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.” ‘

“So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

The literary structure is precise. In the original Hebrew, the first line has three words, the second, five, and the third, seven (as I have pointed out elsewhere, these prime numbers have special significance throughout the Mosaic books: three-, five- and seven-fold repetitions always signify a key-word). Equally precisely, the first has 15 (3×5) letters, the second 20 (4×5) and the third, 25 (5×5).

What is the meaning of the blessings?

“The Lord bless you and protect you.” Blessing in the Mosaic books always means material blessing:

So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today-to love the LORD your G-d and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul- then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.