Tetragrammaton and Related Topics

The Tetragrammaton in Paleo-Hebrew ( – 500 AD) (two forms), and Aramaic ( BC – 200 AD) or modern Hebrew scripts.

Names of God in Judaism

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The Tetragrammaton in the Ketef Hinnom silver scrolls with the Priestly Blessing from the Book of Numbers (c. 600 BCE).

Shefa Tal – A Kabbalistic explanation of the Priestly Blessing with Adonai inscribed.

Biblical text on a synagogue in Holešov, Czech Republic: "Hashem kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up." (1 Samuel 2:6)

Sign near the site of the Safed massacre, reading (H.Y.D., abbreviation of Hashem yinkom damo, “may Hashem avenge his blood”)).

The Psalms in Hebrew and Latin. Manuscript on parchment, 12th century.

Hebrew name of God inscribed on the page of a Sephardic manuscript of the Hebrew Bible (1385)

Judaism considers some names of God so holy that, once written, they should not be erased: YHWH, Adonai, El ("God"), Elohim ("God," a plural noun), Shaddai ("Almighty"), and Tzevaot ("[of] Hosts"); some also include Ehyeh ("I Will Be").

Jewish Kabbalists portrayed in 1641; woodcut on paper. Saxon University Library, Dresden.

Kabbalah

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Esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism.

Kabbalistic prayer book from Italy, 1803. Jewish Museum of Switzerland, Basel.

Latin translation of Gikatilla's Shaarei Ora

The Ark of the Covenant in Solomon's Temple was the seat for God's presence. Ezekiel and Isaiah had prophetic visions of the angelic heavenly Chariot and Divine Throne

Grave of Rabbi Akiva in Tiberias. He features in Hekhalot mystical literature, and as one of the four who entered the Pardes

The grave of Shimon bar Yochai in Meron before 1899. A Talmudic Tanna, he is the mystical teacher in the central Kabbalistic work, the Zohar

The 13th-century eminence of Nachmanides, a classic rabbinic figure, gave Kabbalah mainstream acceptance through his Torah commentary

The leading scholars of Safed in 16th-century invigorated mainstream Judaism through new legal, liturgical, exegetical and Lurianic-mythological developments.

Synagogue Beit El Jerusalem. Oriental Judaism has its own chain of Kabbalah

The 16th-century Maharal of Prague articulated a mystical exegesis in philosophical language

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, a leading Italian kabbalist, also wrote secular works, which the Haskalah see as the start of modern Hebrew literature

The Vilna Gaon, 18th-century leader of rabbinic opposition to Hasidism—a Kabbalist who opposed Hasidic doctrinal and practical innovations

Synagogue of the Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism, in Medzhybizh (Ukraine). It gave a new phase to Jewish mysticism, seeking its popularisation through internal correspondence.

The Kabbalist (c. 1910–1920), portrait of an Hasidic man in Jewish religious clothing performed by the Austro-Hungarian Jewish painter Isidor Kaufmann (Jewish Museum, New York)

Metaphorical scheme of emanated spiritual worlds within the Ein Sof

Scheme of descending Sephirot in three columns, as a tree with roots above and branches below

In the 16–17th centuries Kabbalah was popularised through a new genre of ethical literature, related to Kabbalistic meditation

Amulet from the 15th century. Theosophical kabbalists, especially Luria, censored contemporary Practical Kabbalah, but allowed amulets by Sages

Joseph Karo's role as both legalist and mystic underscores Kabbalah's spiritualisation of normative Jewish observance

Building on Kabbalah's conception of the soul, Abraham Abulafia's meditations included the "inner illumination of" the human form

16th-century graves of Safed, Galilee. The messianic focus of its mystical renaissance culminated in Lurianic thought.

Title page of first printed edition of the Zohar, main sourcebook of Kabbalah, from Mantua, Italy in 1558

Golden age of Spanish Judaism on the Knesset Menorah, Maimonides holding Aristotle's work

Kabbalah mysticism on the Knesset Menorah, which shared some similarities of theory with Jewish Neoplatonists

Tikkun for reading through the night of Shavuot, a popular Jewish custom from the Safed Kabbalists

A version of Lekhah Dodi song to welcome the Shabbat, a cross denomination Jewish custom from Kabbalah

His charisma, mystical teachings that included repeated pronunciations of the holy Tetragrammaton in public, tied to an unstable personality, and with the help of his greatest enthusiast, Nathan of Gaza, convinced the Jewish masses that the Jewish Messiah had finally come.

Masoretic Text

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Authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism.

The inter-relationship between various significant ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament (some identified by their sigla). "Mt" here denotes the Masoretic Text; "LXX", the original Septuagint.

A page from the Aleppo Codex, showing the extensive marginal annotations.

Safeguarding of the Tetragrammaton; e.g. substitution of "Elohim" or "Adonai" for "YHWH" in some passages.

Yahweh

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The national god of ancient Israel and Judah.

Late Bronze Age statuette of a storm god from Phoenician Antaradus

Early Iron Age bull figurine from Bull Site at Dhahrat et-Tawileh (modern West Bank, ancient Ephraim), representing El, Baal or Yahweh

Painting on a jar found at Kuntillet Ajrud, under the inscription "Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah" (c. 800 BCE)

The Second Temple, as rebuilt by Herod c. 20–10 BCE (modern model, 1:50 scale)

Solomon dedicates the Temple at Jerusalem (painting by James Tissot or follower, c. 1896–1902).

Yahweh was also invoked in Jewish or Jewish-influenced Greco-Egyptian magical texts from the 1st to 5th century CE, under the names Iao, Adonai, Sabaoth, and Eloai.

Jah

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Jah or Yah (, Yāh) is a short form of יהוה (YHWH), the four letters that form the tetragrammaton, the personal name of God: Yahweh, which the ancient Israelites used.

13th century French manuscript; the words "Hallelu-Yah" at the end of Psalm 148 and at the start of Psalm 149 appear above and below the man's left-pointing hand.

Hallelujah

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Interjection used as an expression of gratitude and adoration.

The second part, Yah, is a shortened form of YHWH (Yahweh or Jehovah in modern English).

Torah

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Compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Silver Torah case, Ottoman Empire, displayed in the Museum of Jewish Art and History

One common formulation of the documentary hypothesis

The supplementary hypothesis, one potential successor to the documentary hypothesis

Presentation of The Torah, by Édouard Moyse, 1860, Museum of Jewish Art and History

Torahs in Ashkenazi Synagogue (Istanbul, Turkey)

Page pointers, or yad, for reading of the Torah

One of its most significant verses is Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema Yisrael, which has become the definitive statement of Jewish identity: "Hear, O Israel: the Tetragrammaton our God, the is one."

Biblical Hebrew

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Archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of the Jordan River and east of the Mediterranean Sea.

Coin issued during the Bar Kokhba revolt. The Paleo-Hebrew text reads שמעון "Simeon" on the front and לחרות ירושלם "for the freedom of Jerusalem" on the back.

Some Qumran texts written in the Assyrian script write the tetragrammaton and some other divine names in Paleo-Hebrew, and this practice is also found in several Jewish-Greek biblical translations.

Beri'ah

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Second of the four celestial worlds in the Tree of Life of the Kabbalah, intermediate between the World of Emanation (Atziluth) and the World of Formation (Yetzirah), the third world, that of the angels.

The first of the two letter hei's ה in the Tetragrammaton