God spoke to Moses,
saying: “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying: Thus (koh) shall you bless
the Children of Israel, saying to them…” Numbers
6:22-23
Verse
23 is the source for the positive mitzva requiring ”Kohanim to
bless Israel daily.” [Maimonides, Book of Mitzvot, positive mitzva
26] Naḥmanides notes that this mitzva applies for all generations, and
with the use of the word “koh” God Himself dictated to the sons of Aaron
the exact words of the blessing they are to convey to His nation throughout the
generations. Beyond introducing the formulation of the blessing, the word “koh”
teaches a series of practical halachot regarding the Priestly
Blessing: the Kohanim must be standing while they invoke the blessing;
the blessing must be recited in the Holy Tongue; the Kohanim must raise
their hands while blessing Israel; they must face the congregation; the
blessing must be recited in a loud voice and with the explicit name of God
(when invoked within the Temple). [Maimonides, Laws of Prayer and The Priestly
Blessing 14:11, based upon the Babylonian Talmud, Sota 38a]
Homiletically,
Ḥassidic Master Rabbi Yisrael of Modzitz applied the word “koh” to refer
to the Children of Israel as well, writing that the Torah commanded the sons of
Aaron to bless the nation of Israel as it is, without distinguishing between
the great ones and lesser ones, or between the righteous and less righteous,
“for the Torah’s intent is that the Kohanim bless equally all Jews who
stand before them, and thereby the mitzva conveys the great value of the
unity of Israel.”
We
can add two comments which support the Master’s homily:
🔼 The Lord phrased the Priestly Blessing
in the singular “May God bless you (singular), etc.,” an expression of the
value of each Jew as an individual.
🔼 Our Sages taught that there is a
connection between “Thus (koh) shall you bless the Children of Israel” and
“That is (koh) how numerous your descendants will be,” [Genesis 15:5] as
we read in Midrash Breishit Rabba: [43:8]
Why did Israel merit the
Priestly Blessing? Rabbi Yehuda says: in the merit of Abraham, to whom it was
said “That is (koh) how numerous your descendants will be,” therefore
God said “Thus (koh) shall you bless the Children of Israel.”
In
God’s statement to Abraham “That is (koh) how numerous your descendants
will be” He compared Abraham’s descendants to the stars of the heavens. Our
Forefathers received two blessings concerning their offspring: that they shall
be as the sand of the sea shore and as the stars of the heavens. Malbim, in his
commentary on Genesis [22:17], explains that the blessing as the sand of the
sea shore is one of quantity, while that of the stars of the heavens includes f
both quantity and quality. The blessing as the stars of the heavens adds the
dimension of greatness to the aspect of quantity, namely, “that the
Forefathers’ descendants be righteous and each be an entire world unto itself,
as each individual star is an entire world.”
Beyond this, if a single star is missing, the cosmos is incomplete.
Indeed,
this is the connection between the two verses’ use of the word “koh,” an
expression of the pre-eminent value of the unity of Israel and the supreme
worth of every Jew as a member of the nation.
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