Naso

This important blessing, so well known and used with gratitude by Judeo-Christian traditions, is ubiquitous in many services. But it’s curious. God is usually responsible for blessing. Yet here it is Aaron and his sons, the priests, who are asked to do the blessing.

In many traditional synagogues, Cohanim duchen and offer this blessing. So powerful a childhood memory was this for Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played Spock in Star Trek ,that he took the image of the Cohen with separated fingers as his standard and, what became iconic, greeting.

It’s powerful stuff. But controversial, too. Unusually, these blessings are introduced through a command to the priests, “Thus you shall bless them”. This has dismayed classical commentators. Were the priests invoking divine blessing as a parent might or were they themselves engaged in blessing Israel?

The majority understanding is that the priests invoked the divine blessing, a supplication to God. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch insists the Torah did not suggest a priestly caste with free power to bless. Rather, the priest had clear and distinct instructions to invoke this specific blessing.