Chasidut su Esodo 3:14

In the writings of the Ari, z"l, regarding the secret of the 36 candles of Hanukkah and the connection with the 8 shamashim, behold that makes 44, which corresponds to the name Ehyeh אהי"ה in degrees, that is, א' + א"ה + אה"י + אהי"ה + - which is in gematria 44, and adding the name itself, 45, and behold it is 88 with the kollel (?), which is the first letters of "to light the Hanukkah light"; up to here are his words. And on a general overview it is not understood, what is the idea behind adding those two names to the issue of Hanukah light? I think it can be explained as follows:

All prayer and Divine service come before God by way of the name YHVH, which is the secret of the Sefirah of Tiferet, which includes all of the revealed attributes. And all of the praises of God arranged in the first three blessings of the Amidah³⁵⁴The Amidah is the silent standing prayer, and is the centerpiece of the three daily prayers in Orthodox Jewish practice. also allow man to recognize God’s His revealed attributes. Notwithstanding that God is exalted above all attributes, yet still, in prayer, man should not praise God in a way that he does not know Him. This is referred to in the Gemara (Megilah, 25a): A certain man went to lead the prayer service in the presence of Rabbi Hanina and said, “The great, the mighty, the awesome, the majestic, the strong, the powerful God.” Rabbi Hanina said to him: Have you finished the praises of your Master? Even the first three terms of praise³⁵⁵The Amidah prayer begins: “Blessed are You, our G-d and G-d of our forefathers… the great, mighty and awesome G-d,” based upon Moshe’s words in Devarim 10:17. could not be recited, had not Moshe wrote them in the Torah (Devarim, 10:17) and the Men of the Great Assembly came and ordained them (see Nehemia, 9:32), we could not say them. And you say all this! It is as if a man had billions of gold coins and people praised his wealth by saying that he had a thousand. Wouldn’t that insult him? In this episode, the prayer leader actually related to God through these lofty appellations, as is explained by the Rambam.³⁵⁶See Guide for the Perplexed, section One, chapter 59. Rabbi Hanina was saying to him, how can you praise God based upon your perception at this moment? In another moment God may illuminate to you an understanding of awesome heights thoroughly beyond your present perception, as incomparable as gold is to silver. Thus, Rabbi Hanina said to him, “Even the first three terms of praise could not be recited, had not Moshe wrote them in the Torah.” Meaning, that which is written in the Torah contains the entire creation. This is akin to what we quoted from the Zohar as an introduction (see section 4, Zohar Yitro). “And the Men of the Great Assembly came and established them in the prayer,” which means that they clarified the fact that these three attributes³⁵⁷“Great, mighty, and Awesome” or Hesed, Gevurah and Tiferet. These sefirot are the essential qualities of Zeir Anpin, which the author mentions below. are graspable by all Israel. This is as it is said in the Gemara (Yoma, 69b), “Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, why were they called men of the Great assembly? It is because they restored the crown to its former glory. Moshe had come and said, The great God, the mighty, and the awesome. Then Yirmiyahu and omitted the attribute, ‘Awesome.’³⁵⁸See Yermiyahu 32:18, “…You are the great and mighty God.” Daniel omitted the word ‘Mighty.’³⁵⁹Daniel 9:4, “O Lord, you are a great and awesome God.” But they returned the crown of Divine attributes to its ancient completeness.”³⁶⁰By opening the Amidah prayer with all three attributes mentioned by Moshe. They made it clear that these were truly His attributes of might, and these were truly His attributes of Awe. That is to say, every Jew can always recognize these attributes.³⁶¹The three attributes of Therefore, all prayers to God are arranged in praise via His recognizable, revealed attributes. They are all included in the attribute of Zeir Anpin, also called Tiferet Yisrael (the splendor of Israel). Even though there are attributes far loftier than these, yet prayer can only be directed to the place where man’s mind can reach. This is why Yermiyahu and Daniel omitted certain attributes. Since they knew that G-d was true, they mentioned only the attributes that God revealed to them in their prophetic experience.³⁶²According to the Talmud, they removed these terms of praise after witnessing the destruction of Jerusalem. At that point, they could no longer perceive G-d’s might and awesomeness. However, in the time of the members of the Great Assembly, who had already seen God’s great salvations in the Purim miracle, they identified that these were indeed God’s mighty actions, and these where truly God’s awesome deeds. In this way they restored the crown of God’s attributes to the way it was first perceived by Moshe. Indeed, from this we see that the act of prayer is the mystery of Zeir Anpin, since all of God’s attributes are rooted in God’s great name YHVH, which is the same as the Sefirah of Tiferet³⁶³Tiferet refers to a single sefirah; Zeir Anpin refers to the entire six-sefirah unit from Hesed to Yesod. Since these function as a unit, they are considered here synonymous with Tiferet itself, beings its central focus. and the partsuf of Zeir Anpin.³⁶⁴The ten sefirot each correspond to a different Name of G-d, as derived from the Torah. The sefirah of Tiferet corresponds to the Tetragrammaton, the YHVH, or G-d’s “essential” Name. All of God’s names are included in His great name YHVH. We learn from the Zohar (Vayikra, 10b): All is built from Yud Hei… He is the King to whom all Peace is His, in the mystery of Tiferet. And further in the Zohar (ibid. 11a): Rabbi Elazar said, “All of the ten names of God are written, and we have taught, the name EHYH³⁶⁵G-d’s name as revealed to Moshe at the burning bush (Shemot 3:14), “I will be that which I will be.” is the supernal concealment … Yud Hei, because the Hei comes out of Hokhmah (represented by the Yud).”³⁶⁶The letter yud, of the Tetragrammaton, corresponds to the sefirah of Hokhmah. The first letter hei corresponds to the sefirah of Binah. The letter vav corresponds to the next six sefirot (Zeir Anpin/Tiferet). And the final letter hei corresponds to Malkhut. This passage in the Zohar goes on to say that every name of God finds its root in the name YHVH: The sixth name YHVH is compassion. It is the completion of all, the main point of all, the connection of emunah (faith). It unites all sides (all Sefirot) this is “Tiferet Yisrael” (the splendor of Israel). That is to say, the name YHVH is both the root of Tiferet and its very name.

Exodus 33,23. “You will see My back, but My face is not ‎visible (to any creature).” In addition to the fact that of ‎course, G’d’s “back” is also invisible, as He is not corporeal, the ‎author quotes two verses from Job and Proverbs respectively, ‎which require further clarification. We read in Proverbs 15,20: ‎בן ‏חכם ישמח אב‎, ”a wise son causes joy to the father.” We also read in ‎Job 28,14: ‎והחכמה מאין תמצא‎ “but where does wisdom come ‎from?“ We know that the most important ingredient of wisdom is ‎acquired by man when he looks (with his mental eye) at the ‎concept of ‎אין‎, i.e. the “nothingness” from which the ‎‎(perceptible) phenomena of the universe came into existence, ‎emanated. When man trains himself to cleave ever more to the ‎roots of his life, i.e. to the Creator, this aspect is known as ‎אצל ‏הבורא‎, being next to the Creator, Who Himself is garbed in a ‎‎“garment,” i.e. a protective shield that prevents the powerful ‎rays of light emanating from Him from harming those exposed to ‎this. The prophet Isaiah 23,18 alludes to this when he said: ‎ולמכסה עתיק (יומין)‏‎ “dressed in primeval (of prehistoric origin) ‎garments” (compare Talmud Pessachim 119) This is also the ‎meaning of the allusion in the Talmud Chagigah 7 that ‎Israel provides G’d with His “parnassah,” livelihood, basing ‎itself on the word ‎לבוש‎ being used in that context, so that ‎חכמה‎, ‎‎“wisdom” in many instances refers to the ‎אור חוזר‎, the “reflected ‎light,” emanating from Israel in response to G’d’s largesse, as it ‎requires ‎חכמה‎, “wisdom or ingenuity,” for the original light ‎beamed at His creatures by G’d to be aimed back accurately at its ‎source. This is also referred to by way of allusion in Job 33,32, ‎ואאלפך חכמה‎ “I shall teach you wisdom.” The letters ‎א-ל-פ‎ when ‎reversed spell ‎פלא‎, miracle, something supernatural, as in the ‎word ‎נפלאות‎, and hint at the fact that the ability to reattach ‎oneself to the original source that has given one life is something ‎beyond man’s innate ability, and cannot be achieved without ‎direct Divine intervention. The process by which this is achieved ‎is known as ‎תנועה‎, normally translated as “motion,” meaning in ‎this context that G’d sets in motion some part of the word ‎תנועה‎.‎
‎[I confess that from this point on I have not ‎understood the author’s allusions on this subject based on the ‎meaning of the vowels underneath the consonants. Ed.]‎

And that which appears to me is from that which we say in the prayer of Rosh Hashanah, “And every created being will know, etc. and Your rulership is over all of the dominion (mashalah). And [the last word] is the initials of (Psalms 92:1), “A psalm – a song for the day of Shabbat (Mizmor Shir Leyom HaShabbat).” And likewise is it said (in the Shabbat morning prayers}, “This is the song of praise of the Shabbat day… ‘It is good to praise the Lord (Tov hehodot laShem)’ (Psalms 92:2)” – the explanation of the matter is that these three words are the three names [represented by], “He scatters frost like ashes (kefor ke’effer yifazer)” (Psalms 147:16, see Mekor Mayim Chayim on Baal Shem Tov, Vayigash 6:4): And that is that tov [has a numerical equivalent of] seventeen, which is the name of aleph-hay-vay-hay], the initials of et hashamyim ve’et haaretz (the heavens and the earth), which indicates the past. And the [four-letter] name of the Lord indicates the present. And hodu [has a numerical equivalent of] twenty-one (the name, aleph-hay-yod-hay), which indicates the future, as I have explained about the verse, “I will be what I will be” (Exodus 3:14). And this name indicates the ‘sweetening of harsh judgements’ at their root. And that is that when we observe all of the Creator’s oversight over all of His creatures; such that even if we do not feel the good now, nevertheless, good will come out of it in the future. And one who considers this will take good counsel from it, to accept everything with love – as he will not concentrate on the apparent bad, but rather on the good in the future. And through this, he will ‘bless the bad just like the good,’ and bring the thing back to its root. As above (in its roots), everything is good, such that the matter will automatically be sweetened. And understand this. For, in my humble opinion, this is the intention of Nachum, the man of Gimzo (Taanit 21a; see further, Parashat Tzav, p. 162.). And hence this name is composed of the letters, hey-vav-dalet-vav, an expression of raising, such as “his hand he shall place above (hadah)” (Isaiah 11:8); “voices raised joyfully (hed) on the hills.” For the matter must be raised to its root; and it will automatically be sweetened.

Exodus 3:14 let us spend a minute on the principal Name of ‎the Creator which is the name ‎הויה‎, better known to us as ‎י-ה-ו-ה‎ ‎‎(same letters rearranged). One of the remarkable features about ‎this “Name” is that when you multiply any one of its letters by ‎itself, you will find that that letter remains constant. You will ‎always find that the last letter in the resulting sum (when written ‎in Hebrew letters) remains the same, something you do not find ‎when you do this with any letter in the ‎א-ב‎ that is not part of the ‎letters used in the Holy Name of G’d. If you were to multiply a ‎word ending with the letter ‎ב‎ or any other letter, by itself, the ‎last letter in the sum resulting would not be the same as the ‎original letter (number). When you multiply the letter ‎ב‎ by itself ‎the result is a different letter, i.e. .‎ד‎. When you multiply the letter ‎ג‎ by itself, i.e. 3 times 3, the result is the letter ‎ט‎. When you ‎multiply the letter (number) ‎ד‎ by itself the result being 16, the ‎Hebrew equivalent is ‎יו‎. The only letters that remains constant ‎when you perform the same exercise are the letters in the Holy ‎Name of G’d, which when multiplied by themselves result by ‎ending with the identical letter. When you multiply 5 by 5 the ‎result (25) is ‎כה‎ If you were to continue this experiment by now ‎multiplying ‎כה‎ by itself, i.e. 25 times 25, the result is 625, or ‎תרכה‎. ‎If you were to do something similar with the letter (number) 6 (‎ו‎) ‎you would get is 36, i.e. ‎לו‎ in the Hebrew equivalent. [The ‎reader may continue to prove the accuracy of this using his ‎calculator. Ed.].‎