Birkat Kohanim: The Priestly Blessing and the Hands That Carry It

In a few verses of the Torah, Hashem tells Moshe to teach Aharon and his sons how to bless the people. The blessing is only fifteen words long, and it has been spoken over Jewish communities for more than three thousand years. It is called Birkat Kohanim (the Priestly Blessing), and it is one of the few places where the Torah gives us the exact words of a blessing and tells us who says them.

The words

The text appears in Bamidbar 6:22-27. It has three verses, each longer than the one before: three words, then five, then seven.

“Yevarechecha Hashem veyishmerecha“: May Hashem bless you and guard you.

“Ya’er Hashem panav eilecha vichuneka“: May Hashem make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

“Yisa Hashem panav eilecha veyasem lecha shalom“: May Hashem lift His face toward you and grant you peace.

The passage ends with a statement that explains the whole ritual: “They shall place My Name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them” (Bamidbar 6:27). The Kohanim speak the words, but the blessing itself comes from Hashem.

How it is given

The Kohanim, the descendants of Aharon, go up to the front of the synagogue, cover their heads and faces with their tallitot, and raise their hands with the fingers parted in a particular way. Before they begin, they say a blessing that states the spirit of the act: Hashem “has sanctified us with the holiness of Aharon and commanded us to bless His people Israel with love.” The Sages teach that a Kohen who does not feel love for the congregation should not give the blessing (Sotah 38b).

The Kohen is told what to say word by word, and the congregation answers “Amen” after each verse. In Sephardic communities and in Israel, the blessing is given every day. In many other communities it is given only on festivals.

Why the congregation does not look

The Talmud says that anyone who gazes at the Kohanim during the blessing risks dimming his eyes (Chagigah 16a). The Kohanim cover themselves with the tallit, and the people in the room lower their eyes or turn their faces away. The reason the Sages give is the presence of the Shechinah (the Divine Presence). The Midrash teaches that the Shechinah “looks through the lattices,” a phrase from Shir HaShirim 2:9, which it reads as a reference to the Kohanim’s fingers (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 2:9). The hands are the lattice, and the light comes through the spaces between them.

A Kabbalistic reading

The Kabbalists note that the blessing has a structure in which each verse goes deeper than the previous one. They link it to the upper sefirot (Divine attributes) and to the movement of light from a hidden source toward a human recipient. Readings differ among the sources, and no single mapping should be presented as the only one. What stands out is the tradition that the Kohen is only a channel, and that the blessing passes through him without belonging to him. The tradition about the hands expresses the same idea: five fingers on each hand, ten in all, are said to correspond to the ten sefirot.

The role of Aharon and his descendants is also relevant. Aharon is seen in the tradition as a figure of chesed (kindness), and the blessing is a gift of kindness that needs to be given with love for it to work.

What a listener can do

For the person who stands with his eyes lowered and his hands open, there is not much to do except listen. The Sages say that a person who listens with the intention to receive the blessing is a participant in it. The Talmud also records a custom for a person who had a dream he does not understand: he stands before the Kohanim as they spread their hands and says a short prayer, asking that the dream be for good (Berachot 55b).

The Kohanim also tended the lamps of the Temple Menorah, described in the article on the Menorah, and performed the incense service covered in Pitum HaKetoret.