Search results for: ""Elohim""

Introduction to Blessing the Children/Birkat HaBanim
The Blessing for the Children has two parts:
  1. Introduction
    For Boys: “Yesimcha Elohim k'Efraim v'chi'Menashe”
    (May God make you like Ephraim and Menashe)

    For Girls: “Yesimeich Elohim k'Sara, Rivka, Rachel, v'Leah” 
    (May God make you like Sara, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah)
    Note The formula asks God to make the boys like Ephraim and Menashe but to make the girls like Sarah, Rivka/Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. We might think that Sara, Rivka/Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah should be paired with their husbands, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob instead of with their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Yet, while Isaac and Jacob had the advantage of growing up in religious homes and in Eretz Yisrael, all of the fore-mothers as well as Ephraim and Menashe lived righteous lives even though all grew up in bad environments outside of Eretz Yisrael.
  2. Priestly Blessing/Birkat Cohanim (Numbers/Bamidbar 6:24-26)
    This is the blessing that the priests (cohanim) use when blessing the Jewish people.  For words to the blessing, please click here and scroll down to "Birkat Cohanim": http://practicalhalacha.com/blessings#B.
Introduction to Using God's Name in Vain
You may use God's correct names and not the defective version (Hashem, Adoshem, Elokim...) whenever you are teaching, even if you are only quoting a partial pasuk. This is the halacha, even though many people have the custom of using only the defective versions.
 
Blessings and Using God's Name in Vain
You may not use God's name unless there is a positive purpose. Anyone may say any of God's names anytime when studying Torah, even a girl or woman who is reading the Torah with cantillation/trop where she might need to repeat God's name or other words in a line/pasuk and thereby not say the entire pasuk as it is written.
It is permissible to use God's name (and not an altered name such as “Keil” or “Elokim”) in these cases:
  • When reciting a sentence or phrase from the Torah.
  • For any type of teaching of Torah, blessings, and prayers to children up to bar/bat mitzva age.
  • In Shabbat songs/zmirot.
Note When singing zmirot on Shabbat, you should use God's correct name, since zmirot are a form of prayer.