Figures

who it looks to — gods, spirits, ancestors; some rooms are empty on principle Part of Belief →

The ultimate — what this line takes as final

H HaShem — the Name. The one God, whose four-letter name is not pronounced: creator, covenant-partner, and the only being to whom prayer is directed. Domain Creator and covenant-partnerStanding The only being to whom prayer is directed Meet them — context →

T The Shechinah — the presence that went into exile. Kabbalists say l'shem yichud before a commandment — for the sake of uniting the Holy One and his Shechinah. Friday night welcomes Shabbat as a bride, and Sephardi communities sing Lecha Dodi to a different melody every week of the year. Domain God's nearness, in a grammatically feminine noun the tradition noticed earlyStanding The rabbis said she went with Israel into every exile; feminist theology since the 1970s has taken her considerably further than they did Meet them — context →

Prophets & messengers — who carries the word between

M Miriam — the prophetess with the drum. The Talmud counts her among seven prophetesses, and links the wilderness water supply to her personally — a very large thing to say about a woman the text gives eleven verses. Domain Water, song, and the sister who watched the basketStanding A cup of water beside Elijah's wine on many seder tables since the 1980s — a new ritual, and openly so Meet them — context & 1 source →

T The angels — and the rule against asking them for anything. Malachim are errands rather than persons: one task each, no free will, which is why Judaism never developed patrons. The eight-hundred-year fight over Machnisei Rachamim, a penitential poem asking angels to carry prayers in, is still live — printed in most Ashkenazi selichot and skipped by Jews who follow Maimonides. Domain Messengers and a chorus — malach means errand-runner, and each has exactly one errandStanding Real in the liturgy and off-limits as an address — asking an angel for anything is a live halakhic fight, not a settled one Meet them — context →

M Moses — our teacher. Liberator at the sea, lawgiver at the mountain, and still the humblest of men: the prophet by whom all others are measured. Domain Liberator, lawgiver, the prophet no prophet equalsStanding The measure of prophecy: face to face, as one speaks with a friend Meet them — context & 1 source →

T The prophets — Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. Amos told a congregation that God hates their festivals and will not listen to their music, and the book kept the line in. The prophetic complaint is almost never about heresy and almost always about what is being done to the poor. Domain Telling the state and the priesthood what they are doing, to their facesStanding Prophecy is held to have ended with Malachi — the tradition closed the channel and moved authority to the sages Meet them — context →

E Elijah — the expected guest. The prophet who never died keeps arriving: a chair at every bris, a cup at every seder, and one day, the announcement. Domain The prophet who did not dieStanding Judaism's standing guest: expected at every threshold of hope Meet them — context & 2 sources →

T The Messiah — a person, with a job description. The test is public and empirical: if he does not accomplish the work, he was not it, and Judaism has said exactly that about every candidate including Bar Kochba and Sabbatai Zevi. Ani Maamin was set to a melody thrown from a transport to Treblinka, and it is sung at weddings. Domain The end of exile — exiles gathered, Temple rebuilt, the world set rightStanding The twelfth principle: I believe with complete faith, and though he tarry, I will wait for him every day Meet them — context →

Founders & teachers — the ones who opened the way

A Abraham — the one who went. Told to leave everything on a promise, he went. Three faiths trace themselves to that obedience; Judaism calls him simply our father. Domain The first to answer; the covenant's human signatureStanding The founder as follower: his greatness is that he went Meet them — context & 1 source →

T The sages — Hillel, Akiva, and the argument that made the religion. Akiva began learning at forty and was flayed by Rome with the Shema in his mouth. He also endorsed Bar Kochba as messiah, which ended in catastrophe, and the tradition keeps both facts on the same page. Domain The Oral Torah — the men who turned a Temple religion into a portable oneStanding Quoted daily, by name, in the present tense — a Jew argues with Rashi the way one argues with a colleague who is late Meet them — context →

M Maimonides — the Rambam. He compressed the entire law into fourteen books, including the laws of sacrifice and the Temple that had no application, because he wrote for a world that would be restored. The thirteen principles he set out are sung at the end of Friday night services by people who would not have passed his examination. Domain Law, philosophy and medicine; court physician in Cairo under Saladin's successorsStanding On his tomb in Tiberias: from Moses to Moses none arose like Moses. His books were burned by other Jews within forty years of his death Meet them — context →

T The rebbe — the tzaddik at the centre. A Hasid brings the rebbe a kvittel — a slip of paper with a name and a request — and eats the leftovers from his table. Chabad has had no rebbe since 1994 and has not appointed one, and a minority within it holds that Menachem Mendel Schneerson is the messiah, which the rest of Orthodoxy finds intolerable. Domain Hasidism — the righteous one as the channel a follower's prayer and livelihood pass throughStanding The most contested figure in the tradition. The Vilna Gaon excommunicated the movement in 1772 over precisely this Meet them — context →

Saints & exemplars — lives held up as the pattern

T The matriarchs — Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah. Jeremiah has Rachel weeping for her children and refusing comfort, and God answers her rather than any of the fathers. Whether she is named in the standing prayer is now the fastest way to identify which synagogue you have walked into. Domain The covenant's other half, and the line that decides who is born into itStanding Added to the first blessing of the Amidah by Reform and Conservative siddurim from the 1970s; Orthodox liturgy still names only the fathers Meet them — context →

A Aaron and the kohanim. Hillel's instruction was to be a student of Aaron: loving peace, pursuing peace, loving people and bringing them near to Torah. The midrash has him lying to each of two feuding men about how badly the other misses him. Domain The altar, the incense, and the blessing that is still saidStanding No altar since 70 CE and no abolition either — kohanim still go up to the Torah first, still avoid cemeteries, still may not marry a divorcee Meet them — context →

D David — king and penitent. Shepherd, giant-slayer, king, adulterer, poet: the tradition keeps the whole man, and the messiah is promised from his line anyway. Domain King, poet, penitent — the messiah's promised lineStanding Beloved not despite his failures but through them — the psalms are the proof Meet them — context & 1 source →

T The lamed-vavniks — thirty-six, and none of them know it. Yiddish literature made them a genre: the water carrier who is secretly the reason the town is still standing. It is also the tradition's standing argument against ranking people by learning. Domain Holding the world up without ever being told they are doing itStanding Folk belief with a rabbinic footnote — how a tradition with no saints keeps a category for hidden holiness Meet them — context & 1 source →

Adversaries — named in order to be refused

H HaSatan — the prosecutor, not the enemy. The definite article is the whole theology: ha-satan, the adversary, a job rather than a name. Isaiah has God forming light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil — a line the daily liturgy softens to creating everything. Domain Testing, accusing, arguing for the prosecutionStanding Not a rival power — the nearest thing to a devil here is an employee, and the shofar is said to confuse him Meet them — context →

L Lilith — the demon at the crib. Incantation bowls written against her by Jews have been dug up in Iraq from the sixth century. She is the clearest evidence that a Judaism existed in kitchens and cemeteries that was never quite what the responsa said it was. Domain Night, stillbirth, and the terror around childbirthStanding Folk practice the rabbis tolerated and the philosophers despised; since 1976, also the name of a Jewish feminist magazine Meet them — context →