And the Princes of Pharaoh Saw Her: The Permutation of the Divine Name for Tishri

There is a kabbalistic practice found in some Chasidic siddurim in which, during Musaf of Rosh Chodesh, there are four-word phrases taken from different verses in the Tanach, whose first or last letters spell out a permutation of the Tetragrammaton. There is a different permutation and corresponding phrase for each of the twelve months of the year, with all twelve being used in Adar Sheni in leap years. The phrase for Tishri is from Genesis/Bereshit 12:16, וַיִּרְא֤וּ אֹתָהּ֙ שָׂרֵ֣י פַרְעֹ֔ה - “and the princes of Pharaoh saw her [Sarah]” – and it contains important insights for the month of Tishri.

This phrase is taken from the account of Avraham and Sarah going down to Egypt during a famine to find food. Avraham fears that if the Egyptians know that she is his wife they will kill him, and so he decides that they will dishonestly say instead that they are brother and sister. (I realize that there is a rabbinic interpretation that they really are half-siblings so that it isn’t an outright lie – but even if this is the case (I’m not convinced that it is), concealing the primary relationship, which is spousal, is still a form of profoundly deceitfulness.) Predictably, Pharaoh’s princes see her and how beautiful she is, with the result that Pharaoh attempts to marry her. He is struck with some sort of plague, along with his household, and returns Sarah to Avraham, expels them, sending them away with gifts.

Sarah is led into deceit about who she is – into living inauthentically, at least at that time – by Avraham. When we allow others – even and especially those closest to us – to cause us to live a lie – to live inauthentically, serious problems follow, both for us (Sarah is taken by Pharaoh) and others (Pharaoh and his household are struck with plagues for treating her as if she is someone other than her authentic self).

It's interesting that the letters for the word for “princes” are the same as for Sarah’s name at this point in Bereshit/Genesis, שרי/Sarai. Vocalized differently, this could be read as “They saw her, Sarai of Pharaoh.” So by living inauthentically, she comes to be seen as especially associated with the king of Mitzrayim – read midrashically as “narrow places” – the very places of oppression from which the Jewish people are redeemed in the exodus. By being intimately associated with Pharaoh, she ceases to be seen as a full human being created b’tzelem Elokim – in the image of G!d – but rather as an appendage to Pharaoh, a very narrow place indeed.

What does this have to do with Tishri?

First, the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the time for intense teshuvah. We learn from this phrase about Sarah that we are meant to be our authentic selves –and yet we live inauthentically and are seen as someone else, as Sarah was – with disastrous results. The Chasidic Rebbe Zusha lay dying and was weeping, and when his chasidim asked why, he said, “I’m not worried that G!d will ask me why I was not more like Moshe Rabbenu or David HaMelech – I’m worried G!d will ask me why I was not more like Zusha!” This is how G!d judges us each Yom Kippur (and every day, truth be told) – why are we not more like our authentic selves? The teshuvah/repentance/return we must do is to return to who we really are – as unique human beings – and not as the inauthentic selves we develop in the hope that it will preserve us from problems with others.

Second, Sukkot reminds us of the impermanence of life – we dwell in shacks that provide only temporary shelter, for a week. Sarah and Avraham go to Egypt temporarily during a famine, yet they find the need during this temporary sojourn to live inauthentically. Sukkot is zman simchatenu, the time of our joy – and joy cannot come from inauthenticity. To find true joy in this temporary life, we must be who we truly are – that is the message of this phrase for Sukkot.

Finally, it is interesting that the first two letters and the last two letters of the Tetragramaton are inverted – rather than yud-kay-vav-kay, it becomes vay-kay-yuk-kay. This reversal of the two pairs points to the reversal of true priorities – living as our authentic selves must come before how we are seen by others. Only when we do this, can the Divine Name be restored to its correct order.

May we take the lessons of this phrase and this permutation of G!d’s Name into our teshuvah and our simchah.

Thanks to Joey Eisman, with whom I have discussed the importance of returning to our authentic selves as part of teshuvah, and to Rabbi Ben Greenberg, Cantor Naomi Hirsch, Charles Schnur, and Shirley C in remembering who the story about Reb Zusha was told about.