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© 2015 John D. Brey.

From time immemorial it's been read, and said, and heard read, and then said, that God added a heh ה to the name "Sarai" שרי (shin-ש reish-ר yod-י) to transform "Sarai" שרי to "Sarah" שרה (shin–ש reish–ר heh–ה). -----That's what it says in Christian commentary, Jewish commentary, and Islamic commentary. But it's false through and through.

To transform "Abram" אברם to "Abraham" a heh is inserted after the reish: אברהם. No letter is removed. . . So to transform "Sarai" שרי to "Sarah" the dalet ד is inserted over the existing yod י to get שרה (the heh is constructed of a dalet over a yod . . . as taught to Jewish soferim). If "Sarai" was transformed by the addition of the Hebrew letter heh ה, then the yod ' already in the name "Sarai" would have to be removed. But no letter is removed from "Abram" in the transformation to "Abraham," so we're clued in to the fact that no letter is removed from "Sarai" in order to transform the name to "Sarah."

The Jewish sages are the most brilliant experts of the Hebrew language who have ever lived. They examine and deconstruct every jot and tittle of the sacred text to a degree that boggles the mind. And yet for thousands of years no Jewish scholar has come to the forgone conclusion set forth in this essay: a dalet and not a heh is added to the name Sarai at the same time a heh is added to Abraham's name.

Since it’s an exegetical fact that a dalet and not a heh is added to Sarah's name, why did the exacting Jewish sages not pick up on this clear fact? -----They didn't pick up on this fact because for them the actual meaning of the symbolism associated with Abraham's circumcision is a "chok" (the singular of a "chukkim") whose meaning awaits the arrival of Messiah.

But for Christians Messiah has arrived. So unlike our Jewish brothers, we can examine every Jewish ritual and symbol (even the Hebrew letters) attempting to understand what relationship the ritual or symbol has in accord with the life and times of Messiah: Jesus of Nazareth?

Abraham's circumcision occurs as the foundational act through which a new spiritual people will be born. Isaac is the emblem or ritual manifestation of what will eventually become a reality at the birth of Messiah. So what about the birth of Messiah gives retroactive meaning to Abraham taking a knife and drawing blood from his reproductive organ?

Naturally since Jesus was virgin born, no male seed, Abraham's taking a knife to that organ symbolizes emasculation such that it symbolizes Jesus' virgin birth. Isaac's birth is a ritual enactment of virgin birth.

Though it would go too far afield to justify it here, the Tanakh establishes a clear and undeniable relationship between the "serpent" (the male organ) opening the veil (dalet) of a woman, versus a "hand" opening the same veil (dalet) from the inside out. Ironically the Hebrew word yad יד is used in the Tanakh for both the male organ and the hand. If the serpent opens the veil (dalet) then the offspring are like Cain . . . their father is the devil (the serpent). But if a hand opens the veil (from the inside out) the one conceived in this manner is virgin born, and thus not the son of the devil (the serpent).

Since the Tanakh supports the relationship between a hand opening the dalet (veil) in contradistinction to the serpent opening the veil, the question arises concerning how, if Abraham ritually emasculates himself, to become a type of Joseph (Jesus' father), could Sarah's womb be opened by Isaac's "hand" rather than Abraham's serpent, since Abraham and Sarah had clearly (or at least it’s assumed) cohabited prior to the birth of Isaac?

Rabbi Michael Munk tells us that one Hebrew letter stands to represent the change from a masculine word to a feminine word: the letter heh. He explains that the letter heh represents the "feminine." ------When a heh is added to Abram's name to become Abraham, Abraham becomes the bride of God and not a masculine entity in relationship to God. The word "dalet" means door, or veil, or covering . . . such that once Abraham makes a covenant in blood to become God's bride, and not a masculine partner in the covenant, Sarai must have her virginity restored.

At the same time Abraham bleeds the organ of masculinity to begin a covenant in the blood of the serpent (such that a heh is added to his name to make "Abram" a feminine "Abraham") Sarai's virginity is restored by placing a dalet in the name Sarai transforming it into Sarah (שרי becomes שרה). ------ Isaac is born as the ritual enactment of Jesus' virgin birth. His father ritually emasculates himself, and his mother has her virginity restored. In the ritual performance of the covenant, Isaac is born like Jesus of Nazareth, of a mother whose hymenal veil is intact, and a father who’s emasculated from the conception such that the serpent plays no role in the conception or the birth.

According to orthodox Judaism although ritual circumcision is called a "sign," the meaning of bleeding the male reproductive organ (as a sign) is considered something that can't be known until Messiah arrives. Since Messiah has arrived for we who accept Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah, the significance of bleeding the male reproductive organ is clear as day. Jesus was born of a virgin pregnancy. . . But since Jews reject Jesus' virgin birth, for them, bleeding the male reproductive organ (the very birth of the covenant) is merely something they must do in unknowing obedience until Messiah comes and tells them what it means.

Judaism's relationship to the meaning of the Hebrew letters is directly tied to their relationship to the signs that they consider chukkim (unknowable decrees or statutes). If the Ktav Ashuri tav is made up of the word "din" --- "judgment" ----and it is, then since the Gentile script is epispasmic (in Jewish terms) . . . i.e., a re-covering of what was revealed at circumcision, the fact that in Ktav Ivri the tav is a "cross" is meaningless to a Jew, since by rejecting Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah, the "cross" has no particular meaning for the modern Jew.

The foreskin must exist before it can be removed. The removal of the foreskin creates the significance of the "sign" of its removal. The sages ask why, since God is perfect, did he create the foreskin in the first place (since it's removal is a perfecting of the human body)? Why does the beit come before the alef in the Torah? We can deconstruct the Ktav Ashuri script to see the significance of the Ktav Ivri script in a way that we could not appreciate if the un-circumcision script (Ktav Ashuri) weren't our first access to the Torah. In other words, deconstructing the uncircumcised script (Ktav Ashuri) allows us to see God's plan, and take part in it, in a manner that would not be the case if the Ktav Ashuri script weren't there as a covering to be removed.

According to the Jewish sages the yod is the mark of circumcision. One letter represents circumcision: the yod. –––––– That might not seem too significant but for the fact that one letter represents a veil, or covering, such as is removed at ritual circumcision: the dalet. . . Armed with these incontestable facts there’s the irony that the letter heh is constructed of the two Hebrew letters that are directly associated with ritual circumcision. We have the dalet (a covering) representing the prepuce, and the yod representing that which is uncovered in ritual circumcision.

The Name of God revealed to Abraham at the circumcision and the offering of Isaac, "Shaddai" שדי is the word for lamb שה (as in the "Lamb of God" --- Jesus of Nazareth) after the dalet ד has been removed to uncover the yod י. Take the Name "Shaddai" שדי and placed the dalet ד (the covering) back over the mark of circumcision, the yod י, and the word "Shaddai" שדי is transformed back into the word for "lamb" שה . –––– The Name "Shaddai" is unveiled for the first time when Abraham unveils the covering covering the great secret that the Lamb of God will be God the Lamb. In other words God reveals to Abraham (at circumcision) that the Lamb of God שדי is God the Lamb שה. Uncover the mark of circumcision --- the yod --- which is to say pull the dalet (the covering) off of the yod in the word "lamb" and you reveal the Name "Shaddai" שדי .

Scripture here distinguishes between the מילה [milah: circumcision] act itself and מילה as a sign inscribed upon our flesh. The community-- or the father, who represents the community to his son---inscribes the "די"! on the child, thus assigning him the destiny.

Hirsch Chumash, Bereshis 17:11.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the author of The Hirsch Chumash, without knowing precisely the importance of what he points out, when he points out that a dalet yod is inscribed at the covenant cutting (Rabbi Hirsch would never concede that Shaddai is the God-lamb, the Lamb of God) nevertheless inadvertently supports the exegesis provided in this essay by stating that a dalet and a yod are uncovered in the covenant uncovering. Rabbi Hirsch actually adds an exclamation “!” after the די (dalet yod) as though he intuited on some level the importance of what he was pointing out. . . Even beyond that, someone might notice that in the statement that ends the sentence (the Hebrew for "walk before Shaddai") Rabbi Hirsh separates the shin ש from the dalet-yod די, again pointing out that on some level his mind is toying with the significance of these highly significant letters, and their sacred deconstruction.

One is said to see the Holy One from the sign of the covenant inscribed in one's flesh, the letter yod. As we have seen, in the case of the Zohar the letter yod is not understood simply as a sign of the covenant between God and Israel but is the very sign of the Holy One himself. . . Here we meet a convergence of anthropomorphic and letter symbolism: the physical organ in its essential character is interchangeable with the letter, and the letter with the physical organ.

Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, Circumcision, Vision of God, and Textual Interpretation: From Midrashic Trope to Mystical Symbol.

In sacred discourse, the letter is not the lowest common denominator of meaning. Far from it. The letter is a pictogram made up of all the letters that form the material from which a given letter is constructed. And these all form ligatures, the meaning of which must be known to delve deep enough into the spiritual meaning of the signature text to make heads or tails of it. The idea that speaking modern Hebrew is an aid to studying biblical Hebrew is completely false. If anything it gets in the way. Since the modern Hebrew speaker thinks he knows what the text is saying by reading it like he reads modern Hebrew texts. But this is absolutely and utterly incorrect and acts as a serious deterrent to ever really approaching the text properly. This is perhaps why Luther was considered a superior Hebrew exegete to many Jewish scholars of his day even though they spoke the Hebrew of the day and Luther did not.

The biblical text doesn't say God adds a heh to Sarah or Abraham. It merely tells how their new name is spelled. We know from the spelling that a heh is added to Abraham without removing a single letter from his name. Well . . . to get Sarah from Sarai without removing a letter, a dalet can be placed above the existing yod to form a heh. And that’s the only way to get “Sarah” from “Sarai” without removing a letter.

Someone unfamiliar with Hebrew exegesis and interpretation might protest that just because no letter is removed from Abraham's name doesn't mean that no letter is removed from Sarah's. But only someone unfamiliar with Hebrew exegesis would protest that, since if a letter is taken from Sarah, but not Abraham, that fact would represent a major (not a minor) exegetical point of examination. Hebrew scholars and sages would be all over it. "Why is a letter taken from Sarai but not Abram"? ---- And from that we would see all kinds of theories and conjectures. But nothing. Silence. Thus, we know that a letter is not taken from Sarai. And yet it's impossible to change “Sarai” to “Sarah” without removing a letter, or adding a dalet rather than a heh.

In one of Professor Elliott R. Wolfson's most well-known books, Circle in the Square, Professor Wolfson points out that in some Jewish circles (so to say) the "written" word is what God uses as the material of creation. The Hebrew consonants are the actual material used to create the world, while the world as we experience it is like the spoken version of what is "written" on the text (the Torah) ---which is like the DNA of the world. "Here the mystical and magical elements converge: one who properly knows the inherent property of the Hebrew language can manipulate creation or can in effect become a creator" (p. 56).

If in fact the Torah is the DNA of the world then by knowing the deepest strata of the Hebrew consonants, and how they function, a person can affect "interpretation" . . . which . . . "interpretation" is not just a parlor game to pass time, but the very means through which human history is effectively moved in a particular direction. Jewish sages are wont to suggest with the deepest passion and conviction that by studying the Torah a person is participating in the salvation of the world. Every meaningful interpretation of the Torah text creates a new world order. It directs the world in a new path. The scale of the interpretive originality (within the boundaries of the authority of the Hebrew consonants) dictates the affect it has on the direction of mankind's evolution toward the Messianic age.

To know the Hebrew consonants well enough to affect meaningful interpretation is like manipulating the DNA of a living organism to affect change in that organism. But since the Hebrew consonants are the DNA of the whole world, the person who has the power to manipulate those consonants has a god-like power that dwarfs what can be done in the laboratory through manipulation of the DNA of a biological organism. The sage who can manipulate the DNA of the cosmos is a joint creator with God Himself even though you will never see his name written in any scientific journal or hear his name mentioned with the likes of a President or a Prime Minister. In the quiet place of study these Jewish sages are changing the world more dramatically than any head of state or world renown scientist.

Nevertheless, Jewish exegetes overlooked a very simple and factual exegetical truism based on the fact that for them Abraham's circumcision is a chok, a ritual whose experiential significance they don't really understand. Since these brilliant Jewish exegetes don't know in an experiential way what Abraham bleeding his reproductive organ signifies --- experientially (a virgin born Jew), they have no reason even to think about the fact that a dalet and not a heh is added to Sarai to get Sarah.

But if we have experiential knowledge of Abraham's circumcision (we have seen the face of God in the first Jewish firstborn of all time, Jesus of Nazareth), then we know in an experiential way why Abraham bled the male reproductive organ to birth the covenant in that particular blood. 

Once we know that, it's natural to wonder how, if Abraham ritually emasculates himself, can Isaac be the ritual rendition of Jesus of Nazareth (the first virgin born Jewish firstborn) if Sarai's womb has already been opened by the serpent, contaminating the most holy place of her body, making a virgin birth there impossible?

. . . Well, since the heh in Abraham transforms Abram in such a manner as to make virgin birth a foregone conclusion, i.e., as Professor Wolfson points out, the letter and the flesh are synonyms, then we need a letter that would transform “Sarai” back into a virgin. There’s only one letter that can do that. It's the letter that means "door" or "veil" or "covering." It's the dalet.

How amazing then that the only letter that could possibly signify the return of Sarai's virginity, the restoration of the flesh that covers the womb (so that a hand can open it instead of a serpent) turns out in fact and reality to be the letter that’s added to “Sarai” to transform her into “Sarah.”

The hypothesis that circumcision represents emasculation (i.e., is ritualized emasculation) forces a person to question what good Abraham's emasculation is if Sarah has already lost her virginity. Isaac can't be a type of Jesus of Nazareth even if his father's reproductive organ is cut out of the process since Sarai has lost her virginity long ago. . . . But with God all things are possible. If God can make Sarah pregnant without the services of Abraham's serpent, he can restore Sarah's virginity. And that's precisely what he does, and that's what the Hebrew letters point out to anyone already going in that direction.