Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar and Nevim Arith Hayomim:

Psalms 29:2: “Give unto the Lord the glory due His name, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”

Oh, how I love to quote this verse as I worship God.  I just thrill when I utter the words to God that I am worshipping him in the “beauty of His holiness.”  I get such a blessing from this that I actually hate to figure out what it means.  Right now I haven’t the foggiest idea what the “beauty of His holiness” means.  But it sounds wonderful.

The word “beauty’ in Hebrew is “behadrat” which means a garment. For this reason commentators expressed the worship of God in a sanctuary or church where the priest and preachers wear beautiful robes and garments.  In fact it is this verse that serves the basis for priestly garments or robes worn by ministers in a church.

I was discussing this issue with my client this evening,  who is Catholic and attends Mass spoken in Latin.  He informed me that His Latin teacher in High School promised to give him a passing grade if he promised never to take another Latin course.  In other words he can’t understand a word spoken in the service, but he feels he is worshipping God.  I found myself agreeing with him and said, “You know, God is meant to be experienced not understood.”   If my client happens to experience God in the “beauty of His holiness” who am I to say he is wasting his time sitting in a service where he can not understand a word that is spoken.  After all Jesus said that we worship God in spirit and my client’s spirit probably understands Latin.

There is one problem with applying this word “behadrat” to garments worn by men.  It is speaking of the “behadrat kodesh”  the garments of Holiness.  When you look at the word “holy” or “kodesh” you find it means something sacred, consecrated, or set apart.  Maybe a piece of cloth can be consecrated to God, but I suspect God is more interested in our lives being consecrated, sacred and set apart.  But whom am I to fly in the face of 2,000 years of tradition.

However, let us assume that this garment of holiness or sacredness is really our lives consecrated to God and our bodies as the garment that carries this consecration.  What would that mean for us?   For one thing it would mean we could “worship” Him. Worship has two possible roots, shacah and/or sacah.  I believe both apply here and it means to bow before him and to be surrounded by Him and His presence.  When we have a life that is consecrated to Him he can surround us with his passionate love.

Note that the word “kodesh” is spelled Cheth – joined and bonded with God, Daleth a doorway or portal, that leads to the Shin – God’s passionate love.  When we are holy before God, we are able to join or bond with Him so that He can open a portal to his passionate love.  When that happens, sacah happens and we are immersed or surround by his loving presence.

Shacah and sacah comes from a Ugaritic word.  In graduate school I translated a Ugaritic poem about a goddess Anat who fell in love with a mortal man. When that relationship was consummated, the word “sacah” was used, the very word that the Hebrew adopted to express what happens when we “worship” or “sacah” God.  This does not mean a sexual relationship with God, but it does mean the deepest possible intimacy that we can experience with God.