I Am Who I Am and the Reflectivity of Prayer
The telos of tefillah,
the Hebrew word for prayer,
is not to be reflective
about one’s heart’s software.
It’s willingness to be subjected
to judgment by Hashem,
and be, of course corrected,
God’s subjects He’ll condemn
for faults that He, the Justice who’s Supreme;
Justice has forbidden,
depriving us of self-esteem,
of innocence most sadly ridden,
not managing ourselves to mend
while lawlessly we’re livin’
in sin, by our own sins condemned
unless by Him forgiven.
Prayer gives us an awareness
that the Judge observing
us decides with fairness
just how much time we’re serving.
Prayer is an action that man performs
in hitpael, Hebrew for the reflexive mood,
echoing how “I am who I am,” informs
the Israelites how God, who cannot be viewed,
should be addressed by them when led by Moses,,
for whom to be free is not “not to be” —
— Hamletically, this poet now supposes,
reflecting on a God no one can see.
In a letter in the TLS on 12/12/25 discussing how Agatha Chritie implied that Hercule Poirot translates the French use of the reflexive into English. Liliane Haegeman, a member of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy at Gent University, points out that Agatha Christie sometimes omitted subject pronouns as a way of styling her characters. She identifies Hercule Poirot as an exception in this regard, explaining that Poirot’s use of English is heavily influenced by French, in which such omission is not likely to occur. She ingeniously suggests that Christie’s characterization of Poirot applies French grammatical rules to English, leading to the detective’s overuse of reflexive pronouns, which he inserts inappropriately where they do not belong. French, like other Romance languages, makes extensive use of reflexive verbs, while English verbs indicate when somebody is both subject and object through the addition of reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, etc).
This poem suggests that one reason that Hebrew prayer is characteristically silent is because it addresses not only God but the person who is praying, expressing him or herself in the reflexive mood. The Hebrew word for this mood is hitpael, and I suggest that the the act of liturgical praying, hitpalel, is a reflexive version of the verb palel, which denotes “pray,” because Hebrew prayer has two targets, not only God but the person who is praying to a self to which his or her self is also praying.
The use of the hitpael mood to denote prayer to God perhaps imitates God’s use of this reflexive mood when in the narrative of Moses’ encounter with God at the Burning Bush, He tells Moses His name in a reflexive manner in Exod. 3:14:
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה וַיֹּ֗אמֶר כֹּ֤ה תֹאמַר֙ לִבְנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה שְׁלָחַ֥נִי אֲלֵיכֶֽם׃
And God said to Moses, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh,” continuing, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, ‘Ehyeh sent me to you.’
Interestingly, Exod. 1:10 applies the reflexive mood to inform readers that Pharaoh administered wisdom to himself when he uses the word נִֽתְחַכְּמָ֖ה, let us deal wisely, to inform us of his decision, expressed in yoyal-plural, to defend Egypt by opposing the Israelites:
הָ֥בָה נִֽתְחַכְּמָ֖ה ל֑וֹ פֶּן־יִרְבֶּ֗ה וְהָיָ֞ה כִּֽי־תִקְרֶ֤אנָה מִלְחָמָה֙ וְנוֹסַ֤ף גַּם־הוּא֙ עַל־שֹׂ֣נְאֵ֔ינוּ וְנִלְחַם־בָּ֖נוּ וְעָלָ֥ה מִן־הָאָֽרֶץ׃
Arise, nithakma, let us deal wisely, with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.”
Just as interesting is the way that many of the biblical psalms echo one another in a twinning process that has been brilliantly discussed by Beni Gesundheit in lectures that he delivers both in Hebrew and in English to an audience called Torah in Motion. I think that use of this twinning process by the psalmist should be regarded as a reflection of the use of the reflexive mood by the psalmist.
