In Parashat Beha’alotcha, read this week throughout the Diaspora, God commands Moses to fashion two silver trumpets. They are to be used to summon, organize and direct the people. A long blast of both horns gathers everyone together. A long blast of only one assembles the chieftains. Short blasts inform the various tribes when and how to march.
This set of trumpet calls has generated a great deal of discussion over the millennia. One notable line of thought comes from Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezeritch, also known as the Maggid of Mezeritch, who was a primary disciple of the Baal Shem Tov and a major progenitor of early Hasidic ideas. Attentive to the themes of wholeness and segmentation — and probing the biblical word for “trumpet” — he wrote:
The Torah states: “Make for yourself two silver chatzatzrot, trumpets” (Numbers 10:2) … The deep significance of the word “trumpet” can be understood by dividing the word into two: chatzi tzurot, which means “half forms.”…
Similarly, the word adam, man, (spelled aleph-dalet-mem) is only composed of two letters, dalet-mem (which spells the word dam, meaning “blood”) until it enters into a state of union with the Holy One Blessed Be He, who is the aleph of the world.
The significance of letters and their permutations has been a central preoccupation of Jewish mystics through the ages, and, in line with a lot of Kabbalistic and Hasidic exegesis, Dov Ber begins his teaching with some ingenious wordplay. Just as the trumpets themselves can be blown either in unison or separately, the words meaning “trumpet” and “human” can either be assembled or disassembled. Trumpets (chatzotzrot) can be divided into two, yielding the phrase “half forms” (chatzi tzturot); meanwhile, the word for human (adam) can split into the words “blood” (dam) and “God” (symbolized by the lonely letter aleph). This playful excavation of Biblical Hebrew allows the Maggid to articulate a fundamental idea about the relationship between God and humans:
God must constrict himself several times, descending through several worlds in order to become one with a person, for a person can not bear God’s luminousness. So, too, a person must separate himself from all physicality until he ascends through all worlds to become one with God, nullifying his independent existence. Only then does the letter aleph (representing God) join with letters dalet-mem (spelling dam, or blood), only then can we spell adam, man, only then does the person become a human being … This is why the Torah commands us to make “two silver trumpets,” which can also mean “two half forms.” For the human being is really only a half form, dam, “blood.”
This is a striking teaching, part theology and part sacred anthropology. The upshot, for human beings, is that without the addition of the first letter — without adding the divine aleph to the dam (“blood”) — they are nothing but formless, soulless matter and free-flowing blood. A human is a potential mensch. But to achieve that potential, people must ascend through acts of desire and spiritual heroism. Only then can they become human beings, each one an a-dam.
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This is a poignant vision of what it means to be human. But, audaciously, Dov Ber doesn’t stop there. Instead, he applies the same logic to God.
… the aleph, God’s essence, is, so to speak, also not a complete form. It is only when they join together that the forms are complete.
And the word “silver” (kesef) comes from a Hebrew verbal root (kaf-samech-pey) meaning “desire,” which means that just as you must long for God, so also God longs for you.” (Dov Ber the Maggid of Mezeritch, Maggid Devarav Leyaakov 11, translated by the author)
In an example of the theological radicalism for which the early Hasidic masters are celebrated, the Maggid suggests that just as a person is incomplete absent the godly aleph, God’s full reality, without humanity’s dam, blood, is only provisional — a free-floating, silent aleph. God’s full potential for wholeness and expression is realized only inside the mind, body and mouth of human beings.
The result is a bracing and inspiring theological claim, disclosed in words and in trumpet blasts. It turns out that the relationship between God and humans is not like that between sovereign and subject, shepherd and sheep, parent and child. It is, instead, a relationship between two half-formed entities — lock and key, light and dark, body and mind — existing only in their desire for and union with one another. While we are denied the consoling image of a God who stands apart from creation — judging and saving us — we gain a vision of a God who stands in profound need of humanity, a God who is sometimes lonely, just as we are.
And so we need not look to kings or prophets nor await miracles in hopes of ascending to the heights of revelation. We need only be attentive to our most cherished and intimate relationships with those whom we share our homes, or beds, and lives. In a world that is increasingly atomized — and in a country like America, which so often centers the myth of the individual — this way of thinking can transform how we act towards one another and how we understand our place in the ever-unfolding cosmos.
Insofar as we are all inscribed with the divine aleph, we are all incarnate divine beings, worthy of honor, devotion and kindness. Each word we utter is a revelation. Each choice, for good or evil, has the potential to remake our small corner of the world. We exist not as solitary entities but as human beings who are animated into existence by our relationships with one another. These relationships must be cherished and nourished, perhaps even worshipped. Turns out, they are nothing less than our relationship with God.
This essay initially appeared in My Jewish Learning’s Shabbat newsletter Recharge on June 6, 2026. To sign up to receive Recharge each week in your inbox, click here.
