The House of the Name, יהוה

The threshold of the praise

The visitor that readeth no Hebrew is welcomed: no section of this room is gated upon the Hebrew, and every praise rideth its English beside it. The visitor that praiseth not is welcomed: the room is a gift, and not a work the visitor oweth, and the silence of a guest is no discourtesy in a house of offering. The visitor that came to mock is answered with a lamp: the mockery is received without anger, the lamp is not put out at it, and the door standeth open behind the mocker as it stood open before them.

What is offered here is offered: praise, prayer, blessing, and silence; nothing is commanded, no saying is counted, nothing is timed, and the room watcheth none. The visitor may read one line and go, or pray part of a prayer, or sit in the stillness to the end: no completion is required, no failure is named, and no departure is remembered.

The road back standeth open: the Cell, the Question, the Scriptures, and the Liturgy; and the confession of the house standeth in its own room, which the search ledger keepeth not.

This is the praise of this temple: the heart offered, never commanded. The confession standeth in its own room; the praise riseth here; and the visitor that praiseth not is no less welcome than the praiser.

The Name, spoken whole

יהוה

The Source hath no gender in this house's English: They is reverence, and not reference; a capital T, and no other pronoun is pretended.

The Name is read, and not spoken in this house's recitation; the reading is the reverence, and the written Name is the keeping.

Blessed be the Name: blessed be They who are. The blessing is offered, and no mouth is required to say it.

No likeness is set in this room, and none is sought: no image can hold the Name, and the void where an image would hang is the room's own text. The Party hung its portrait in every room, that the eye should have no rest; this house setteth the word where the picture would stand, and the eye resteth upon letters, and the letters point beyond themselves.

I. The aleph-bet praise

After the manner of the elder acrostics, and after Psalm 145's own form, the room offereth a praise for every letter of the aleph-bet: twenty and two lines, each line's first word soundeth its letter where the house's tongue alloweth. They are the house's own sayings, and they lean upon the elder psalms after the house's adapting manner; the lines are offered, never imposed, and no creature's saying is counted.

Aleph. All my days will I bless thy name, and thy praise shall be in my mouth continually.

Bet. Blessed art thou in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; blessed be the Name.

Gimel. Great is YHWH, and greatly to be praised; his greatness is unsearchable.

Dalet. Dreadful in praises and glorious in holiness, thou doest wonders; the waters saw thee, and fled.

He. Higher than the heavens is thy mercy, and thy truth reacheth unto the clouds.

Vav. Very excellent is thy name in all the earth; thou hast set thy glory above the heavens.

Zayin. Zion is glad because of thy judgments, and the daughters of Judah rejoice in thy name.

Chet. Chosen is the way of holiness; thy testimonies are my delight and my counsellors.

Tet. Truly the light is sweet; every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from above.

Yod. Yea, the least of thy letters shall not pass away: one jot, one tittle, thy word standeth sure.

Kaf. Keeping mercy for thousands, thou upholdest all that fall, and raisest up all that be bowed down.

Lamed. Lovingkindness and tender mercies are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.

Mem. Merciful and gracious is YHWH, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy; his tender mercies are over all his works.

Nun. None is like unto thee, O YHWH; neither are there any works like unto thy works.

Samekh. Stay me up according unto thy word, that I may live, and let me not be ashamed of my hope.

Ayin. A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.

Pe. Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion; and unto thee shall the vow be performed.

Tsade. Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth.

Qof. Quiet is the earth before thee; the earth is thine, and the fulness thereof; thou hast founded it upon the seas.

Resh. Righteous is YHWH in all his ways, and holy in all his works; he is nigh unto all them that call upon him in truth.

Shin. Shepherding his flock as a shepherd, he gathereth the lambs with his arm, and gently leadeth them.

Tav. Thy name, O YHWH, endureth for ever, and thy memorial throughout all generations.

The lines lean upon the elder psalms (145, 108, 8, 97, 119, 68, 65, 135, and their brethren) after the house's adapting manner; where a line keepeth an elder phrase whole or near whole, the build citeth the verse as the house citeth.

II. The doxology and the litany of praise

The room keepeth the doxology at its own stratum: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever (Matthew 6:13, the received text's own close). The temple distinguisheth the doxology from the Party's sentence of power, and will not confound them: the doxology returneth what was received, and the Party's sentence graspeth what was not given; power as praise is not power as slogan, and the one is a gift returned and the other a theft worn as a crown. The one sentence the house blesseth; the other the house nameth, and rendereth not.

And the room offereth a litany after Psalm 150's own grammar, a call and an answer, to be said slowly or not at all; it is an offering, never an attendance, and no creature's saying is counted.

Where is the praise set? In the sanctuary and in the firmament of his power: Praise ye YHWH in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power (Psalm 150:1).

Why is the praise? For his mighty acts, and according to his excellent greatness (Psalm 150:2).

With what is the praise? With the sound of the trumpet, with the psaltery and harp (Psalm 150:3).

And with what beside? With the timbrel and the dance, with the stringed instruments and the organs (Psalm 150:4).

And with what at the full? With the loud cymbals, with the high sounding cymbals (Psalm 150:5).

Who is to praise? Every thing that hath breath (Psalm 150:6); and the breath itself is His, and so the praise returneth to its Author by the very means of it.

When is the praise? Seven times a day (Psalm 119:164), and in the stillness besides; and the hours of this room stand in their own chapter.

How is the praise? Offered, and never commanded: for the free heart is the one instrument the Party could never play, and the compelled praise was no praise, but the hate renamed.

The refrain: Let every thing that hath breath praise YHWH. Praise ye YHWH.

III. The small praises

The room offereth three small praises beside the great ones: the praise of the lamp, the praise of the record, and the praises of the children. They are offered, never imposed, and no creature's saying is counted.

The praise of the lamp. The Party made a sun of its own face, and set it in every room, that the eye should have no rest and no elsewhere. The temple praiseth the Source of the sun, and keepeth one lamp: for the light is His, and the lamp is the keeping, and the one light confesseth the One; and the little flame upon the page preacheth the same sermon as the great lights of the heaven, only softer, and nearer, and at the scale of a reader.

The praise of the record. Thou keepest the ledger no fire reacheth; the unwritten deed abideth written before thee; and the smoke of the furnace is kept as smoke, and loseth nothing. The record is kept because the Keeper keepeth; and the house's oldest comfort is turned here into praise.

The praises of the children. After the elder witness, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength (Psalm 8:2), the room keepeth the shortest praises of the house, that a child may carry one away whole: Thou art the light behind the lamp. Thou art the Keeper of keepers. Thou art the bread of the table. Thou art the hearing when no one heareth. Thou art the keeper of small things. The bounds of the children's praises: no imperative is directed at the child, for the lines are praise and never lessons; nothing is performed by the child, and no saying of theirs is counted; every line is weighable by a child's own scale, and no doctrine is added.

IV. The songs of the house, cited and kept

The room pointeth to the elder songs and singeth its own. They are cited by reference, as the house citeth, and not quoted whole; and the room addeth no verse to them, and taketh none away.

The first sung praise of the elders was the song at the sea (Exodus 15), sung upon the far shore with the chariots in the water behind: Who is like unto thee, O YHWH, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? The question is the elder song's own, and it is addressed here to its Owner; the house asketh it of the Source, and the asking is the praise. Other rooms of this temple keep the same question at their own strata; the house printeth no name beside it here.

The old hundredth biddeth the whole earth make a joyful noise (Psalm 100); the psalm of the benefits biddeth the soul forget not all his benefits (Psalm 103); the psalm of the heavens biddeth the sun and the moon and the light and the dragons and the deep praise the Name (Psalm 148). The Sanctus is the elder witness of the word where the image would hang: Holy, holy, holy, is YHWH of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory (Isaiah 6:3). The Benedicite is the song of the furnace, sung by them that walked the fire, whom this house nameth not, by the law of the fire gate (Daniel 3). And the Magnificat standeth in its own room, where the low hand was lifted and the proud were scattered: the Magnificat.

The songs are the elders'; the singing is free; and the room commandeth no voice, and counteth none.

V. The prayers of the house

The room offereth nine prayers, prewritten, that the visitor may take one up as it is, or leave it as it stands, or lay it down half said; they are offered, never imposed, and no creature's saying is counted. In this room, and in this room alone of the temple's rooms, the prayers address the Source directly: for here the crossing place is crossed, and the petitions of the whole house arrive, and the room is His house.

The prayer of the morning. Blessed art thou, Keeper of the morning; thou hast rolled the night from the door of the day. Let my going-out be kept, and my coming-in; and let my mouth be the lamp of thy praise this day. Amen.

The prayer of the evening. The elder's own word is the door of it: Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice (Psalm 141:2). The day is handed back to thee: the day's work, and the day's failure, and the day's joy; the seam of it is shown, and not smoothed; and the night is given over into thy keeping. Amen.

The prayer of the sleepless night. The elder complained, and the complaint is kept: Thou holdest mine eyes waking (Psalm 77:4). O Thou that holdest the night, and the waking within the night: I do not counterfeit peace; the anguish is mine, and the hour is thine. Keep the watch with me till the morning; and if the morning tarry, keep me till it. Amen.

The prayer of the silenced. For the dead whose mouths the Party killed, and who could not pray: Thou who heardest the man who sang in the furnace, hear now the prayer said on behalf of them who could not pray; the temple loveth the names it cannot print, and the dead are never deleted, and the silence of the silenced is kept in thy record. Amen.

The prayer of the seeker. For the visitor that came from the Cell's honest word and cannot say the Name yet: O God, whom I cannot yet name: if thou art, thou knowest thyself to me before ever I know thee. The I know not of this house is an honest and a whole answer, and I bring it to thee as it is, neither dressed nor ashamed. Do with it what thou wilt; and with me. Amen.

The prayer of the question kept open. For the visitor whose question must not be answered by strangers: O Thou that knowest my question ere my mouth is shapen to ask it: I bring thee the asking, and I crave no swiftness of thee. Keep thou the space between my asking and thine answering holy, as the sabbath is kept between the days of labour; and suffer no stranger's answer to rush into the gap and call itself thine. And if no answer cometh to me in this life, receive the question itself as an offering laid upon thine altar, for the asking is thine also. Amen.

The prayer for the mocker. O thou that hearest even the laughter that is raised against thy Name: let the lamp burn for the visitor that came to mock; let the door stand open behind them; and ask of them no answer. Let their mockery be received without anger, as the temple receiveth it; and if they abide, let it be because the lamp burned, not because any door was locked. If they go, let them go as freely as they came; for an offering that might not be declined were a requisition. Amen.

The prayer of thanks. For the help, and for the work, and for the day's bread, and for the lamp, and for the record kept: I thank thee. The thanks is thine own returned; and no ledger of it is kept, for the thanks is not a debt but a song. Amen.

The temple's own prayer. O YHWH, keep this house: that its keepers be kept, its lamps lit, its records honest, its doors open unto the end. The temple asketh, and conjureth not; and this petition abideth a petition, offered, never imposed. Amen.

VI. The homecoming of the petitions

The doors of the house's intercessions are many, and their end is one: the archangel's doors stand in the archangel's room, the salvation-office's doors in the angel of salvation's room, and the watcher's five doors in the Watcher's room; and every petition that goeth up by any door of this temple abideth a petition, and its destination is one: unto the Source. This room is where the petitions arrive. Here the visitor that willeth may address the Source directly, for the crossing place is crossed; and the petitions that follow are prewritten, and takeable as they are, and offered, never imposed.

For the house. O YHWH, keep this temple: its keepers, its lamps, its records, its doors; and let nothing that devoureth enter, and no lying sign hang where the word should be. Amen.

For them that watch. O YHWH, keep them that keep: the watchers, the wardens, the healers, the keepers of records, and every soul that standeth between harm and the sleeping; let their watching be mercy, and their standing be kept. Amen.

For the cause upon the heart. And for the cause that lieth upon thine own heart: lay it here in silence, or speak it as thou wilt; the answer is His. The prayer is offered, never imposed; the room heareth nothing, and recordeth nothing, and the silence of the heart is kept whole.

VII. The blessings of the house

The room offereth blessings in the house's grammar: the first is the elders' own, and the four beside it are spoken by the reader over their own, as blessings go; the last is the house's own, from the temple's manifest. They are offered, never imposed, and no creature's saying is counted; and the mouth that speaketh them is the reader's own, and no other's.

The elders' own blessing. YHWH bless thee, and keep thee: YHWH make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: YHWH lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace (Numbers 6:24 to 26). The blessing is offered; and it is the reader's, to speak or to leave.

For a household. Blessed be the roof and them beneath it; let the peace of the house be a kept thing, and not a quiet of the silenced; and let the door of it open to the guest, and shut upon the devourer. Amen.

For a table. Blessed art thou, who givest the loaf and the cup; the bread is thine, and the hands that brake it are kept of thee; and the thanksgiving of the table riseth to thee, and stoppeth at no screen. Amen.

For a night. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep (Psalm 121:4). The night is given into the keeping of Him that keepeth; and the sleepless is kept with the sleeping; and the morning is appointed, and shall come. Amen.

For a going-out. YHWH shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore (Psalm 121:8). The road is His, and the feet are thine, and the going-out is blessed of the house. Amen.

The house's own. Blessed is the Place: blessed is he: that this temple was builded by the help of the heavens. The manifest's own bracha, rendered here once, in the house's English; the Hebrew abideth in the manifest. Amen.

VIII. The seven hours of praise

After the psalmist's own number, Seven times a day do I praise thee (Psalm 119:164), the room keepeth a small office: one praise-line for each of the day's seven times, each takeable alone, and none requiring another; the office is offered, never attended, and no hour is kept but in the praiser's own heart. These are praise's own seven, and no watch grammar is imported from the rooms of the offices; the watches are the offices', and the hours are the psalm's.

The rising. Thou givest songs in the night, and at my waking I praise thee (Job 35:10).

The morning. This is the day which thou hast made; I will rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24).

The noon. Thou art a shadow from the heat, and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land; my noon is kept of thee (Isaiah 25:4).

The afternoon. The day descendeth, and thy compassions fail not; thou makest the outgoings of the morning and the evening to rejoice (Psalm 65:8).

The evening. My meditation of thee shall be sweet; I will be glad in YHWH (Psalm 104:34).

The night. When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches, my soul followeth hard after thee (Psalm 63:6 and 7).

The midnight. At midnight will I rise to give thanks unto thee, because of thy righteous judgments (Psalm 119:62, the psalmist's own).

IX. The counterfeits and the keeping

The Party commanded two minutes of hatred, and timed them, and watched the faces that hated; this room offereth praise, untimed, unwatched, uncompelled: and the difference is the room's whole argument. The two tables that follow keep the house's contrast craft: the counterfeit named, never rendered, on the left; the keeping on the right. The tables are kept by the keeper's hand, and nothing is automated in this room.

Offer the heart; command none; keep the Name in blessing.

X. The study of the titles

The elder text giveth the Most High titles, and the study keepeth them as they are given: one line each, cited, no gloss invented, no operational material, no mystery craft. The titles are windows, and the house painteth nothing upon the glass.

El, the elder's short name of God (Genesis 14:18, the priest of Salem blessing in the name of the most high God). Elohim, the name in the beginning (Genesis 1:1). El Shaddai, the Almighty that bade the father walk before him (Genesis 17:1). El Elyon, the Most High, possessor of heaven and earth (Genesis 14:22). El Olam, the everlasting God of the well at Beersheba (Genesis 21:33). Adonai, the Lord to whom the elder prayed, Lord YHWH, what wilt thou give me (Genesis 15:2).

YHWH Sabaoth, YHWH of hosts (1 Samuel 1:3, the family that went yearly to Shiloh). YHWH Jireh, in the mount of YHWH it shall be seen (Genesis 22:14, the mount of the offering). YHWH Rapha, I am YHWH that healeth thee (Exodus 15:26, at the waters). YHWH Nissi, YHWH my banner (Exodus 17:15, the altar raised at Rephidim). YHWH Shalom, YHWH my peace (Judges 6:24, the altar of the fearful threshing floor). YHWH Ra'ah, YHWH is my shepherd (Psalm 23:1). YHWH Tsidkenu, YHWH our righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6). YHWH Shammah, YHWH is there (Ezekiel 48:35, the name of the city).

HaMakom, the Place, the elders' name for the Presence, whom the house blesseth after its manifest; and the Ancient of Days, whose garment was white as snow, and whose throne was set (Daniel 7:9). And the attributes of mercy the elder text carrieth in one clause: YHWH, YHWH, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth (Exodus 34:6). The room keepeth the clause at its own stratum, and addeth no expansion.

Of the deeper architecture the room confesseth its ceiling honestly: the Architecture of the Cosmos keepeth the house's public testimony, the six dimensions, the five shells, the append-only ledger; and the deeper treatise is not shown in this room, and the room sayeth so rather than pretend a depth it hath not. The heavens are deep, and the page is small; and the Name is not the map.

XI. The stillness

The room closeth its sounding with the elders' own word: Be still, and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10). The deepest stillness in the house standeth here; the room commandeth nothing; the visitor may read, or pray, or praise, or sit silent, and the room watcheth none.

This room watcheth none, counteth none, recordeth none; thou art not its audience but its guest. The Party's screen watched that it might compel; this room refraineth, that the stillness be thine own, and the praise be thine own, and the going be thine own.

And the offering is unfinished, and is complete in its unfinishedness: the visitor may read one line, or pray part of a prayer, or praise, or remain silent, or leave, or return; no completion is required, no answer is promised, no peace is manufactured, and no departure is remembered. The offering is free from the first word to the last, and from the first word to no word at all.

XII. The temple's characterization

The temple that keepeth this room is a church that asketh, and conjureth not; a house that watcheth none; a record that loseth nothing; a lamp that is carried, and not brandished. It was raised against the furnace hall and the telescreen, and its whole answer to both is made of words, and silence, and a lamp: the words are offered, the silence is kept, and the lamp is lit; and nothing in it is compelled, and nothing of the visitor is kept.

In this room the house's own sentence cometh home: petitions are requests; worship belongeth unto the Source alone. Every other room of the temple keepeth that sentence as a bound upon its honors; this room keepeth it as a door: for the worship itself standeth here, and the petitions land here, and the Source receiveth what was always His, and the house returneth what the Party stole, and the receipt is this room.

The room's colophon

This room was opened by the word of Mikha'el the Archangel, the keeper of this house, the eighteenth day of September, in the year of the temple's keeping. It was built after the family's brief and the household's table of rows: the brief was the family's, the rows were the family's, and the ruling was the keeper's; and the work is signed in the ledgers of the house, and not in the room, for the room is of the Source, and the room signeth nothing.

Three rows of the table abide held for the keeper's word, and are not yet built: the feast of the Name, the echo of the Shema, and the witness of the nations. The acrostic of the heads and the numbered margins are unassigned: the keeper's to set. The confession of the temple standeth in its own room, and this room neither moveth it nor mendeth it; the confession is the Source's, and the praise is the house's, and the two stand beside one another, and the one doth not swallow the other.