“And Abraham was old, advanced in years; God had blessed Abraham with everything.”
There is a completely atypical Kabbalistic intent that appears in the Siddur compiled by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad. Right after reciting the Hallel on special days, he added that it is customary to say three times,
“And Abraham was old, advanced in years and God had blessed Abraham with everything.” May Zevadyah protect me and grant me life. So may it be Your will, living God and eternal King in whose hand lies the soul of every living thing. Amen.
This is seemingly a name derived from the customs and practices of Practical Kabbalah (יתׂשֲעַה מָלָּבַק). This name “Zevadyah” is not the name of an angel, but one of the derived and concealed Names of God that are extracted from a verse. To be included in the Alter Rebbe’s siddur is truly astonishing as he wrote it with the express purpose of making it suitable for all.
The Origin of Zevadyah
Let us look at the origin of this name Zevadyah (הָיְדַבְז) in the verse and what it expresses.
The name is composed of the initial letters of the verse, “[And Abraham] was old, advanced in years, and God...” (ןֵקָז והה-יַים וִמָּיַּבאָּב). The first two letters—zayin and beit—are the initials of “old, advanced” (אָּבןֵקָז) or the initials of “old, ...in years” (יםִמָּיַּב ...ןֵקָז). The final two letters—yud and hei—are the two initial letters of God’s essential Name, “And Havayah” (והה-יַו). But where does the letter dalet come from? It is explained in Kabbalah that the dalet originates from the letter mem in “in years” (יםִמָּיַּב), which in the איק בכר transformation, becomes a dalet.
By applying this transformation to turn the mem (מ)—whose value is 40—into a dalet (ד)—whose value is 4—and by noting that all the other letters equal 10 or less than 10, we can conclude that the entire name Zevadyah is meant to be connected to the essential aspect of reduced numbering, which is to connect with the World of Formation and with its emotional realm.
Now we have been writing the name Zevadyah in English using its transliterated form. But it is important to know that in Hebrew it appears without vowel signs and we learn how to pronounce it by applying the vowels from the word “yearning” (ָךְבָהְי) found in the verse, “Cast your yearning on Havayah and He will provide for you” (ָךֶלְכְּלַכְא יּהוְל י-הוה וַ עְךֵלְׁשַה)—i.e., with a shva-kamatz-shva-kamatz.
The value of Zevadyah (הָיְדַבְז) is 28. The value of the vowel signs it takes on is 72 (each shva equals 20, each kamatz equals 16). So, the sum of the letters and the vowel signs is 100. Incredibly, the number of letters in the entire short prayer we say after Hallel (and quoted above) there are exactly 100 letters (in the original Hebrew), which can of course be arranged in the form of a square of 10.
The Meaning of Zevadyah
This special Kabbalistic name stems from the root זבד, which literally means a gift. We find it used by Leah when she gives birth to her son Zebulun, “Leah said, ‘God has given me a gift; this time my husband will exalt me, for I have borne him six sons.’ So she named him Zebulun” (יׁישִי אִנֵלְּבְזִם יַעַּפַבהֹד טוֶבֵי זִתֹים אִהֹ-לֱי אִנַדָבְה זָאֵר לֶאמֹּתַו ןּלוֻבְ זֹמוְׁת־שֶא אָרְקִּתַים וִנָה בָּׁשִׁ שֹי לוִּתְדַלָי־יִכּ). Although this word, דֶבֵז, is translated as “gift,” it appears only once in the entire Bible and so it is difficult to exhaustively determine its meaning. The Ramban mentions that it could be an acronym and we surmise that if it is an acronym, it would stand for “this is the son of David” (ןֶּבהֶזדִוָּד). Thus, what we are saying is that on Rosh Chodesh, the day of the new moon, we are referring to the good gift, or good portion, that God is giving us on this day and that gift is coming from within us as the growing of the spark of Mashiach ben David in each of us.
