Some years ago I was writing a letter to my good student-friend, Akiva Cohen. He had written to me and closed off with something in Hebrew, so I thought I’d sign off to him in Hebrew. I used the word “berakot” (“blessings”). I liked it. So, from that day on I began signing off all letters with “Blessings.” I had never seen that term before (though I’m not saying I invented it, for surely others use it). But, it was a way of ending a letter with something more than “see ya”. And now I’m noticing “Blessings” more and more. I hope it catches on, for I believe words like that can be “performative utterance” — not just words but words that do something. For me it is a prayer for the one to whom I write.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some years ago I was writing a letter to my good student-friend, Akiva Cohen. He had written to me and closed off with something in Hebrew, so I thought I’d sign off to him in Hebrew. I used the word “berakot” (“blessings”). I liked it. So, from that day on I began signing off all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing-blogging"],"yoast_head":"\n