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שִׁוִּיתִי | Shiviti: perceiving the world as an expression of divine Oneness

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כ״ט בסיון ה׳תשע״א (2011-06-30) under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license
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Image: המנורה כתובה by Ba'al haKokhav, converted to vector art by Andrew Meit (CC0)

Given that the Torah forbids impressing our imaginations with illustrations of the divine, some other method is necessary to perceive divine Oneness. One method is found in the verse in Psalms 16:8, “I have set YHVH before me at all times.”

שִׁוִּיתִי יְהוָה לְנֶגְדִּי תָמִיד׃

Shiviti YHVH l’negdi tamid
I have set YHVH before me at all times.

But does the verse enjoin one to perceive divine Oneness at all times, or to ponder the Tetragrammaton (the ineffable, four letter divine name) at all times, or to perceive the world as an expression of a Divine Name writ in nature? This ambiguity is at the root of the tradition of the Shiviti, a recursive illustration of the verse’s meaning set as a visual meditation and reminder. Because the object of any given practice is to condition behavior through repetition, the practice of perceiving the world as an expression of divine Oneness can begin as soon as one gains consciousness, and this is where Psalms 16:8 enters into the morning liturgy. Shmueli Gonzales explains more in his post on the Shiviti,

Those of you who have visited any Jewish shrines know exactly what I’m talking about when I mention charts and mystical diagrams. We call them Shiviti and they often take on the form on an enlarged writing of the Four-Letter name surrounded by verses of Psalms or prayers. The most famous of these is probably Psalms 67 drawn in the shape of a menorah. Others incorporate many mystical ways of reading Divine Names, but that are not meant to be pronounced.

Now one might ask, how intrusive into the text of the siddur can these mandala like meditations be? I mean, if they are useful why are they left out of the Baal haTanya’s siddur? You might say, who is he to leave out these things that are so authentic and sacred? Well, if we use a siddur as a seder (an order) of prayers and devotions, and go through it from waking up to going to sleep, then the first occurrence of shiviti is at the beginning of the siddur. That’s right. When one wakes up they are to immediately have in mind this verse “I have set haShem before me at all times.” For this reason in many Sephardic and Edut haMizrach siddurim the first words you will see is these words “shiviti Hashem l’negdi tamid.” [Read more at Shmuel’s blog, Hardcore Mesorah.]

This particular shiviti was originally drawn by a sopher (scribe) in Israel under the pseudonym, בעל הכוכב and shared on a popular message board with the intention “** חובה בכל בית **” — “It’s a duty [to place this] in every home.” Thank you to Andrew Meit for converting this shiviti from a raster image to a vector art SVG. With attribution to this psuedonymous sopher, and respecting his intention for sharing the shiviti he drew, with a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) Public-domain dedication of the derivative vector art.

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“שִׁוִּיתִי | Shiviti: perceiving the world as an expression of divine Oneness” is shared by the living contributor(s) with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal license.

Aharon N. Varady

Aharon N. Varady

Aharon Varady is the founding director of the Open Siddur Project. A community planner (M.C.P, DAAP/University of Cincinnati.) and Jewish educator (M.A. J.Ed., Davidson School of Education/JTSA), his work in open-source Judaism has been written about in the Yiddish Forverts, the Atlantic Magazine, Tablet, and Haaretz. If you find any egregious mistakes in his work, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin, Ministarot Nakeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also transcribes and translates prayers, besides administering the Open Siddur Project and this website.)

Andrew Meit

Andrew Meit

Andrew Meit is a scholar of the imagination, scholar on Martin Buber, a type designer and software tester, and a Jewish artist who is disabled. Andrew is legally blind, legally deaf, and has several learning problems stemming from contracting congenital rubella. Through out his life Andrew has striven to turn his disabilities into well made art that inspires and celebrates beauty and truth. Although mainly self-taught in calligraphy, drawing and design, Andrew formally studied at the Cleveland Art Institute. With the font editor Fontographer, he created the well known font GoodCity Modern (a version of the typeface used in Gutenberg’s bible) and Final Roman, a template font for type designers. Recently, after decades of work, Andrew produced a digital recreation of the first page of Genesis from the Gutenberg Bible. Currently he is working on a new translation of Ich und Du and a font based on Buber's handwriting. In 1984, Andrew earned a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies with minors in Mathematics and Philosophy from Stetson University. Originally from Lousiville, Kentucky, he currently lives in Plantation, Florida.

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Image: המנורה כתובה by Ba’al haKokhav (CC0)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established."–Psalms 90:17

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