The piyyut אנא בכח (Ana b’Khoaḥ) is one of a handful of medieval ḳabbalistic poems providing a forty-two-lettered divine name acrostic, the first letters of which reference a litany of angelic names found in twin tomes Sefer haPeliah and Sefer haQanah (14th c.). Reciting these piyyutim thus serve as a “safe” circumlocution for the invocation of the power inherent in this combination of letters.

The earliest recorded printing we could find of Ana b’Khoaḥ dates from the mid-16th century, from one of the earliest Sefaradi prayerbooks printed after the Spanish expulsion. The authorship of the piyyut remains unknown and it was likely written in the 15th century.

Ana b’Khoaḥ is often linked to the authorship of the 14th century ḳabbalistic tome, Sefer haPeliah, due to a reference to a different 42-letter divine name piyyut found there. The 42-letter divine name is already mentioned in earlier sources including Ḥai Gaon, but the first attribution of an unspecified 42 letter divine name is to the Tanna, Rebbi Neḥunyah ben haQanah. For this reason, both the authorship of the Sefer haPeliah and the piyyut Ana b’Khoaḥ are commonly misattributed to him. (He is also sometimes attributed the authorship of the Sefer haBahir.)

At neohasid.org, Rabbi David Seidenberg has collected a handful of niggunim for singing this prayer including the tune offered by Reb Zalman. For more on the 42 letter divine name and Ana b’Khoaḥ, please enjoy Ben Newman’s article, here.

Rebbi Neḥunyah ben haQanah< is considered to have been a chief transmitter of an esoteric Jewish lineage in antiquity, the Yordei Merqavah (Descenders to the Chariot). See Rabbeinu Bachya’s commentary on Leviticus 16:30, in which he shares the significance of the first three letters of this prayer. Regarding the attribution to Rebbi Neḥunyah, Rabbi Ben Newman writes:

In some siddurim and books this prayer is referred to as ‘The prayer of Nehunah b. Hakanah,’ a tanna of the second generation of the Tannaim. However, this prayer is not mentioned in the writings of the rabbis, not in the Mishnah, not in the two Talmuds, and not in the Midrash Halakha or Aggadah. If the editor of the prayer “Ana be-Koach” was the tanna R’ Nehunia b. Hakanah, it is a wondrous thing, how the prayer became known to the community only in the late Middle Ages. For it does not appear in the Siddur of R’ Amram Gaon, or in the Siddur of R’ Sa’adia Gaon, or in Machzor Vitri, or in the Machzor of Varmisa….or in the Abudraham, or in the Siddur of R’ Hertz Shatz…Also, in many other ancient siddurim and machzorim it is absent…Also though the Sefer HaKanah refers to the 42 letter name it does not refer to “Ana b’Khoaḥ.”…It seems that when they attribute this prayer to R’ Nehunia b. Hakanah, they are referring to the order of the letters avgitatz…these are what are attributed to R’ Nehunia b. Hakanah…^[1] From Ben Newman: “For this reference in Isaac of Acco, see his supercommentary to Ramban’s Torah commentary, Meirat Einayim pp. 152-155 (ed. Goldreich). Also see Tikkuney Zohar 19, p. 40a” 

—Aharon Varady

Source(s)

“אָנָּא בְּכֹחַ | Ana b’Khoaḥ, a 42 letter name piyyut with a singing translation by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (translation)

Rabbi Dr. Zalman Meshullam Schachter-Shalomi, affectionately known as "Reb Zalman" (28 August 1924 – 3 July 2014) was one of the founders of the Jewish Renewal movement. Born in Żółkiew, Poland (now Ukraine) and raised in Vienna, he was interned in detention camps under the Vichy Regime but managed to flee the Nazi advance, emigrating to the United States in 1941. He was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi in 1947 within the ḤaBaD Hasidic movement while under the leadership of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, and served ḤaBaD communities in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He subsequently earned an M.A. in psychology of religion at Boston University, and a doctorate from the Hebrew Union College. He was initially sent out to speak on college campuses by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, but in the early 1960s, after experimenting with "the sacramental value of lysergic acid", the main ingredient in LSD, leadership within ḤaBaD circles cut ties with him. He continued teaching the Torah of Ḥassidut until the end of his life to creative, free and open-minded Jewish thinkers with humility and kindness and established warm ecumenical ties as well. In September 2009, he became the first contributor of a siddur to the Open Siddur Project database of Jewish liturgy and related work. Reb Zalman supported the Open Siddur Project telling its founder, "this is what I've been looking forward to!" and sharing among many additional works of liturgy, an interview he had with Havurah magazine in the early to mid-1980s detailing his vision of "Database Davenen." The Open Siddur Project is proud to be realizing one of Reb Zalman's long held dreams.

Unknown Author(s)

Sometimes the best we can do in attributing a historical work is to indicate the period and place it was written, the first prayer book it may have been printed in, or the archival collection in which the manuscript was found. We invite the public to help to attribute all works to their original composers. If you know something not mentioned in the commentary offered, please leave a comment or contact us.

Works of related interest:

 

אָנָּא בְּכֹחַ | Ana b’Khoaḥ, with Spanish translation by Rabbi Isaac ben Shem Tov Cavallero (1552)

אֲנָא אַתְקֵינִית | Ana Atqenit (I am the one), a piyyut in Aramaic for introducing the first commandment as read in the Targum

מָעוֹז צוּר | Maoz Tsur (Rock of Ages), singing translation by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

אֵל בָּרוּךְ | El Barukh :: A piyyut containing the 42 Letter Name, recorded by Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz

אֱלֹהִים בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל | Elohim b’Yisrael :: A piyyut containing the 42 Letter Name, recorded in Sefer haPeliah

אֲזַמֵּר בִּשְׁבָחִין | Azamer biShvaḥin, a piyyut for Friday evening by Rabbi Yitsḥaq Luria (translation by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi)

בְּנֵי הֵיכָלָא | Bnei Heikhala, a piyyut for Shabbat afternoon by Rabbi Yitsḥaq Luria (translation by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi)

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