: See http://tinyurl.com/mdz6883
Quoting the Treasures of Ashkenaz blog [transliterations mine]:
The aleph stands for ani, the two yuds for HQBH, and the reish¨ fo
rofekha. The month is thereby depicted as a month of healing. The vort
seemingly is based on an old minhog of many generations among Yidden,
in which the letters yud-yud (sans hyphen) are used to represent the
venerated name of Hashem
However, even yud-yud is not the original minhag. In older manuscripts
they used three yuds, with the middle one slightly above the line, making
a triangle. Preserved in this printed edition of Siddur R' Saadia Gaon
<http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=20685pgnum=75>\.
I suggested two possible reasons for the third yud's disappearance:
- The printing press made that middle yud hard to insert into books,
because it would require a special letter in the type box. I find this
one less than compelling, because they kept an alef-lamed ligature in
the type box, and that got less usage.
- Xians read their own significance into the three letters. This
would be clearner, if there were any evidence of them actually doing so.
So the two-yud notation was just one step along the way. The general
question of why non-chassidic Ashkenazim (or non-Chida-influenced
Sepharadim) suddenly started writing out the sheim in siddurim is
compelling, but the two-yud notation isn't necessarily some venerable
alternative.
The three yuds was often explained as beind the initial letters of
Birkhas Kohanim; the yuds from Yevarekhekha, Ya'er, and Yisa.
Some suggest that the two yuds represent the first and last letters of
an intertwined sheim havayah and sheim adnus: YUD alef HEI dalet ... HEI
yud. Itself heavily al pi qabbalah.
And associating the two yuds with the transliteration into Hebrew
of an Akkadian month name (Ayyaru = n. blossom) requires even more
omnisignificance and mysticism than does finding significance in
presenting sheim havayah written out.
Where I really see this change as a problem is not because of venerable
minhagim, but because books have less shelf life now than in the
past. Cheap printing means also cheaper paper, not to mention faster
replacement. And if generations past wanted to minimize their sheimos
problems, al achas kamah vekamah we should.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
R' Yitzchok Levine posted:
That article has only slight relevance to anything medical. It is actually about the practice of abbreviating HaShem's Name with a double (or triple) Yud in siddurim, and how this practice is losing ground recently, with more siddurim using the Four-Lettered Name. That article says:
... even in the printing of siddurim, where in the past, Shem
Hashem was not written out explicitly, based on venerable, old
practice. In other words, the spelling out of the letters, Yud
– Kay – Vov – Kay in the past was done in Biblical texts, such
as Sifrei Torah and Sifrei Nach. In texts of tefilos, however,
it was not done. Instead, Yud – Yud was substituted.
I am very curious why this distinction was made, that the siddurim use the Yuds, while the printed Tanachs do use the Four Lettered Name.
I note that towards the end of that article, he refers to an "Azharah L'Madfisim (Warning To Printers)" on this topic, written by the son-in-law of the Nesivos Hamishpat. Curiously, he writes that the Two Yuds should be printed in siddurim *and* *chumashim*.
On the other hand, a few lines later, the Azharah explains a point I've long wondered about. The Four Lettered Name is just one of the *seven* Names Which May Not Be Erased. Why did this abbreviation arise for the Four Lettered Name and not for any of the others? I always figured it was because this one is *truly* a Name; "the Most Holy among equals" one might say. But the Azharah gives an entirely different explanation. Namely, the difference between this Name and the other six is that no matter how you spell it, it is not to be pronounced normally, so what is to be gained by using the correct letters? Therefore, find an abbreviation of some sort for this one, but the others should be spelled as they will be pronounced.
Akiva Miller
KennethGMiller@juno.com