God that said "enough" A popular interpretation of the name Shaddai is that it is composed of the Hebrew relative particle
she- (Shin plus vowel segol followed by
dagesh), or, as in this case, as
sha- (Shin plus vowel patach followed by a dagesh). The noun containing the dagesh is the Hebrew word
dai meaning "enough, sufficient, sufficiency". This is the same word used in the
Passover Haggadah, Dayeinu, which means "It would have been enough for us." The song Dayeinu celebrates the various miracles God performed while liberating the Israelites from Egyptian servitude. The
Talmud explains it this way, but says that
Shaddai stands for ''Mi she'Amar Dai L'olamo'' (Hebrew: ) – "He who said 'Enough' to His world." When he was forming the earth, he stopped the process at a certain point, withholding creation from reaching its full completion, and thus the name embodies God's power to stop creation. The passage appears in the tractate Hagigah 12a. There is early support for this interpretation, in that the
Septuagint translates
Shadday in several places as , the "Sufficient One" (for example,
Ruth 1:20, 21).
Apotropaic usage of the name Shaddai The name
Shaddai often appears on the devices such as amulets or dedicatory plaques. More importantly, however, it is associated with the traditional Jewish customs which could be understood as
apotropaic: male
circumcision,
mezuzah, and
tefillin. The connections of the first one with the name Shaddai are twofold: According to the biblical chronology it is El Shaddai who ordains the custom of circumcision in Genesis 17:1 and, as is apparent in midrash
Tanhuma Tzav 14 (cf. a parallel passages in Tazri‘a 5 and Shemini 5) the
brit milah itself is the inscription of the part of the name on the body: The Holy One, blessed be He, has put His name on them so they would enter the garden of Eden. And what is the name and the seal that He had put on them? It is
Shaddai. [The letter]
shin He put in the nose,
dalet – on the hand, whereas
yod on the {circumcised} [membrum]. Accordingly, {when} He goes to
{His eternal home} (Ecclesiastes 12:5), there is an angel {appointed} in the garden of Eden who picks up every son of which is circumcised and brings him {there}. And those who are not circumcised? Although there are two letters of the name
Shaddai present on them, {namely}
shin from the nose and
dalet from the hand, the
yod (...) is {missing}. Therefore it hints at a demon (Heb.
shed), which brings him down to Gehenna. Analogous is the case with mezuzah – a piece of parchment with two passages from the Book of Deuteronomy, curled up in a small encasement and affixed to a doorframe. At least since the Geonic times, the name
Shaddai is often written on the back of the parchment containing the
shema‘ and sometimes also on the casing itself. The name is traditionally interpreted as being an acronym of
shomer daltot Yisrael ("the guardian of the doors of Israel") or
shomer dirot Yisrael ("the guardian of the dwellings of Israel"). However, this
notarikon itself has its source most probably in
Zohar Va’ethanan where it explains the meaning of the word Shaddai and connects it to mezuzah. The name
Shadday can also be found on tefillin – a set of two black leather boxes strapped to head and arm during the prayers. The binding of particular knots of tefillin is supposed to resemble the shape of the letters: the leather strap of the
tefillah shel rosh is knotted at the back of the head thus forming the letter
dalet whereas the one that is passed through the
tefillah shel yad forms a
yod-shaped knot. In addition to this, the box itself is inscribed with the letter
shin on two of its sides. == Biblical translations ==