Greeting Your Fellow With the Name of God

Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 61:1

"The LORD is with you, mighty man of valor" (Judges 6:12). Our rabbis taught: They ordained that a person should greet his fellow with the divine Name, as it is said, "And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said to the reapers, The LORD be with you" (Ruth 2:4); and it says, "The LORD is with you, mighty man of valor" (Judges 6:12); and it says, "Despise not your mother when she is old" (Proverbs 23:22); and it says, "It is a time to act for the LORD; they have made void Your Torah" (Psalms 119:126). What is the force of each added "and it says"? Should you say that Boaz spoke this on his own initiative [and it carries no authority], come and learn from the angel who said to Gideon, "The LORD is with you, mighty man of valor." And should you say it was an angel who said it to Gideon [but a man may not], then "Despise not your mother when she is old" [teaches that ancestral custom is binding]. And it says, "It is a time to act for the LORD" - what is the reason? Because "they have made void Your Torah." And reading it from its end to its beginning: "they have made void Your Torah" - what is the reason? Because "it is a time to act for the LORD" (referenced at hint 878).

Themes