Let me tell you why you ought to make it to at least one morning Sukkot service: the parade.  It’s sort of like “Follow the Leader,” except for grown-ups, and every one carries their luav and etrog sets in the procession. This particular ritual is known as Hoshanot, which literally means “Savings,” as in the way we are saved from impending disasters, whatever they may be.

For each day of Sukkot, there is a special prayer for the Hoshanot procession. And each day we recite—Ani vaHo, hoshi’a na—translated as Ani vaHo, please save us. If you are wondering what Ani vaHo means, so did the rabbis. Rashi, the French commentator of the 12th century,  explained that both Ani and vaHo are names of God. Here is how he knew. You’ll need a Hebrew Bible for this, and if you don’t have one, just follow the logic.

The names Ani and vaHo are found in three verses of the Torah, Exodus 14:19-21. If you read those verses and cannot find either a Ani or a vaHo, you’re right—they are buried in the text. This is how we can uncover them. The unusual feature of these three verses in the Torah is that all three contain 72 letters. The rabbis took the three verses and lined them up such that the 72 letters of verse 19 were exactly on top of the 72 letters of verse 20, which were exactly on top of the 72 letters of verse 21. One more critical detail: they lined up the letters of verse 20 backwards. This, according to a mystical tradition, gives us 72 different three-lettered names of God. VaHo is the first and Ani is the 37th of these 72 three-lettered names.

If you find yourself reacting to this along the lines of—You’ve got to be kidding!—the answer is that even if moderns find it bizarre, the rabbis didn’t. For them, the Torah was a pot of boiling spirituality, its secrets and truths spilling over the top, ready to be caught by anyone sufficiently perceptive and receptive to its nuances. Clearly, these three verses meant a great deal to the rabbis. The verses read:

The angel of God, who had been going ahead of the Israelite army, now moved and followed behind them; and the pillar of cloud shifted from in front of them and took up a place behind them, and it came between the army of the Egyptians and the army of Israel. Thus there was the cloud with the darkness, and it cast a spell upon the night, so that the one could not come near the other all through the night. Then Moses held out his arm over the sea and the Lord drove back the sea with a storng east wind all that night, and turned the sea into dry ground. The waters were split…
(Exodus 14:19-21)

You see what this passage is all about: salvation. The Israelites have left Egypt, but Egypt had now left Egypt too, regretting its decision to let the slaves go, determined to recapture and enslave them again. But the angel of God would not let it happen. And Moses, too, contributes to salvation by using his staff to split the sea.

These three verses contain 72 letters each—that’s four times 18 and you know, 18 is Hebrew for hai, life. Like the four walls of the sukkah, Moses working together with God protecged the Israelites on all sides. Perhaps another way to translate Ani vaHo hoshi’a na would be, I (Ani) and (va) God (Ho, using it as a name of God) can effect salvation (hoshi’a na). God, together with You, You and I, we can save the world. Each person has a power onto themselves, but when combined with the enregy of God, our own power is enhacned exponentially and we can meet any challenge that may come our way.