Modeh Ani

Some root letters are “weak”: yud, vav and hei (and a root whose last two letters are the same) do not always appear as themselves. When a root letter seems to be missing, it has usually changed shape or merged with its neighbour. Modeh Ani shows four cases:

• A first yud becomes a vav. The root of מוֹדֶה is י־ד־ה; in this verb pattern the yud shows as וֹ (compare הוֹדָה, “he thanked”).
• A final hei drops. The adjective חַי, “living”, comes from ח־י־ה; the hei has fallen away.
• A middle vav becomes a doubled yud. The adjective קַיָּם, “enduring”, comes from ק־ו־ם, the root of קוּם, “stand up”.
• Two identical letters merge. The adjective רַבָּה, “great”, comes from ר־ב־ב; the two bets are written once.

Watch for the dagesh, the dot inside a letter. Inside a letter that follows a vowel it usually means the letter is doubled, that is, that something has merged into it: the בּ of רַבָּה, the יּ of קַיָּם. When you cannot find three root letters, look for a vav or yud standing in for a root letter, a missing final hei, or a dagesh.

Hebrew writes several of its most common little words as a single letter joined to the front of the next word. Modeh Ani has four of them, and you will meet them on almost every line of the Siddur: וְ “and”, בְּ “in, with”, לְ “to, toward”, שֶׁ “that, who, for”. A fifth, מִ “from”, appears in מִלְּפָנֶיךָ, “from before You”.

1. They are never written alone. בְּחֶמְלָה is one word: the prefix be-, “with”, joined to חֶמְלָה, “compassion”.
2. Their usual vowel is a sheva, and it changes for ease of speech. Before another sheva it becomes a chirik: le- joined to שְׁמוֹ gives לִשְׁמוֹ, “for His Name”. The ve- “and” becomes וּ before the letters bet, mem and pei, or before a sheva: וּבְכָל, “and with all” (the Shema).
3. מִ and שֶׁ usually double the next letter with a dagesh: מִלְּפָנֶיךָ. (Hei, alef, ches, ayin and reish cannot take a dagesh, which is why the hei of שֶׁהֶחֱזַרְתָּ has none.)
4. They stack, in a fixed order: ve- “and” or she- “that” comes first, then be-, le- or mi-. In מִלְּפָנֶיךָ two prefixes sit together: mi- “from” on le- “to”.
5. With a personal ending they become a whole little word: בִּי “in me”, לִי “to me”, לְךָ “to you” (§G4).

The word אֲשֶׁר, “who, which”, does the same job as she- written in full (Lesson 2).

Hebrew says “I, you, my, your” in two ways. The independent pronoun is a word of its own: אֲנִי “I”, אַתָּה “You” (m.). The attached ending (pronominal suffix) is joined to a noun, a preposition or a verb: נִשְׁמָתִי “my soul”, בִּי “in me”.

The endings you meet first:

• -i “my, me”: נִשְׁמָתִי, “my soul”; בִּי, “in me”.
• -cho or -echo “your” (m.): אֱמוּנָתֶךָ, “Your faithfulness”.
• -echo with a yud, “your” on a plural noun: לְפָנֶיךָ, built on פָּנִים, “face”, which is plural in form.
• -einu “our”: אֱלֹקֵינוּ, “our G‑d” (Lesson 2).
• -o “his”, and -ov “his” on a plural noun: נִשְׁמָתוֹ, “his soul”; בְּמִצְוֹתָיו, “with His commandments” (Lesson 2).

The yud is the plural sign. In the endings of לְפָנֶיךָ and בְּמִצְוֹתָיו a yud is written but not pronounced as a vowel of its own: it tells you the noun is plural.

Word order. In מוֹדֶה אֲנִי the pronoun comes after the verb, so the sentence opens with the thanks. The present-tense verb does not show the person by itself (§G8), so אֲנִי is needed to say who is speaking.

Speaking to Hashem. In every bracha we say אַתָּה, “You”: in prayer we speak to Hashem in the second person. Lesson 2 brings a Chassidic insight on this “You”.

Every Hebrew noun is masculine or feminine. Most masculine nouns have no special ending: מֶלֶךְ, “king”. Most feminine nouns end in a kamatz and a hei: נְשָׁמָה “soul”, חֶמְלָה “compassion”, אֱמוּנָה “faithfulness”.

Plural. Masculine nouns add -im, feminine nouns -os: מִצְוָה gives מִצְוֹת, “commandments” (Lesson 2). Some nouns exist only in plural form: חַיִּים, “life”, and פָּנִים, “face”.

The feminine hei becomes a tav whenever something is attached after it: נְשָׁמָה gives נִשְׁמָתִי, “my soul”; אֱמוּנָה gives אֱמוּנָתֶךָ, “Your faithfulness”. The same tav appears when the noun is followed by another noun (Lesson 2): נִשְׁמַת כָּל חַי, “the soul of every living being” (Shabbos morning).

Vowels shorten when the word grows. An ending pulls the stress to the end of the word, and the vowels near the start reduce. In נְשָׁמָה the shin has a kamatz; in נִשְׁמָתִי that kamatz has become a sheva. Hebrew does not begin a word with two shevas, so the first one becomes a chirik.

Segolates. מֶלֶךְ, with two segols and the stress on the first syllable, belongs to a large family of nouns that change shape strongly when an ending is added: מַלְכֵּנוּ, “our King” (Ovinu Malkeinu).

A Hebrew adjective normally comes after its noun and agrees with it in gender and number. In מֶלֶךְ חַי וְקַיָּם, “King living and enduring”, both adjectives are masculine singular, like מֶלֶךְ.

Hebrew has no present-tense word for “is”. When the adjective is placed first, it is a statement, not a description: רַבָּה אֱמוּנָתֶךָ, “great (is) Your faithfulness”. The adjective רַבָּה is feminine because אֱמוּנָה is feminine. The verse it comes from opens the same way: חֲדָשִׁים לַבְּקָרִים, “new (are they) every morning”, plural to agree with the many things it speaks of.

Placed first, the adjective is stressed: before naming the faithfulness, we say how great it is. You will see this shape again in every bracha (Lesson 2).

The present is a participle. The Hebrew present tense works like an adjective: it changes for gender and number, but not for person. Of מוֹדֶה, “thanking”, the four forms are מוֹדֶה (m.), מוֹדָה (f.), מוֹדִים (m. pl.) and מוֹדוֹת (f. pl.). That is why a woman says מוֹדָה אֲנִי, and why אֲנִי is needed: the verb alone does not say who. The rest of Modeh Ani does not change, because the other words describe Hashem, not the speaker.

The past adds endings that say who. With the kal of ח־ז־ר:

• חָזַרְתִּי “I returned”; חָזַרְתָּ “you (m.) returned”; חָזַרְתְּ “you (f.) returned”;
• חָזַר “he returned”, the bare form; חָזְרָה “she returned”;
• חָזַרְנוּ “we returned”.

In Modeh Ani the verb שֶׁהֶחֱזַרְתָּ is a hif’il past (§G7) with the ending -to: “You brought back”. We speak to Hashem directly, in the second person.