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At the beginning of episode 2 of _Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood_ , we see
this drawing of two hands with inscriptions that use Hebrew letters. (Click
for larger image.)

[![still from episode
2](https://i.stack.imgur.com/db3CRm.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/db3CR.jpg)

This appears to originate from Kabbalah: I found a similar image on the
[Jewish Virtual Library](http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/for-students-of-
kabbalah-judaic-treasures), where at the very least, the assignment of יה and
וה to different hands matches up.

[![image from
JVL](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RyYHf.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RyYHf.jpg)

However, I can't figure out if the text in the palm of the hand corresponds to
something in real-life, and the letters on the fingers also don't seem to
match up with those in the image I found from the Jewish Virtual Library.
(It's of course possible that they do, and that I simply have too much
difficulty reading them.) I also remember seeing [a comment on
Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/swyoc/fatezero_episode_17_thoughts/c4hsjqj/)
saying that some Hebrew text in _Fate/zero_ made no sense at all before, so
I'm not discounting the possibility that the anime producers just made
something up.

Can someone help shed light on the issue of whether the details of the hands
shown in FMA:B have any real-life meaning?


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2017-02-16T07:28:40.340
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2020-10-12T17:12:08.607
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question
fullmetal-alchemist-series fullmetal-alchemist-brotherhood
Do the details of these hands with Hebrew letters have any real-life meaning?


The way the hands are positioned is reminiscent of the [priestly
blessing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priestly_Blessing), and [יהוה (aka the
tetragrammaton)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton) is the holiest
name for God in Judaism.

That being said, If you look _really_ closely at the hands in the book from
FMA, the letters inscribed in the fingers don't appear to be Hebrew letters at
all, but Japanese kana:

![](https://puu.sh/u9pth/09c20c66f7.png)

The ones I could make out were の (hiragana _no_ ), カ (katakana _ka_ ), ヨ
(katakana _yo_ ), ロ (katakana _ro_ ), つ (hirgana _tsu_ ), ヒ (katakana _hi_ ),
ニ (katakana _ni_ ).

In all likelihood, whoever drew this scene saw the image from kabbalah and
decided to adapt it into what we see here.


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2017-02-19T00:23:07.787
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I'm a native Hebrew speaker, and it doesn't really have any meaning. There's
also Hebrew in the 4th ending, and there are some real words in there but no
actual sentences, so I'm 99% sure that it is incidental. Also the script in
the palm of the hands in the picture above is in fact Hebrew, but like someone
else has commented the fingers contain random scribbles and Japanese kana (I
also speak Japanese lol). The script used in the picture from the Kabbalah is
actually the exact same Hebrew font as the one from the other pic, just not
the same letters. They use a font that is quite similar to the one used in
religious texts.


CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-11-22T17:19:32.620
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There is also the word “adonai” in english on the door of the “truth” room
when Ed sees Al’s body The word “Adonai” means “god” in hebrew


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2020-01-26T06:26:48.567
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