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On the 50th Anniversary of his Bar Mitzvah

Given by Clifford S. Fishman on January 5, 2008 (22 Tevet 5768 )
Shabbat Va-era, Sh'mot 6:2 et seq.

^{Note 1}

This week we read the second Parashah in the book of Exodus, whose Hebrew name, Sh'mot, means - "Names." It is called "Sh'mot" because the opening verse begins, "V'eleh sh'mot binai Yisrael," "These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob." But the first two Parashot in Sefer Sh'mot also speak about names of a very different kind: names for God. That is my subject this morning. My focus this day is on two passages, one from last week's Torah portion and one from this week's, in which God discusses with Moses the names by which God has been and is to be known.

Let me begin with a few words of explanation for anyone who is unfamiliar with the terminology I will use. The Tanach (i.e. the Hebrew Bible) and Jewish liturgy use a number of different words or names for God. Two words are used more than any other. The first is Elohim, or variations on it, such as Elohei, God of -, and Eloheinu, our God. Elohim is always spelled out phonetically in Hebrew letters and is pronounced the way it is spelled. You can find it, for example, in Chapter 6, verse 2, the second word of this week's Torah reading.² "Elohim" is usually translated as "God," and is generally understood to refer primarily to God as Dispenser of Justice.

The second word that is used most often to refer to God is spelled in Hebrew, Yud-hay-vav-hay, which I will represent here by the roughly equivalent English letters, YHVH. It is the final word in verse 6.

No one knows how YHVH is pronounced; our tradition states that in post-Biblical times, no one but the high priest ever spoke it, and then only in the innermost part of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, and only on Yom Kippur. The Temple was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70, and since then the name YHVH has never been pronounced. When we come upon YHVH in the Bible or in our liturgy, we substitute the word "Adonai," which is generally translated as "the Lord."³

Personal and Historical

Now let's look at the names for God that are discussed or "introduced" in last week's reading, and this week's. Chapter 3 of Sefer Sh'mot, the Book of Exodus,⁴ begins with one of the most vivid images in the entire Bible: the burning bush. Moses sees the bush and goes to investigate. God calls to him, and in verse 6, God introduces Himself to Moses:

Anochi Elohei avicha, Elohei Avraham, Elohei Yitzhak, Elohei Yaakov ...

"I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

It is noteworthy that God describes Himself to Moses in terms that are both personal and historical.

There are two features of this introduction that are intensely personal. Consider the first word of this introduction: Anochi. The usual Hebrew word for the first person singular is "ani." The Hebrew word Anochi appears only rarely in the Torah,⁵ most famously several chapters later in the Sefer Sh'mot, the Book of Exodus, as the first word in the Ten Commandments: "Anochi Adonai Elohecha," I am the Lord your God..."⁶ The personal quality of Anochi is demonstrated there by the fact that although God is speaking to all of the Israelites assembled at the foot of Mount Sinai, God addresses them - "Elohecha" - in the 2nd person singular, not plural: God speaks there to each Israelite individually.

The use of the word Anochi here in Chapter 3 verse 6 would seem likewise to emphasize the personal. And this personal nature of God's self-introduction to Moses is underscored by God's first description of Himself: Anochi Avicha, "I am the God of your father."

Thus God is saying to Moses: "I am - I want you to accept Me as - your God."

God's introduction of himself to Moses also includes a broad historical context:

"Anochi, I am, Elohei Avraham Elohei Yitzhak v'Elohei Yaakov," "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

(That this is the first time, I believe, that this phrase appears in the Torah). Thus, God tells Moses: not only am I your God; I am a God who has acted, and and will act, in history.

God tells Moses what He plans to do to liberate the Israelites from Egypt, and the role He expects Moses to play in those events. Moses responds with the first of his many objections, and, in verse 11, asks God: "When the Israelites ask me your name, what shall I say to them?"

Ehyeh

In verse 14, we see God's response: "Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh." Our sages over the centuries have offered a variety of translations for this phrase: "I Am That I Am"; "I Am Who I Am"; "I Will Be What I Will Be";⁷ "I Shall Be That Which I Wish To Be"; "I Will Be What I Want To Be";⁸ "I Will Be What Tomorrow Demands";⁹ and many others.

This is a fascinating passage for many reasons. First, unlike most of the names we use for God, this name is gender-free.¹⁰ Second, as the sages have noted over the centuries, "Ehyeh" is not a noun, but a verb.¹¹ As such, it underscores that although we cannot ever truly grasp or understand God's essence, we can strive for some understanding of God by examining what God does, by studying the difference God makes - or that we allow God to make - in our lives.

Third, "Ehyeh" as a verb is closely related to the word spelled Yud-hey-vuv-hey, or YHVH, for which we substitute the word "Adonai," about which I spoke earlier and to which I will return in a moment.

Verse 14 continues:

He [God] continued: Thus shall you say to the Israelites: "Ehyeh sent me to you."

But although God gives this explicit instruction to Moses, there is not a single instance in the entire Torah where Moses is shown to actually have used "Ehyeh" to refer to God. In fact, the name Ehyeh never again appears anywhere in the Torah,¹² and is used only rarely in our liturgy. Instead, the rest of verse 14, and verse 15, give us yet another "name," which emphasizes God's willingness to act in human history:

And God said further to Moses:

[15]"Thus shall you speak to the Israelites:

'Adonai, Elohei avoteichem, Elohei Avraham Elohei Yitzhak v'Elohei Yaakov,

Adonai, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you: this shall be My name forever, this My appellation for all eternity.'"

And this phrase, slightly altered, is indeed one that Jews have used throughout history.¹³

These verses in Chapter 3 leave us, it seems, with three insights: That God seeks an intensely personal relationship with Moses; that God acts in history; that God is a verb as much as He is a noun. Verse 14 also leaves us with an unsolved mystery,¹⁴ which perhaps in itself is a fourth insight.

Va-era

Now we will turn to the "naming" passage in this week's Torah reading. First, let me set the stage. In Chapter 4 of last week's Torah reading, Moses and Aaron met with the Israelites, and the people accepted Moses and Aaron and their message. But in Chapter 5, things appear to go terribly wrong: when Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh, Pharaoh spurns them and even increases the Israelites' burden: henceforth the Israelites must find their own straw to make bricks. As a result some of the Israelites turn on Moses and Aaron. At the end of Chapter 5,

Moses returned to Adonai and said, "O Lord, why did You bring harm upon this people? Why did You send me? Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has dealt worse with this people; and still You have not delivered Your people."¹⁵

God replies, in essence, "Be patient; you will see what I will do to Pharaoh."

Now let us consider the opening verses of today's Torah reading. In Chapter 6, verse 2,¹⁶ God again seems to "introduce" Himself to Moses:

God spoke to Moses and said to him, Ani Adonai. [3] Va-era el-Avraham el-Yitzhak v'el Yaakov b'El Shaddai, ush'mi Adonai lo nodati lahem; I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by my name Adonai.

Suppose you knew that Sh'mot, Exodus, was the second book of the Torah, but you began to read the Torah here, in Chapter 6, verse 2. From these verses in Chapter 6, you would get the impression that throughout the entire book of Bereshit (Genesis), which tells the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the main name by which God was known to them was "El Shaddai." But that absolutely is NOT the case, because Bereshit (Genesis), the first book of the Torah, demonstrates that the Patriarchs in fact knew God by the name YHVH (Adonai).

For example, In Genesis 15:7, God appears to Abraham and says, "I am Adonai, who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land for a possession." In Genesis 28:13, in Jacob's dream, God appears and says, "I am Adonai, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac: the ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring." A few verses later, after Jacob awakes, he acknowledges this, saying, "Im yihiyeh Elohim, if God keeps these promises to me, "v'haya Adonai l'Elohim, then Adonai will be my God."¹⁷

Thus, it is clear from the Torah that the name Adonai was well-known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.¹⁸ In fact, although the name "El Shaddai" does appear several times Bereshit (Genesis), the name Adonai appears much more often in that first book.¹⁹

So what are Sh'mot (Exodus) Chapter 6 verses 2 and 3 all about? How can the Torah now quote God as saying "I did not make Myself known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by my name Adonai?"

Faced with the reality that the name Adonai was already known to the Patriarchs, the scholars and sages over the centuries have read verse three to mean that some aspect of God's nature that is expressed by the name Adonai was not known to the Patriarchs. There is general agreement that to understand Chapter 6 verses 2 and 3, we must first ascertain the aspects of God revealed by the name El Shaddai, and then identify the aspects of God newly revealed in this week's Torah portion. Sounds pretty simple, no?

No.

No, it is not simple at all, first of all, because Biblical scholars disagree widely as to what aspects of God are revealed by the name El Shaddai; and second, because they offer a variety of ideas as to what new aspect of God's character is revealed here in Chapter 6.

El Shaddai

First, "El Shaddai."

Some scholars argue that El Shaddai is associated with the concept of Mountain God.²⁰ Jack Miles, in his recent book, God: A Biography, states that "of all the titles applied to God in Hebrew, [El Shaddai] is the one most intended to convey raw power."²¹

On the other hand, others see the name El Shaddai as invoking very different attributes of God. Howard Addison, in his essay entitled "The God of Israel,"²² states that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob saw God as "the unseen head of their household, whose members were therefore members of God's family." Perhaps along the same lines, other scholars conclude:

"El Shaddai expresses God as the protector, the omnipotent, the God who takes care of all basic human needs. El Shaddai calms and encourages the fledging believer, nurturing faith by providing for the basic needs of love and family."²³

Perhaps this is why the word Shaddai often appears on the mezuzot we put on our doorposts - that is, because of the word's association with family safety and sanctity.

Other scholars suggest that the word Shaddai may derive from the same root as the Hebrew word for "breasts," and that God as El Shaddai therefore focused on nurturing and mothering the Patriarchs and Matriarchs.²⁴

So: rabbis and scholars disagree as to what aspects of God are revealed or suggested by the name El Shaddai.

"New" aspects of YHVH

Is anyone surprised to learn that they also disagree as to the "new" aspects of God's essence that "Adonai" represents in verses 2 and 3?²⁵

Rashi, the great 11th century Biblical interpreter, reasoned that the new aspect of God introduced here is that of the God who keeps his promises. After all, God promised the land of Israel to the Patriarchs, but for 400 years the Israelites were exiled in Egypt. God as Adonai comes to Moses and the Israelites and says, I remember My promise and will now fulfill it.²⁶ Along similar lines, Arnold Eisen, Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, wrote in this week's JTS Weekly Commentary, that in these verses, God reveals that He "will do battle on the world's greatest stage with the world's most powerful ruler--all this to let the whole world know that God is concerned with human beings and human history."

Yehuda Halevi, the 12th century poet and essayist, and the Ramban (Nachmanides), the 13th century Talmudist, and on the other hand, reasoned that the miracles God worked for the Patriarchs as El Shaddai were all consistent with the natural world. The Patriarchs, they reasoned, were men of simple faith, and such "natural" miracles were all they needed. The Israelites as a people, by contrast, were numerous and were plagued by doubts; therefore God as Adonai would rescue them from bondage through miracles which violate the natural order, as a way of assuaging those doubts.²⁷

Yet another widely held view is that the name YHVH here for the first time reveals God's merciful and most intimate and personal qualities.²⁸

What are we to make, then, of the introduction, in Chapter 3, of one new name for God, a name never again repeated; and the re-introduction of another "new" name, with which the Patriarchs were already quite familiar? As is so often the case when we study Torah, no single, definitive answer emerges. Rather, we are left with multiple choices, none of which is necessarily wrong or right.

Lessons

There are, though, some lessons we can take away from this exercise. The first is the simplest, and in many ways the most practical: studying these passages serves to remind us that names are important. We should keep in mind that, just as each name we have for God gives us some additional insight into God's nature, so, too, the "names," and the ways WE are known, in our own lives, reflect different aspects of our personalities and character.²⁹ To begin with most of us here have two names³⁰ - B'racha and Betty, Rifka and Rebecca, P'ninah and Pam, Hanoch and Howard, Sh'muel and Clifford, and so on. Then there are the other "names" we pick up as we live our lives: Mom or Dad, Grandma or Grandpa, Doctor or Rabbi or Cantor or Professor, supervisor or subordinate; friend. Studying these two Torah passages perhaps reminds us to try to live up to the promises inherent in the names and titles by which we are known, and to integrate them into a single, coherent, meaningful, and to the extent possible, a holy, life.

A second lesson is that, even though we cannot truly know or understand or comprehend God, we are obliged to try, because the effort, though we can never succeed, will, we hope, help us live the kind of lives we believe God wants for us, and that we want for ourselves.

A third lesson is that there are many ways each of us can attempt to approach God and become closer to God - certainly a good thing, because an approach that works for some people does not necessarily work for others.

Different Approaches

Think of the many blessings we recite -for example, over bread and wine - that begin: Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Ha-olam - "Praised are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the Universe..." The more I read about the ultimate components of the Universe - the space-time continuum, quantum mechanics, string theory - the easier it is for me to accept and believe in Eloheinu, Melech Ha-Olam: Our God, Sovereign of the Universe - God as the Supreme Architect.

Think, too, of the blessings with which we begin the Amidah, the silent, standing prayer that is at the heart of every Jewish service:

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu v'Elohei avoteinu, Elohei Avraham, Elohei Yitzhak, v'Elohei Yaakov: Praised are you, Adonai, our God and God of our ancestors, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob...

As an avid student of history, I find it comparatively easy to believe in and to relate to Elohei avoteinu, the God of our ancestors, the God of history; there are any number of historical events and incidents which I think may reveal God's hand, not the least of which is the survival of the Jewish people despite more than 2000 years of oppression and worse.

But as I said a moment ago, an approach to God that works for one person may not work for another. Our fellow congregant Janaki Kuruppu spoke to us last year about Moses' Song at the Sea, in which Moses says: "This is my God - I enshrine Him; God of my fathers - I exalt Him." She commented that, as a convert, her relationship with God was not one that was handed down by her fathers, but a personal relationship. (You can read her Drash on the synagogue web site.) What Janaki spoke about is another aspect of God that emerges in the verses we have studied this morning: the Anochi of Chapter 3, verse 6, and the Adonai of mercy in Chapter 6, verses 2 and 3: the God with whom we can have a personal relationship. That is the aspect of God about which Abraham Joshua Heschel, of blessed memory, speaks so movingly in his masterpiece, God in Search of Man.

I regret to admit that I have difficulty experiencing Anochi - Adonai, the personal God, the God who cares about and intervenes in our individual lives - the God who wants our prayers and our worship, not for His sake, but for ours. I know there are people here in our Congregation who, like Janaki, have that sense of a personal relationship with God. That aspect of God is also very real to the members of the African American synagogue we visited a few weeks ago, where several people gave witness to the blessings and miracles they believe God gave them personally.

Consolation

I am envious of those who have that sense of a personal relationship with God. Perhaps my tendency to intellectualize and analyze gets in the way. Occasionally - only occasionally - I think I have a hint or a whisper or a glimpse.

I very much want to have that sense of God, the comfort of that conviction. I'm not there yet. But if, as Heschel said, God is in search of each of us, the least I can do is try to help God "find" me and break through to me.

Until then, I take consolation from these words of Heschel:

All [our efforts] are inadequate: our actions as well as our abstentions. We cannot rely on our devotion, for it is tainted with alien thoughts, conceit, and vanity. It requires a great deal of effort to realize before whom we stand, for such realization is more than having a thought in one's mind. It is a knowledge in which the whole person is involved; the mind, the heart, body and soul. To know it is to forget everything else, including the self. At best, we can only attain it for an instant, and only from time to time.

What then is left for us to do except to pray for the ability to pray, to bewail our ignorance of living in God's presence? And even if such prayer is tainted with vanity, God's mercy accepts and redeems our feeble efforts. It is the continuity of trying to pray, the unbroken loyalty of our duty to pray, that lends strength to our fragile worship; and it is the holiness of the community that bestows meaning upon our individual acts of worship. These are the three pillars on which our prayers rise to God: our own loyalty, the holiness of Israel, and the mercy of God.³¹

Shabbat Shalom.

2. In Etz Hayim, the Conservative Movement's Humash published jointly in 2001 by the Rabbinic Assembly and the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism, these verses and accompanying commentary appear on p. 351. (A Humash is a book which contains the Torah, i.e. the first five Books of the Tanach, divided into the weekly portions as they are read each Shabbat (Sabbath) in synagogue. Each weekly portion is followed by the Haftarah, i.e. a passage from another portion of the Tanach which has become associated with that Torah portion.)

3. Some Jews use the word "Adonai" only when reading from the Tanach or when formally praying the liturgy; at other times, they substitute "HaShem," which in Hebrew means "The Name."

4. Etz Hayim p. 328.

5. It is not used in contemporary Hebrew.

6. Sh'mot (Exodus) 20:2.

7. These translations are related in Etz Hayim, p. 330.

8. See, e.g., Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch The Pentateuch, p. 322, originally published in 1867-1878; I am using the edition published by The Judaica Press, Inc., in 1997.

9. Rabbi W. Gunter Plaut, The Torah, A Modern Commentary at p. 405 (Union of American Hebrew Congregations 1981 (The Reform Movement's Humash).

10. Etz Hayim at 330.

11. Id.

12. Rabbi Gunter Plaut comments:

From this we can conclude that [this] revelation was never intended for the people at all; that even though Moses asked, "What shall I say to them," i.e. the Israelites, he was really asking for himself, and God understood this, and deliberately provided an ambiguous answer.

Plaut, The Torah (UAHC) at 404-405.

"Ehyeh" appears only two other 2 times in the Tanach, in Judg. 6:16 & Hos. 1:9, and it is unclear there whether it is intended as reference to God's name or not.

13. If we take that phrase, and replace the second person plural - avoteichem, "your fathers," with the first person plural, "our fathers" (or: "our ancestors"), we have: "Eloheinu, v'Elohei Avoteinu, Elohei Avraham Elohei Yitzhak v'Elohei Yaakov," "Our God and God of our ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," which is the first blessing we recite in the Amidah, the silent, standing prayer which is at the heart of each of the every Jewish prayer service. Some congregations now include the Matriarchs in this phrase, adding, after Yaakov, "Elohei Sarah, Elohei Rifka, Elohei Rachel, v'Elohei Leah, God of Sarah, God of Rebecca, God of Rachel, God of Leah."

14. i.e., the meaning of "Eyheh" and why it is never again used in the Torah.

15. Sh'mot (Exodus) 5:22-23.

16. Etz Hayim p. 351.

17. Bereshit (Genesis) 28:20-21.

18. In fact, Chapter 4 of Bereshit (Genesis) relates that, long before Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the name "Adonai" was known to Adam and Eve, and to humanity in general: "Now [Adam] knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gained a male child with the help of Adonai." Gen. 4:1. Later in Genesis Ch. 4, we read: that after Adam's second son, Seth, had a son, "It was then that men began to invoke Adonai by name." Gen. 4:25-26.

19. It has also been noted that Israelite names with the root YHVH existed before this revelation - Moses' mother's name, Jocheved, being one of them.

20. Robert Adler, The Five Books of Moses, p. 339.

21. Jack Miles, God: A Biography at 51, as related in Union for Reform Judaism, Table Talk, Va-Era, 5764. See also Nehama Liebowitz, Studies in Shemot I, 135 (World Zionist Organization 1981) (referring to El Shaddai as "God Almighty").

22. Etz Hayim at 1390.

23. Table Talk, supra.

24. Etz Hayim at 351. Elaborating on this theme, Etz Hayim describes the relationship thus: "My relationship to them was that of a parent to a child, encouraging and forgiving, making few demands." (However, this description of God's relationship to the Patriarchs is a bit difficult to reconcile with God's instruction to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.)

25. Beginning in the late 19th century, some biblical scholars, focusing on what they perceive as inconsistencies, stylistic differences and anomalies in the text of the Torah, developed the theory that the Torah as we now know it is a human redaction of several earlier versions of the text. According to this theory, the "Adonai" passages in Genesis I referred to earlier come from the "J" source, while the opening verses in this week's reading come from the P, or Priestly, source, and that the name Adonai first appears at this point in the P version of the Torah. (For an essay briefly summarizing the theory that the Torah consists of a redaction of four different sources, see Rabbi Benjamin Edidin Scolnic, Source Criticism of the Torah, MyJewishLearning.com. For a line-by-line version of the Torah which develops this theory, see The Bible: With Sources Revealed," by Richard Elliot Friedman, published by Harper, in which the text is printed in different colors, depending on the source to which Friedman attributes a given passage.)

26. Nehama Liebowitz, Studies in Shemot I, P. 134.

27. Leibowitz, id.

28. Liebowitz, supra, at 135-138; Etz Hayim at p. 351. Etz Hayim notes that Chapter 6, verse 2 "is the last time that the divine name Elohim/justice appears in any speech of God to Moses. Hjenceforth it will always be YHVH/mercy."

29. This paragraph is inspired by Rabbi Lauren Eichler Berkun, A Taste of Torah: Weekly Commentary from the JTS Community, January 4, 2003, 1 Shevat 5763.

30. Most Jews are given a Hebrew name, as well as a secular name. Sometimes the secular and Hebrew names are the same - Sarah and Sarah. Sometimes the secular name is simply the secular equivalent of the Hebrew name, e.g. Rifka and Rebecca. Sometimes the names are connected only by beginning with the same first letter, e.g. Hanoch and Howard; P'ninah and Pam. Some families follow a different tradition, reversing the order of the letters, e.g. Shmuel Kapal and Clifford Scott.

31. Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man, A Philosophy of Judaism, pp. 407-408 (Jewish Publication Society, 1962).

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