Have you ever wondered what is God? Not whether God exists or not, but what is God? Is God the transcendent creator of all existence? Or, is God a personal God who cares about each of us individually? Or is God the prime mover or the source of all morality? God is possibly all of these things and each one has a name. The transcendent creator God is El Elyon. The personal God is El Shaddai. In this week’s Torah portion, we learn a new name for God, יהוה, as we read in this week’s Torah portion, “God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. I appeared (vaera) to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name יהוה.” (Exodus 6:3) Our sages teach that this name of God could only be pronounced by the High Priest and since the Temple was destroyed we have lost our ability to pronounce this name. But we can still unpack its meaning. Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey is related to the Hebrew verb to be. This connects back to last week’s Torah portion, where Moses asks God, when the Israelites ask for your name what shall I tell them and God replies, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh.” Ehiyeh-Asher-Ehiyeh can be understood as meaning, I am who I am, or I will be who I will be. In other words, God is both present reality, with all its joys and problems and future potential with all its possibilities. Thus the name Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey implies that God is an unfolding process, and the next line shows that we are partners with God in that process, “I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. I have now heard the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the LORD. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage.” According to this interpretation, the answer to our question is that God is the force for human freedom and dignity and we are God’s partners, covenantally bound with God in this unfolding historical process. What a great reason to believe!
Vaera, Exodus 6:2-9:35, Parshat Ha Shavua for Shabbat, Saturday, January 1, 2022
December 31, 2021 by Dean Kertesz • Drashot
Have you ever wondered what is God? Not whether God exists or not, but what is God? Is God the transcendent creator of all existence? Or, is God a personal God who cares about each of us individually? Or is God the prime mover or the source of all morality? God is possibly all of these things and each one has a name. The transcendent creator God is El Elyon. The personal God is El Shaddai. In this week’s Torah portion, we learn a new name for God, יהוה, as we read in this week’s Torah portion, “God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. I appeared (vaera) to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name יהוה.” (Exodus 6:3) Our sages teach that this name of God could only be pronounced by the High Priest and since the Temple was destroyed we have lost our ability to pronounce this name. But we can still unpack its meaning. Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey is related to the Hebrew verb to be. This connects back to last week’s Torah portion, where Moses asks God, when the Israelites ask for your name what shall I tell them and God replies, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh.” Ehiyeh-Asher-Ehiyeh can be understood as meaning, I am who I am, or I will be who I will be. In other words, God is both present reality, with all its joys and problems and future potential with all its possibilities. Thus the name Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey implies that God is an unfolding process, and the next line shows that we are partners with God in that process, “I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. I have now heard the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the LORD. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage.” According to this interpretation, the answer to our question is that God is the force for human freedom and dignity and we are God’s partners, covenantally bound with God in this unfolding historical process. What a great reason to believe!
~Rabbi Dean Kertesz