Know Me By My True Names

The 20th century Israeli poet Zelda’s most famous poem follows a simple format: 

“Each of us has a name, given by…” The list includes God, parents, the mountains, our walls, and more. It is a rightfully beloved poem, and provokes curiosity about how and why we are known by one name or another. 

In the opening verses of parshat Va’eira, God gives us a surprising glimpse into the names by which God is - or isn’t - known. 

“God (elohim) spoke to Moses, and said to him: I am YHVH.” (Exodus 6:1)

Already the two most common names for God in the Torah are present. “Elohim” is the more impersonal way of referring to God, with el being the generic Hebrew word for a god in the Ancient Near East. 

“YHVH,” the unpronounced four letters of God’s personal name, are usually read as “Adonai - Lord,” and by some as “HaShem - the Name.” Despite the level of abstraction that those cover words imply, the four letters are much more intimate, the sound of breath and becoming and being. 

So within this concise and seemingly simple verse, the Torah moves us from the impersonal, generic aspect of God into the personal, intimate aspect of God. But why? What does Moses learn when God says, know me by this name?

The Italian medieval thinker Sforno suggests that God is establishing God’s grandeur before the miraculous retrieval of the Israelites from Egypt.

“I am the One Who maintains the entire universe alone. I have not only called it into existence, but I also maintain it, and there is no other prime cause which exercises any independent influence on any part of My universe… Unless I had given My consent no creature could continue to exist.”

There’s a lot in a name!

Within this understanding of YHVH we see the possibility of the laws of nature being undone through the plagues and parting of the sea, and we also see the impossibility of Pharaoh having any power at all, independent of God. When God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, we all witness how pathetic even the most “powerful” man’s pretense to power really is. It isn’t an even playing field, and that is one of the key points of the whole story. 

Of course, we need to pause and ask ourselves if we really think it is true that there are limits to the power of our leaders today. Consider two deeply troubling statements shared in the past few weeks:

After the capture of Venezuelan’s leader, Stephen Miller said, “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else…But we live in a world, in the real world… that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.” 

And President Trump (may that title be made great again), when asked if there were any limits to his power, said, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that could stop me. I don’t need international law.” 

Well. Pharaoh would be proud. What is idolatry if not the narcissistic worshiping of power?

What is tricky about today is that it seems plausible that might does make right. There are plenty of people whose lived experience tells them nothing otherwise. 

Which brings me back to another reading of what God means when God shares YHVH as a name to be known by. The Torah continues: 

“I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I was not known to them by My name YHVH.” (Exodus 6:3)

And the French medieval scholar Rashi comments: “It is not written here לא הודעתי “I did not make known to them”, but לא נודעתי “I was not known to them — I was not recognized by them in My attribute of “keeping faith,” by reason of which My name is called YHVH, which denotes that I am certain to substantiate My promise, for, indeed, I made promises to them but did not fulfill them [during their lifetime].”

I remember the first time hearing this story how strange it was to suddenly be told that the very first Jewish ancestors didn’t know God by the name that we use all the time, the specific and proper name of God (even if we don’t pronounce it). I felt a jarring moment of discontinuity with the past. But reading Rashi’s comment now, I suddenly feel a deep connection to those unruly ancestors of the book of Genesis. They too lived in a “not yet” time, where a promise opened up a vision of a different and better world, but it had not yet been fulfilled. 

For the story of the Exodus, God appears to out-Pharaoh Pharaoh, to overwhelm human strength with divine strength. Maybe that was necessary to humble Pharaoh (or more likely, those watching it all play out) and caution other humans who would claim absolute power for themselves. But shockingly it was not sufficient to inspire the Israelites for long. The same generation that witnessed God’s wonders quickly begin complaining, and even tried to replace God with a golden calf in a moment of weakness. They demonstrate that if you give an Israelite a promise fulfilled, they will demand another one (with a glass of milk and honey). 

Those first Jewish ancestors, however, knew God by the name El Shaddai, often translated into English as “God Almighty.” There are two plays on that word that speak to this moment. 

The first is another teaching from Rashi (on Genesis 43:14): He says that Shaddai actually should be read “sheh-dai” (as in dayeinu), “a God who is enough.” Rashi goes so far as to say this is the real meaning of the word! Within the scarcity and uncertainty of this season, to know God by this name is to cultivate a spirituality of sufficiency. We don’t need more power, we have enough already - if we are thoughtful and brave in using it together. 

Another reading of Shaddai takes it as an acrostic:

ש shin 
ד dalet
י yud
Shomeir delatot Yisrael.
Guardian of the doors of Israel.

This is the purpose of putting the word Shaddai on the mezuzah manuscript that we place in our doorways. And while it is helpful to have protection from the outside world, the purpose of a door is that it allows us out into the world… And to know God by this name is to keep opening to possibilities, not promises. 

God’s names, then, help us live with a “not yet” yearning, a confidence in enough-ness, and an openness to possibility in the face of authoritarian power. 

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine