Vaera
Exodus 6:2-9:35
Ezekiel 28:25-29:21
I Samuel 20:18, 42
What’s in a name? Not very much, suggested William Shakespeare, who responded to that question with the classic comment: “That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet” (“Romeo and Juliet,” II, ii, 33).
While Shakespeare might have insinuated that names are inconsequential for understanding the nature of a flower or anything else, names can, nevertheless, have profound significance. Jews, for example, have struggled with assigning a name for God that is sufficiently descriptive to fully portray God’s many supernatural attributes, a task made difficult because Jews never countenanced icons that depict God. The transformation of an abstract concept like God into something concrete, and capable of being comprehended by the mind, is demanding. This tension between the abstract and the concrete is intense because those most comfortable with the abstract do not sanction graven images, while individuals who require concrete images cannot tolerate abstractions. Nevertheless, the desire to catch a glimpse of God is universal.
The Talmud records that as the Temple was being destroyed, Titus, the Roman general who led the assault, forced his way into the Holy of Holies, the innermost chamber of the Temple, thought to be the place where the High Priest had access to God. He thought that there he could see the impalpable God of the Jews. When all he found was an empty room, he declared the God of the Jews to be impotent (Gittin 55b).
The struggle to see God is ongoing. Most would be satisfied with a fleeting hint of what the biblical author has described as God’s back, a fingerprint or the faint sound of a still, small voice. Indeed, this was the dilemma faced by Moses as he stood before the Burning Bush, listening to the instructions of the sacred mission for which God had chosen him. Terrified that the Israelites would not believe that he had been empowered by an ambiguous, illusive, unseen God, Moses inquired, “When I come to the Israelites and say to them ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” (Exodus 3:13).
God’s puzzling response, “Tell them that Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh sent me to you.” This obscure Hebrew phrase can be literally translated as “I will be what I will be.” But because Hebrew tenses are very fluid, this phrase can also mean “I am what I am,” “I was what I was” or “I am becoming what I am becoming.” This response could not have been a useful descriptive for a Moses struggling to communicate to his compatriots what he had just heard and seen!
That challenge of finding a name, a descriptive to explain who and what God is and does, is ongoing, especially since the time those three words were uttered. Jews have wrestled with ways to define God and have come up with lists of names — not just a few, but dozens of names. In Vaera, this week’s Torah portion, for example, the quest to assign a descriptive name to God continued the conversation that was held at the Burning Bush:
“God spoke to Moses and said to him, ‘I am Adonai. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name Yahweh (YHWH)'” (Exodus 6:2-3).
Even though Moses, Aaron and the 70 elders who “saw the God of Israel: under His feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity” (Exodus 24:10), neither this quick, fleeting glance, nor the broader collection of names offered by God in Vaera satisfied Moses. It only deepened the mystery, forcing Moses to ask yet again, “Oh, let me behold Your Presence” (Exodus 33:18).
In spite of the admonition that “You cannot see my face and live” (Exodus 34:20), the pursuit to find a name that quantifies God’s attributes continues, especially since the understanding of God changes with each age’s philosophical and scientific achievements. We struggle to describe what cannot be described; we attempt to be poetic, metaphorical, knowing, however, that it just cannot be done.
Nevertheless, we ascribe names to God to help us draw closer to the Eternal. We call God: Creator, Most High, Everlasting Rock, Shepherd of Israel, Everlasting Arms, Guardian of Israel, The Name, The Place, Awesome One, Redeemer, Merciful One, Infinite One, Healer, Compassionate One, Holy One, Judge, Reviver, Maker of Peace, Sovereign, Lawgiver, The First and Last, and many others, knowing that God will be what God will be, and that at each moment and to each of us, God is something different. From this search, we continue the timeworn attempt to describe the Eternal in order that we might draw closer to and know the living God.