Torah Readers Reflections

The God who acts in History

There is nothing natural about the exodus. No logic can give rise to hope; no law of History charts a path from slavery to redemption, exile to return. The entire sequence of events has been a prelude to a single most formative moment in the History of Israel: The intervention of God in History
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This post is based on an essay by Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks - Covenant and Conversation Exodus, pg.59

 

In our portion, the Israelites are at their lowest ebb. They have been enslaved. A decree has been issued that every male child is to be killed. Moses is sent to liberate them, but the first effect of his intervention is to make matters worse, not better. Their quota of brick making remains unchanged, however, now they must provide their own straw. Initially they believed Moses when he performed the various signs that God had given him, and told them that God was about to deliver them. Now they turn on Moses and Aaron, accusing them:

 

At this point Moses - who had been so reluctant to take on the mission - turns to God in protest and anguish:

 

“O Lord, why have You brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and You have not rescued Your people at all”.

 

None of this however, has been accidental. The Torah is preparing the ground for one of the most monumental propositions: It is in the darkest night that Israel has its greatest visions. Hope is born at the very edge of the abyss of despair. There is nothing natural about this, nothing inevitable. No logic can give rise to hope; no law of History charts a path from slavery to redemption, exile to return. The entire sequence of events has been a prelude to a single most formative moment in the History of Israel: The intervention of God in History - The supreme power intervening on behalf of the supremely powerless, not (as in any other culture) to endorse the status quo, however, to overturn it.

 

The speech that follows, in Exodus ch 6 vs 2 - 8 is breathtaking in its grandeur and literary structure.  It is a chiasmus - a literary form that displays mirror image symmetry. The second half repeats the first half but in reverse.






God said to Moses

 

  1. I am God.

  2. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as the Lord Almighty, but by My name God I was not known to them.

  3. I also established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they lived as aliens.

  4. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and have remembered My covenant.

  5. Therefore say to the Israelites,

I am God

(D1) and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgements. I will take you as My own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God who brought you out from under the yolk of the Egyptians

(C1) And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hands to give

(B1) to Abraham, to Isaac, and to jacob. I will give it to you as a possession.

(A1) I am God.

 

The structure of these verses is worked out in extraordinary detail. The first and second halves of the speech each contain exactly fifty words in the Hebrew text. B and B1 are about the patriarchs; C and C1 about the land; D and D1 about Egypt and slavery;  The first half is about the past, the second about the future. The first half refers to the Israelites in the third person - it uses “them” as the noun. The second half uses the second person - “you”. The entire speech turns on the threefold repetition of “I am God” - at the beginning, the end and the middle.

The entire speech is full of interest, but what will concern us is the proposition signalled at the outset, “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as the Lord Almighty, but by My name God I was not known to them”.

A fundamental distinction is being made between the experience the patriarchs had of God, and the experiences the Israelites are about to have. Something new, unprecedented is about to happen. What is it?

Clearly it has to do with the names by which God is known - the whole verse is anchored on “I am God” It can’t be ignored. The verse distinguishes between El-Shadai (“the Lord Almighty”) and the four letter name of God (yud hey vav hey) - which we just call “hashem”.

As the classic Jewish commentators point out, this verse must be read with great care. It does not say that the patriarchs “did not know” this name, nor nor does it say that “God did not make this name known” to them. The four letter name appears no less than 165 times in the book of Genesis. God himself uses the phrase “I am Hashem” to both Abraham and to jacob. I believe that Rashi’s explanation is the simplest and most elegant:

 

It is not written here “My name, Hashem I did not make known to them” but rather “ By the name Hashem I was not known to them” - meaning, I was not recognized by them in My attribute of “keeping faith”. By reason of which my name is “Hashem”. Meaning that I am faithful to fulfil My word, for I made promises to them but i did not fulfil them during their lifetime.

 

What then is the difference between the other names of God and Hashem?  For the sages of the Midrash, Hashem signified the divine attribute of compassion. 

 

In Shemot Rabbah: 

God said to Moses, “You wish to know my name? I am called according to me deeds… When I judge creatures, I am called Elokim. When I wage war against the wicked,  I am called Lord of Hosts.  When I suspend judgement for man’s sins,  I am called el-shadai. When I am merciful towards my world, I am called Hashem.

 

Therefore for the Midrash, the key to the new revelation of God in the days of Moses was his compassion in responding to the cries of the oppressed Israelites. 

 

While many have commented on these verses,  The simplest explanation I believe is still that of Rashi: Something was about to change. The patriarchs had received the covenantal promise. They would become a nation. They would inherit a land. However, none of this happened during their lifetime. Now, the fulfilment is about to begin. Already in the first chapter of Exodus, we hear for the first time the phrase “am bnai yisroel” The people of the children of Israel. Israel has at last become a nation. Moses, at the burning bush has been told by God that he will bring them to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. The name Hashem therefore means the God who acts in history to fulfil his promises.

 

What is revolutionary in Judaism is not only the concept of monotheism. The revolutionary concept is that God is involved in His creation. God is not simply the force that brought the universe into being, At a certain point He intervened in history, to rescue his people from slavery and set them on the path to freedom. This was the revolution, at once a political and an intellectual revolution proving that God is continuously involved in his creation..

 

At the heart of most visions of the human condition is what The Romainian Historian - Mircea Eliade  - calls the “Terror of History”. The passage of time with its disasters, its apparent randomness. This is profoundly threatening to the human search for order and coherence. There seems to be no meaning in History. We live, we die and it is as if we had never been. The universe gives no sign of its interest in our existence. Time seems to obliterate all meaning. Nothing lasts, nothing endures. 

 

In ancient Israel by contrast, for the first time, the prophets placed a value on History…. For the first time we find increasingly accepted the idea that historical events have a value in themselves, insofar as they are determined by the will of God. Historical facts thus become situations of man in respect to God and as such they acquire some religious value. It may then be said that the Hebrews were the first to discover the meaning of history as the epiphany of God. 

 

To think of history as an arena of change is terrifying. It means that we have only one life to live; that what happened once may never happen again; that we are embarked on a journey with no assurance that we will ever return to where we began. Only profound faith - a new kind of faith, breaking with the entire world of ancient mythology - could give people the courage to set out on a journey to the unknown.

 

The ultimate choice lies between faith in the God of history - who invites human beings to become His partners in the work of redemption - or the Terror of history from which the only refuge is myth.

 

If God is in History then Where is God? It is a mark of how deeply influenced we have been by ancient Greece that we tend to answer this question in philosophical terms by referring to proofs from logic or nature. Many Jewish thinkers themselves - Maimonidies is the most famous example - did likewise. Judah Ha’levi, however though otherwise. The ten commandments begin - he pointed out - not with the words “I am the Lord your God who created heaven and earth”, but with “I am the Lord your God who brought you out from Egypt, from the house of slavery”. God the one we call hashem - is to be found not primarily in creation - that is another face of God which we give the name Elokim - but in History.

 

I find it moving that this is precisely what non-Jewish observers concluded. There are many examples from 17th century till today - I’ll quote just one relatively recent example:

 

The American Historian Barbara Tuchman wrote:

 

The history of the Jews is…. Intensely peculiar in the fact that having given the world its concept of origins and monotheism, its ethical traditions and the founder of its prevaling religion, yet suffering dispersion, statelessness and ceasless persecution, and finally in our times nearly successful genocide, dramatically followed by fulfillment of the never-relinquished dream of return to the homeland. Viewing this strange and singular history, one can not escape the impression that it must contain some special significance for the history of mankind, that in some way, whether one believes in divine purpose or inscrutable circumstances, the Jews have been singled out to carry the tale of human fate.

 

Jews are very good at remembering both their and other’s history. The Jews observe History, they are always there looking in on History, influencing it for good but not necessarily participating in it - not rising and falling as so many powerful nations have, just looking in from the outside and providing testament to the successes and failures of nations, yet always striving to understand God’s plan in all historical events.

 

Some 3,300 years ago, God told Moses that He would intervene in the arena of time not only to rescue the Israelites but also “so that My name may be declared throughout the world” The script of History would bear the mark of a hand - not human, but divine. And it began with these words” Therefore say to the children of Israel: I am hashem, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians”.

 

Shabbat Shalom

 

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