Baruch Hashem!
God of the Heavens Over Church Avenue last week
Dear friends,
The Compassionate, Blessed Holy One, Rock of All Worlds, Healer of the Sick, Giver of Life, No End, Creator of Light and Darkness, Master of the Universe. God has many names. But what do they signify? Are they trying to capture an aspect of God? Are they descriptors of the divine? Sparking writing crucial to understanding Jewish theology, this week’s parashah suggests that the names we give to the divine are doing something entirely different. For those of you who don’t believe in God, this may help you speak phrases like Baruch atah Adonai (Blessed are You, YHVH) with less resistance. And for those of you who do, it may help you speak them more honestly.
Here’s the setup:
Abraham entrusts the task of finding a wife for Isaac to his faithful servant, Eliezer. In the exchange between them, Abraham uses two different phrases to describe God.
At first, Abraham says:
“And I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of the heavens and the God of the earth....” (Genesis 24:3).
But shortly afterward he says:
“The Lord, the God of the heavens, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my birth…”
Why, the commentators ask, does he call God “The God of the heavens and the God of the earth” in the first instance, and two verses later omit God of the earth?
Rashi explains:
He said to him: Now He is the God of the heavens and the God of the earth, for I have made Him familiar in the mouths of people.
But when He took me from my father’s house, He was the God of the heavens but not the God of the earth, for the inhabitants of the world did not yet recognize Him, and His name was not familiar on the earth.”
A change took place on earth once Abraham left his previous life in Haran and began the story of monotheism. Until that time, Rashi suggests, neither human beings nor any other creature carried the awareness of YHVH in their minds.
The 12th century Tosafists add:
"Up until this time the G–d of Israel, or even the G–d of creation had not been acknowledged as such on earth."
What changed God’s name was human perception, which, say the rabbis, did not include our God until Abraham began to speak of Him.
What did not change, was God.
Yishayahu Leibovitz writes: "We know that the Blessed Name has no physical form and cannot undergo change—neither through the act of Creation nor through any later event."
What’s funny about Leibovitz’s statement is that in order to say that God is far beyond anything than can be changed, such as a name, he uses a common name of God: Hashem Yitbarach, “The Blessed Name." But we understand what he means – God doesn’t change. We, who are in need of language, are caught in the contradiction of talking about something we know to be far beyond the ability of language - with language.
We end most services with Adon Olam, “Master of the Universe, who reigned before any creature was created.”
“Over what,” Leibovitz asks, “did God reign before anything was created?
The answer: His reign is intrinsic—it exists within Himself, not in relation to creation.”
“Therefore,” he summarizes, “all the recurring scriptural and liturgical phrases—“God of the heavens,” “God of the earth,” “Master of the world,” “Ruler of the universe,” and the like—do not describe God Himself, but rather human consciousness of God.”
I used to think that since people stopped believing in the Greek Gods, they stopped existing. The rabbis step in to say that divinity exists whether or not we think about it. But what we call God is nothing more than a linguistic game to reflect the inner workings of our imagination. Baruch Hashem! (Blessed is the Name!)
I'm excited to begin our series of monthly Shabbatot behind Barclays Center in Brooklyn this evening for music, debate, prayer and food. I hope you can join us!
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha