Thoughts on Parashat Va’era
(Exodus 6:2 – 9:35)
This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Va’era, includes the account of the first seven of the ten plagues that God inflicts upon the Egyptians before Pharaoh is willing to let the Israelites go forth from slavery to freedom. But before we get to those plagues, the parasha starts out with an ambiguous side discussion about God’s name.
In the first two verses of Parashat Va’era, three different names for God are mentioned:
וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר אֱלֹהִ֖ים אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֑ה וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֵלָ֖יו אֲנִ֥י יְ-הֹ-וָֽ-ה׃
וָאֵרָ֗א אֶל־אַבְרָהָ֛ם אֶל־יִצְחָ֥ק וְאֶֽל־יַעֲקֹ֖ב בְּאֵ֣ל שַׁדָּ֑י וּשְׁמִ֣י יְ-הֹ-וָֽ-ה לֹ֥א נוֹדַ֖עְתִּי לָהֶֽם׃
Elohim 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 Adonai.[1]
That first name mentioned in these opening verses, “Elohim” is usually translated as “God.” We can combine it with possessive suffixes to get forms like “Eloheinu” (“Our God”) or “Elohai” (“My God”) or “Elohekha” (“Your God”). It can be thought of as a generic term for divinity.
The second name mentioned, Adonai, often translated as Lord or the Eternal, is seen as a more specific, or “personal” (so to speak) name for God.
Rabbinic tradition also sees the term “Adonai” as a reference to God’s attribute of merciful compassion contrasting with “Elohim” --- which is thought to refer to God’s attribute of strict justice.
Jewish tradition generally points toward a divine unity, encompassing, as it were, the best of both worlds.
And so the traditional blessing formula employs both names:
Barukh atah ADONAI, ELOHEINU melekh ha’olam.
Blessed are you ADONAI (merciful aspect of divinity), ELOHEINU (justice seeking aspect of divinity), who rules the world.
And so we declare in the Shema:
Shema Yisrael, ADONAI, ELOHEINU, ADONAI ECHAD.
Hear O Israel, ADONAI (the God of Compassion) , is ELOHEINU (our God of Justice) --- and these seemingly distinct aspects of divinity are “Echad” (integrated and singular).
And we, in turn, so it would seem, are called upon in all our actions in life, to find that proper balance between justice and compassion.
That third name mentioned in the opening of our parasha “El Shaddai” consists of two parts: “El”, which is a shorthand variant form of “Elohim” (“God”) and “Shaddai”. We don’t really know for sure what “Shaddai” is supposed to mean -- this name that was known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Some say “Shaddai” is related to a word meaning “breasts” --- invoking God as the source of fertility and sustenance. In stark contrast, some say “Shaddai” is related to a word meaning “destroyer.” Others say it’s related to a word meaning “mountain.”
But the most evocative explanation in my humble opinion, is the classic explanation that Shaddai is a word formed from the combination of the prefix “Sheh” (meaning which or that) and the word “Dai” (meaning “enough”) So El Shaddai, in this interpretation, means “God” who is “Enough” or “God” who is “sufficient.”
The first generations of our people, whom we read about in the Book of Genesis, according to this view, didn’t need God to produce any miraculous signs and wonders. They had simply come to a profound belief in the existence of God and that was “Dai” – that was “Enough.”
Moses’ generation, on the other hand, needed to see the proverbial hand of God actively working in history – producing signs and wonders like the plagues of the Passover story, and freeing our people from centuries of bondage. In the Book of Exodus, the times called for a more active role for God in history. [2]
But we are 21st century folks. Most of us don’t expect God to change the physical laws of nature – even if we might still believe in a creator God who established all those laws of nature in the first place. And even back in the Talmud, we have a classic teaching that could have been composed by contemporary scientists: עולם כמנהגו נוהג (“olam keminhago noheg”/ “the world follows its accustomed course”)[3]
In other words, there are rational explanations for all the phenomenon we encounter.
But if that’s the case, then what does it mean for God to act in the world?
At the heart of it is the idea that God, as it were, acts through us.
That God is found in our relationships with others, in our reaching out to others.
One corollary of this idea is that each of us affects the world around us. Each of us has power and influence – and responsibility. Each of us needs to take care in the words we speak and in the actions we undertake.
It might seem sacrilegious to say that each of us is a God.
But, look at our Torah portion! That’s exactly what it says about Moses in this jarring statement in Exodus 7:1 --
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְ-הֹ-ו-ָה֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה רְאֵ֛ה נְתַתִּ֥יךָ אֱלֹהִ֖ים לְפַרְעֹ֑ה [...]
“Adonai said to Moses, “See, I place you in the role of God to Pharaoh[…]
I don’t think that the Torah is actually claiming that Moses is a God, any more than any of us are Gods.
But what I do take from this verse is the idea that we should never underestimate the effects of our words and our actions on the world around us.
Whatever we do each day, including in each day of the new secular year that is upon us, has meaning, even if we don’t always see it.
We should take ourselves seriously, for the way God acts in the world is by acting through each of us.
This is a tremendous responsibility --- but also a tremendous gift and a tremendous blessing. May we be up to the task. May we be worthy of the blessing.
Shabbat shalom.
© Rabbi David Steinberg (New Year’s Eve 2021/2022; Tevet 5782)
[1] Exodus 6: 2-3
[2] See Yeshayahu Leibowitz [1903-1994], Accepting the Yoke of Heaven: Commentary on the Weekly Torah Portion (Urim Publications, 2002), p. 62.
[3] Avodah Zarah 54b (and elsewhere).
