Shabbat Shemot

Written by Rabbi Dr Michael Shire Monday, 16 January 2006

Shemot

This week’s Torah portion recounts the call of Moses. The chapter starts with Moses tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law. This has been taken as an analogy for his tending to the children of Israel; God is testing him with small matters first. This testing of the righteous reminds us of God’s test of Abram, to sacrifice his son Isaac. Moses takes his sheep to the furtherest end of the wilderness where there are shrubs for eating, and they come to Horeb, called the Mountain for God, indicating the importance of it after the Exodus. An angel or literally a messenger of God appears to Moses in the flames of a burning bush. These angels are never personally identified in the bible emphasizing the message rather than the messenger. The bush is thought to be the wild Acacia, which is a thorn bush and characteristic of the region. Although the Torah states that the angel appeared unto Moses, it also says “Moses looked and behold the bush burnt with fire” thus indicating Moses didn’t actually see any form in the fire and so had neither discovered the seat of God nor the form of God. The flame does not consume the bush. This is not a consuming flame that nourishes itself on the material it has seized but is itself extinguished in the destruction of that material. Therefore since God is represented in the flame, God’s presence is not seen as destroying but cherishing and nurturing those within whom God’s presence resides. The bush has also been taken as the symbol of Israel — small and lowly and yet indestructible because of the divine spirit within it.

God calls to Moses out of the heart of the fire and tells him to remove his sandals as he is standing on holy ground. God then states “I am the God of your father”, referring to Amram, the father of Moses. Here again, as we read last week with Joseph, it is the unchangeable God of eternity, though personalised through inheritance that is fulfilling the promise to Israel. Moses is therefore able to recognise the God of whom his father spoke about, although this is the first time that he personally experiences God.

God notes the persecution of God’s people (so called for the first time) by the Egyptians and wishes to send Moses to first physically free the Israelites through the Exodus and then spiritually redeem them by returning to the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments. The aspect of freedom thus described is not one of just throwing of the bonds of slavery but achieving the attributes of positive liberated communal life, that of morals, ethics and legislation. But Moses is hesitant in taking on the task. Moses needs to know the name of God, so the Israelites will recognise his authority. However ‘name’ means more that just what one is called, it holds the meaning of fame, character or record. Thus Moses is asking God, what is your power? What deeds have you performed? God replies “I am that I am” a declaration of the unity and spirituality of God, of self-existence and eternity; the opposite of idolatry, and the hope for the enslaved Israelites by reading the phrase according to Rashi’s translation as “I will be what I will be”. Therefore God’s manifestations will tell of God’s character. God’s name is known as the tetragrammation, the four lettered consonant name. God finally says “this is my name forever” — the Hebrew word le-olam (forever) is spelled defectively, without the letter vav, so that it may be read le’alem which means to conceal, and has been taken to mean that the name of God should not be read exactly as it is written. So God is concealed in the burning bush in order for a revelation to occur.

Rabbi Dr Michael Shire