From Philosopher to Prophet
On Exodus
God (Elohim) spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD (YHWH).” I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name YHWH. (Exodus 6:2-3)
Righteous people transform the (divine) attribute of judgment (din) into one of mercy (rachamim). “God/Elohim spoke”—this is the attribute of judgment. “I am the Lord/YHWH”—this is the attribute of mercy. (Alshich on Exodus 6:2)
The historicity of a thinker, which is not a matter of him but of being, has its measure in the original loyalty of the thinker to his inner limitation. Not to know this inner limitation, not to know it thanks to the nearness of what is unsaid and unsayable, is the hidden gift of being to the rare thinkers who are called to the path of thought. (Heidegger, The End of Philosophy, pp. 78).
Academic Bible scholars emphasize the disunity of the Torah, the multiplicity of voices, perspectives, ideologies, and thus, authors. To “analyze” literally means to “break down,” as in, to take something whole and dissect it into its parts. Thus, proponents of the “documentary hypothesis” look at the language of Exodus in contrast to Genesis and assume that they come from different sources, different contexts, different needs.
While historians typically think of temporal events as a series of “ruptures” or discontinuous breaks, metaphysicians and philosophers of history see the same phenomena as interlinked developments. The apparent disunity of the Torah’s language reflects its greatness. Just as individuals are parliaments of different, competing drives, to borrow an image of Nietzsche, so are texts. Why should great books be consistently “on brand”? Before we reach for the theory of multiple authorship, why not consider that, on an individual level, just within ourselves, many voices exist?
One of the more compelling responses to academic (historicist) interpretations of the Torah is to say that the Torah’s variation reflects a variation in the way that God appears to humanity and humanity relates to God. The notion that our idea of God evolves—that our theological ideas and ethical values are historically contingent—is not an obstacle to encountering the Torah but part of what the Torah itself seeks to communicate.
One such example of what we can call “process theology” or “progressive revelation”—comes in this week’s parasha, Vaera. God tells Moses that the forefathers of Genesis only knew God in the mode of El-Shaddai, but not in the mode of YHWH. It’s a meta-moment where the text tells us something about the register shifts and cultural shifts that the Book of Exodus—and the flight from Egyptian bondage—introduce. Going forward, God will now be YHWH. There is something in this name that is directly connected to the experience of Exodus and liberation. And, on a stylistic level, it is as if the divine name itself is coming out of hiding or bondage, as if in parallel with the human experience. To be free is to discover and reveal one’s true name.
The text, on its face, is not quite true. We’ve been reading about YHWH for awhile, including moments where YHWH speaks to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But as commentators note, the text says that God appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob only as El-Shaddai, which is to say that the experience or mode in which God was known was something other than YHWH—even if YHWH was there.
So what’s the difference between El-Shaddai and YHWH? Seforno says El-Shaddai is the God who is consistent with the laws of nature, while YHWH is the God who miraculously suspends them (as in the Ten Plagues). Rashi says El-Shaddai is the God who promises, but YHWH is the God who fulfills promises. Another, related possibility is that El-Shaddai is a God who is known personally, while YHWH is a God who is known collectively. El-Shaddai is God in “stealth mode” (literally, “the God of my breast”), while YHWH is a God who has found “social proof” in national, and even global acceptance.
Whatever one thinks of the difference between the two names of God, or two modes of divine appearance, it’s striking that the text simultaneously states the unity of the God who appears to the Biblical characters and testifies to the chasm between their experiences. Moses’s experience of God has historical precedent, but is also novel. We can and must analogize our experience to the past—but it can never be satisfying, because the present is also new.
The traditionalist impulse is to emphasize continuity and de-emphasize discontinuity; the academic-modern impulse is to do the opposite. When people today argue about whether one can compare a contemporary event to a past event they are simply playing out this archetypal struggle. On the one hand, it’s the same God; the same story. On the other hand, it’s a different appearance and experience, an altogether new story. It is not just we who look to the past to help us; Moses, also does. And yet the past is of limited importance because our own interpretations and actions will decide its fate.
Heidegger writes that each age has its own unique relationship to “being.” Thus, philosophers are limited by the constraints of their age. The content of their thought doesn’t abide in their ahistorical heads, but in their entire existential condition, which is caught up in their cultural Zeitgeist. Moreover, Heidegger notes that it is impossible—even for philosophers—to see these limits or constraints. If you’ve watched the Truman Show, you understand that, for most people, it is simply unimaginable that they are living in a TV show. The point here is not that the task of the philosopher is to break the fourth wall or unplug from the Matrix or wake up to the illusion of it all, etc. The point is quite the opposite. The age in which thinkers live—and to whose limits they are bound—are a source of inspiration, generosity, and creativity. Thinkers don’t teach timeless truths; they offer us truths at the limits of their age. If there is a timeless truth they teach, it is their example of pushing the boundary, but still living within it.
This is what God tells Moses: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were great—but they’re not you; you have a different task. This is also, what the text tells us, indirectly: Moses was great—but he’s not you. “You, reading this, be ready” (William Stafford). In the same way that God appeared differently to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—God appears differently to us from how God appeared to Moses. The Exodus story has to be rewritten in each age, but attempting to re-enact a past event will never work. Perfect nostalgia fails. And this is also the lesson in the film Midnight in Paris. Were it possible to live in a previous age, we’d find that age, too, is nostalgic for what came before.
But the Torah doesn’t only tell us that prophets are products of their time. It also teaches that prophets have agency in making history, a dizzying paradox. Alshich reads in the Torah’s linguistic shift from “Elohim spoke” to “I am the Lord (YHWH)” a hint that the prophet’s task is not simply to abide by the limits of the age, but to take an active stand in determining how God appears. The choices may be limited, but there is always a choice. In Moses’s case, and not only his, the choice is between judgment and mercy.
You’ll note that I often draw parallels between the Biblical-rabbinic tradition and the philosophical tradition. Yet one fundamental difference between them may be the philosophical tradition’s over-emphasis on judgment, on a truth that doesn’t care about our lived reality. Mercy takes the harsh truth of philosophy (for better and for worse) into account. It is less rigorous, and yet more actionable, motivating, attentive to human nature. Judgment tells us how we’re wrong. Mercy tells us how we can improve. Good judgment is for the few judges who manage to achieve excellence. Mercy is for everyone, regardless of merit. Elohim is the God of metaphysics, perfectly compatible with the Being of the philosophers. But YHWH is something other than Being.
Heidegger writes that the philosopher says what is, while the poet names what is holy. This distinction might well apply to the difference between the philosopher and the prophet. The philosopher knows Elohim. The prophet realizes that Elohim is YHWH and summons God to be merciful. Another way to think about it is, Being and Elohim are categories, but YHWH is a name. When you want mercy, don’t speak to a category; speak to a person. Don’t speak in generalities, speak from the heart. In his life-long critique of Heidegger, Levinas says that philosophers over-emphasize the categorical, at the expense of what he calls “the face of the Other,” that which explodes and refuses all categories. If Levinas is right, what Moses experiences before the burning bush is the paradox of a God who is encountered throughout history, yet who seeks to be known not categorically, but singularly. Categories are continuous over time; singularities are discontinuous; their short shelf life is inversely proportional to their brilliance. God’s shifting names speak to the fact that each age needs its own name for God. To be traditional, we must make it new.
The ability to make it new—and to imagine new realities—is both a symptom and a cause of freedom. It is what it takes to resist Pharaoh as well as what makes the struggle against Pharaoh noble and worthwhile. It is no coincidence that Pharaoh—who lacks a name—and who forgets Joseph’s name, reducing people to their tribal category—sees himself as God. The metaphysical battle against Pharaoh is not between one God and another, but between a God who has a name and a God who doesn’t; a God who wants us to treat ourselves and each other as singularities and a God who puts people only in categories.
Hasidic and Kabbalistic commentators understand that Egyptian bondage is more than a geographical or historical condition; it is a spiritual one. I would add, it is also a hermeneutical condition, structuring the way we read texts and read each other. The inevitability of categories and heuristics means Egypt isn’t going away—there’s no destroying it. But leaving Egypt means not being reduced to our categories and heuristics; being able to set them aside to appreciate what is new. In so doing, we make ourselves ready to receive new names. This may be one of the many connections between a Book that is called Names (Shemot) and its content, which begins with a story about liberation. The analyst who treats the Torah solely through a categorical lens is reading Torah in a state of Egyptian bondage.
Interpreters who seeks singular meaning in the Torah liberate the Torah from its own bondage and use Torah to liberate themselves.
To become free, the philosopher must become a poet or a prophet. Being must tell us its name.
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins @Etz Hasadeh
Etz Hasadeh is a Center for Existential Torah Study based in NYC.
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