The Redemptive Power of Poetry
Exodus as an Exercise in Naming
“I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name YHWH. I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. I have now heard the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant.” (Exodus 6:3-5)
The Holy One said: In this world I have revealed my name to individuals, but in the world to come, I am making my name known to all Israel, as stated (Isaiah 52:6): “THEREFORE MY PEOPLE SHALL KNOW MY NAME”…. (Midrash Tanchuma)
“The writing of poetry is the fundamental naming of the Gods.” (Martin Heidegger)
The Book of Exodus, Shemot, is the book of names. It opens with the names of the Israelites who came to Egypt. In the second parasha, Va’era, God reveals God’s own name to Moses and makes a distinction between the name of God revealed in Genesis (Shaddai) and the name revealed now (YHWH), in this new book, The Book of Names. The truth is that God is already mentioned in Genesis as YHWH—but as commentators claim, this is not how God comes across, regardless. The notion of YHWH as a name is to be associated with a new book. We take it as a given that the Egyptians dehumanized the Israelites by forgetting and erasing their names—In Exodus 1:8 we are told of a new king “who knew not Joseph,” i.e., who erased the memory of Joseph in favor of a policy of collective guilt and punishment of his tribe. But we tend not to see how connected the dehumanization of individuals is to the de-divinization of God, the inability to address God by name, and instead to relate to God more abstractly, generically, or conceptually.
The forgetting of the individual person, marked by and caused by the erasure of the name, and the forgetting of the divine, marked by and caused by the erasure of the divine name, come together. Thus it is fitting that the announcement of a divine name is accompanied by a recognition of pain and an expression of empathy: “I have now heard the moaning…” When we put a name to an idea, it takes on a pathos. It calls out to us. A God who is just the philosophical “cause of all things” cannot be YHWH, a God who responds to our groans. Likewise, a person who has become dehumanized cannot evoke empathy because they lack the thing that would draw us close, a name.
Heidegger, following Hölderlin, says the task of the poet is to name the gods. Bracketing the paganism of their language, the insight applies just as well if not better in a monotheistic context. God appears only when we arrive at the right name for God—to treat God merely as a label is to miss what is godly. Thus, poetry and revelation are part and parcel of one another. God reveals Godself to us through poetry and the essence of poetry is naming—finding words that don’t simply describe or point, but bring to life, finding words that don’t simply refer to a referent, but awaken a relationship. The God who gives us a name and not just a science of God (the stale meaning of theology) is the God who liberates, who enters history, and who touches our existence. The God who has a name is the God who feels our pain. The person who has a name is one whose pain can be felt. Naming individuates.
The protagonists of Genesis knew God by name, but they knew God in God’s capacity as the one who promises. In Exodus, we meet a God who fulfills promises. We also meet a God who moves from just the God of individual epiphany to the God of a collective. It becomes all the more important and difficult as a group scales to maintain individuality, to resist groupthink, and to retain independence—yet the vocation of Israel, itself a name, is to maintain the dignity of the name, to become not just a holy people, but a poetic one. Poetry protects the individual from erasure. Poetry protects the nation from toxic forms of tribalism. Poetry is the antidote to idolatry. Poetry finds the words that elevate our groans and turn them into prayers. Poetry is the search that begins the process of Exodus: What could life look and feel like if I didn’t accept a life of being stuck?
As I read the Midrash Tanchuma, I find a dichotomy between God’s name in this world and God’s name in the world to come. In this world, God is all promise, but little fulfillment. In the world to come, God fulfills. In this world, God is mercenary, forging relationships with anyone who is willing, in the next world, God will become collectively recognized. Yet this dichotomy is not just between “this world” and “the world to come” —it’s one we find in the difference between Genesis and Exodus. In other words, the Midrash sees Exodus as an expression of or hint at the world to come, a move from the world as it is to the world as it could be. Genesis is the book of creation. Exodus is the book of transformation. In both, language is fundamental. How we use words and relate to our own words and those of others can either entrap us or set us free. Egypt is not just a political condition, but an existential one. You have to feel free to be free, and the experience of freedom is found in creative freedom, in linguistic freedom, in the ability to find words that preserve individuality while allowing for communication (collectivity).
Finding a name for God may be more important than finding attributes for God, just as finding a name or nickname for someone may be more salient than attempting to list their good qualities—or give reasons why you like that person. Naming is the middle ground between negative and positive theology. Naming is the middle ground between negative and positive anthropology. Negative theology means we can’t say anything about God, but positive theology risks treating God like an ordinary object. Likewise, negative theology means we can say nothing about human nature, while positive anthropology risks objectifying the human to the point that you can’t see individuals as individuals.
Before God redeems the people, God says, “This is my name.” As we work towards improving and even redeeming the world, we too, must know one another by name. We must become poets, finding new names for phenomena so that we don’t simply fall into a default state of consciousness. The God of philosophy needs definition. The God of Torah and of poetry needs a name.
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins