Torah: A Hierarchy of Needs
In this week’s parasha, the people of Israel struggle under the weight of their oppression, which has been made worse after Moses’ challenging of the status quo. When Moses comes to tell them of YHVH’s words of hope, they could care less. “So Moses spoke accordingly to the Children of Israel; but they did not heed Moses, because of shortness of breath and hard work” (Ex. 6:9). The people were so exhausted trying to make ends meet that Moses’ words made no impact. They were all consumed by their own situation. As Maimonides notes in the Guide For the Perplexed, “a person suffering from great hunger, thirst, heat or cold, cannot grasp an idea even if it is communicated by others, much less can he arrive at it by his own reasoning.” What Maimonides points to is a fundamental truth: Before one can arrive to great spiritual heights, their basic needs must first be met. This led Rabbi Sacks to make what for me was a shocking realization in its simplicity. He says, “If you want to improve people’s spiritual situation, first improve their physical situation.”
To see the power of this approach, one need not look further than the beginnings of the state of Israel. While living in what was then Palestine was certainly no cakewalk, the early pioneers had their basic food and shelter needs met. They lived in relative peace and security for many years with their Arab neighbors. Each person had a role in kibbutz life, and no person was above the others. Orphans from across the world came together as sisters and brothers. And after years of work, the country began to bloom. Before their very eyes the land of milk and honey came to life from the work of their very hands, and they felt tangibly that they were sowing the seeds for the rebirth of the Jewish people. The very strength of Zionism stemmed from the intense sense of purpose which addressed all of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Each step built upon the last, raising the consciousness of the people higher and higher. However, with the establishment of the State of Israel, Israel was forced into a state of survival for which it has never fully been able to move past. To be sure, there was still idealism in certain areas, but so many people even today do not have the basic security that would allow them to turn their eyes to loftier ideals and goals. We see these gaps in the rights of Bedouin in the South, in the rights and poverty of immigrants of color, in the hurdles that Israeli Arabs still have to overcome to be accepted in Israeli society, and in the high costs of housing, to name a few issues. Without addressing these issues of basic needs and rights for all citizens, the conversation around loftier ideals and the spiritual nature of the State cannot even begin.
Reb Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev said: “Don’t worry about the state of someone else’s soul and the needs of your body. Worry about the needs of someone else’s body and the state of your own soul.” Instead of spending so much time judging others for how observant they may or may not be, let us put our energies into creating a more just and equal society for all people.
T’fillah: The Essence of YHVH
In the beginning of our parasha, God makes a huge revelation. “God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am YHVH. I appeared to Avraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, but with my Name YHVH I did not make Myself known to them” (Ex. 6:2-4). While the name YHVH has been used by the narrator previously, it was only revealed in the world last week to Moses at the burning bush, not to our Patriarchs or Matriarchs. What does this name represent?
Ramban notes that each name of God represents the trait through which Godself is revealed in the world. So Moses is not asking God’s name, but through which aspect of the Divine will it reveal itself. God answers with YHVH, saying “I will be with you in mercy as you are redeemed from Egypt”.
Aryeh Kaplan provides an alternative explanation in “Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide”. He notes the dual nature of the name YHVH; while it’s written YHVH, its pronunciation is so holy we instead substitute a different name for God when we say it out loud: Adonai. To understand the name, we must know the essence of both names.
YHVH comes from the verb “to be”, a combination of the conjugations in the past, present, and future. Therefore, he says, when you see this name of God, think “that God ‘was, is, and will be’ – all at once. This indicates that God is utterly transcendental, higher even than the realm of time.” This represents the Divine as a principle, true everywhere, connecting everything, and would be expressed in language like “God is the loving force in the Universe”.
However, since YHVH represents the relationship of everything to everything else, we can’t actually be in a relationship with a principle itself, only a being. In order to be able to talk to the Divine, we substitute the name Adonai, my Lord, for YHVH, which represents the aspect of the Divine which is being. This God can be described not as a force, but actually the Creator of the universe.
When we see the name YHVH but pronounce it as Adonai, we address the Divine as “a Being-Principle. We see God as the Principle that gives existence to all things. Yet, at the same time, we see God as a Being, and furthermore, as a Being to whom we can relate. When we speak to God, it is as if we are communing with existence itself, but at the same time speaking to it as if it were a person.”
Which mode are you more oriented towards – treating God as a Being or Principle? What would it feel like to address God as the opposite? Or both? What situations might that theology be helpful in?
Sam Blustin is an alumnus of the Conservative Yeshiva (2014-2015) and a current Rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary (Class of 2020). You can view more divrei Torah at www.samblustin.com or contact Sam directly at samblustin@gmail.com.
