Names and Attributes

Rabbi Joel Fleekop

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Going through life I have learned to answer to a lot of different names. Around the synagogue people call me Rabbi Fleekop, or Rabbi Joel, and sometimes just Rabbi. Of course my friends call me Joel. My mom, sometimes she still calls me Joey. And my wife, my wife calls me by a hundred different names, most of them very nice.

I answer to a lot of names but I am by no means alone in doing so.

Throughout the Bible, God is addressed by scores of names, many of them appearing in this week's Torah portion, parshat Vaera. In the first two verses alone God is called by three different names, Eloheim, El Shaddai, and Adonai.

According to the Torah God tells Moses that this last term, Adonai, is a new name, one by which the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, did not know God. Vayidaber Eloheim El Moshe Vayomer Alav, Ani Adonai. Vaera El Avraham El Yitzhak, VEl Ya-akov B'El Shaddai U'shmi Adonai Lo Nodati Lahem.

This is what the Torah says but actually, this is not the case.

In Genesis God identified God's self to both Abraham and Jacob by the name Adonai. So what does the Torah mean when it says that God wasn't previously known by the name Adonai?

Rashi, the foremost Jewish commentator of the 11th century explains, what is new is not the name itself but the characteristic or attribute of God associated with the name.

Midrash Rabbah teaches that each name for God is associated with certain attributes. For example when God is acting as judge, God is called Eloheim while the name El Shaddai is used when God shows mercy to those who make mistakes.

According to Rashi, the attribute associated with the name Adonai is that of a promise keeper.

What God is telling Moses in our Torah reading is not that the patriarchs didn't hear the name Adonai, but that they didn't experience God as a promise keeper. But Moses, Moses who will witness God fulfill the promise to lead the people out of slavery, and Moses,--- who will journey with the people back to the frontier of the land God promised to the descendants of Abraham, --- Moses will experience God as a promise keeper and so truly experience God as Adonai.

The poetess Zelda writes that each of us has a name given us by God, and given us by our father and mother. Each of us has a name given us by the way we stand, our way of smiling, and the clothes we wear. The poem continues and as it does it reveals the simple truth that we each possess many names. We have our English names, our nick names, and our Hebrew names. Plus we haves names of relationship. Names like son or daughter, big sister, little brother, or best friend. And of course this morning Blake acquired a new name, that of Bar Mitzvah.

People call us by a lot of names, but as was the case with the patriarchs, who knew God by the name Adonai but never experienced God as a promise keeper, far more people know us by our names than truly experience the attributes those names represents.

Perhaps you are blessed to have a younger sibling who is proud to call you their big brother or sister. Are you a good role model for them? Are you there to protect and guide them, and help them find their way in the world? Because it is when you do these things that they truly experience you as their big brother or sister.

What about being someone's father or mother? What characteristics are connected with those names? What attributes do we have to embody if our children are to not only call us mom and dad, but to experience us as their parents?

The Talmud offers a job description for parents. Kiddushin 29a teaches that parents are obligated to welcome their children into the Jewish community, educate them in Torah, give them the knowledge and the skills they need to live, and guide them as they create their own families. It is a difficult job, but a job we must do our best to complete if we are to earn the title of mom or dad.

And what about the name Bar Mitzvah?

This morning, with great fanfare, Blake was called up to the Torah as Bachor HaBar Mitzvah. But Blake is not the only Bar Mitzvah in the room. Every Jewish adult, whether or not they have read from the Torah, is a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, a son or daughter of the commandments, and so all of us are charged with living up to the attributes associated with that name.

In reciting the prayers, studying our sacred texts, honoring his family, and sharing what he learned with all of us, Blake has earned the title of Bar Mitzvah, for today. But like being a big brother or sister, a father or mother, being a bar mitzvah is a life long job. If others are to experience us as Bar and Bat Mitzvah, we must recognize that our dialogue with the tradition and our quest for Tikkun Olam are never ending.

Our friends, our family, and our community call us by many names; each representing a different part of who we are or who we hope to be. Let us work hard to embody the attributes those names represent, and in so doing, may we sanctify the many names of the one God.

Shabbat Shalom