Many of you have
asked what goes through my head as I sound shofar on Rosh Hashanah. As I blow
the broken shevarim and teruah blasts, I think of the people who
have had a year of fear and anxiety. Their prayers are short, shattered. When I
blow the long tekiah, I think of the woman who just had an organ
transplant, the man undergoing cardiac surgery, the woman being treated for cancer,
the child in intensive care. People praying for life, for themselves, their
parents, their children, their loved ones. I think of them. I feel the Name
and Presence of God breathing through me and breathing life into those people.
I breathe God’s Name and pray:
long life, long life.
I breathe God’s Name. The four letters that make up the NAME of God are all wind sounds: Y-H-W-H. You cannot pronounce all of them together. The Ineffable Name is the sound of breathing. The holiest Name, the Name of the Creator, is the sound of your breath.
וַיִּפַּ֥ח בְּאַפָּ֖יו נִשְׁמַ֣ת חַיִּ֑ים וַֽיְהִ֥י הָֽאָדָ֖ם לְנֶ֥פֶשׁ חַיָּֽה׃
Then the Eternal God … breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living being. At Creation, God breathes into us the breath of life. As long as we live, we breathe in/out the Name of God. When we die, the NAME leaves our bodies and we are inert. (Kushner)
Yom Kippur is a day when the Name of God looms large. The four letter Name (YHVH) was only pronounced on Yom Kippur, the most sacred moment of the Jewish year, by the Kohen Gadol, who embodied a unique sanctity, and only in the most sacred of spaces, the Mikdash-Temple in Jerusalem.
Once, on a radio call-in show, I was asked about the Name of God. I explained that the pronunciation was originally passed down from Kohen Gadol to Kohen Gadol, but was lost with the destruction of the Temple. Unsatisfied, the caller pushed, saying “You Jews know, but you keep it secret.” All right, I responded, the 4 four letter name is MIKE. I wasn’t entirely incorrect, for according to our tradition, these four Hebrew letters—Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey—do represent the personal and intimate name of God.
In prayer, we pronounce Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey as Adonai, but this is a substitute to avoid articulating the actual Name. Adonai means “Lord,”one who rules over us. The way we refer to God in daily discourse is another step removed, simply ”The Name.”Hashem.
In a religion where there are no images of God, “God’s name becomes the central icon of God in this world … This is the only linguistic (as well as graphic and physical) representation of the Absolute.”(Ben Sasson)
If you read the Torah, the Talmud, Midrash our prayers, God seems to have a personality. At times the Divine is joyous or sad, loving or angry. God speaks, hears, walks and has a strong arm. As James Kugel has explained, the “God of Old”is perceived as being very close to us, just pull away the curtain from ordinary life and God is there, described in words that relate to us.
In the Biblical narrative of Moshe at the Burning Bush, God discloses the divine NAME: Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh (Exodus 3:10-15). When the Rabbis seek to explain what this means, they understand it as expressing family relationships. God’s name is very much like Mother or Father—the One who is present to help me. (Ben Sasson)
According to rabbinic tradition, Moshe stood in the cleft of the rock on Yom Kippur 3200 years ago to ask forgiveness for the sin of the Golden Calf. Moshe asked, ”let me know your ways" (Ex. 33:13)—how you conduct the world. And the poetic reply has echoed through the ages:
The Eternal passed before him and proclaimed: Hashem! Hashem! God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin; … (Exodus 34:6-7).
The Rabbis imagine God telling Moshe: Whenever Israel sins—They should do this order before me, and I will forgive them ... Throughout Yom Kippur, we’ll sing these words, which refer to a relationship—a covenant—between us and God. (TB Rosh Hashana 17b)
At the same time that the Rabbis were speaking about relationship, Jews in the Greco-Roman world were reconceptualizing what the Name of God meant. They linked the four letter name of God, YHWH, to the Hebrew root for the verb "to be". Hey-Vav-Hey, combine to form the word hoveh, “present”or “is”. The letter vav can be interchanged with yud. Hey-Yud-Hey forms hayah, meaning “was.” The letter yud before a verb turns it into future tense. yihiyeh means “will be.”
From an unutterable four-letter word, from the intimate name for a personal deity came the idea that YHVH is, was and will be. In the Greek translation of the Bible, the Name was understood as representing existence, an Eternal being. The results of this encounter initially developed by Philo, were carried into the Church Fathers and eventually into medieval philosophers of all three monotheistic religions. When the Hebrew Bible met Greek philosophy, God became a non-personal, eternal idea, uninvolved in this world. (Wolfson)
In the Bible, for the Rabbis and for most of our prayers, we imagined God in an intimate relationship with us. But in the Middle Ages, God was abstract and unchanging, “the unmoved mover.”
The way we think of God affects the way we understand our religious practices. If we conceptualize God as having a personality, emotions, and being directly accessible to us, this affects our thoughts during prayer, our belief in miracles, our acceptance of prophecy, and our kavvanah, intention, when keeping the mitzvot.
On the other hand, if we think of God as an eternal and unmoved being, then we God is properly discovered through science, mathematics, and cosmic order. If God is this abstract perfection, then personal intention when doing the mitzvot is insignificant and prayer doesn’t affect God. For Maimonides, ritual simply affirms a belief in God.
I have found myself shuttling back and forth from these two approaches. Our belief systems are not static. They grow over time. (Fowler) I share some of my journey to open up new possibilities for you and to encourage you to discuss your beliefs with those whom you love.
In university and rabbinical school, as I studied philosophy and reflected on the horrible evil of the Holocaust, I decided that the only way to salvage a belief in God was through the God of Maimonides and his more radical interpreters. I removed God from history to preserve human freedom and dignity.
But as young rabbi, my training in hospice and the relationships I formed with congregants who faced tragedy led me to realize that we desperately want to believe in a caring and compassionate God. The influence of Rabbi Heschel, my exploration of Jewish mysticism, and my study of thinkers who rejected the Aristotelian model led me back to a more Biblical relationship with God as the “most moved mover”.
In recent years, some religious thinkers have sought to understand YHVH not as a name expressing a personality, nor as a disengaged divinity, but as a dynamism that is never static and that can be affected by us. In my own faith journey, to continue a theme I began during Rosh Hashanah, I have come to believe in a God who is also on a journey.
You have all heard of the Buddhist attending a ball game. Offered a veggie-dog, he responds, “Make me one with everything.”
At the heart of everything Jewish is a belief that there is a Oneness that undergirds everything. That Oneness exceeds description or definition, but permeates all being- from the exploding star to the Rocky Mountains, from micro-organism to sub-atomic particles. This Oneness is related to the original implosion and explosion that initiated our universe. Out of that singular Oneness grows “increasing complexity, connection, relationship, and consciousness because … the cosmos has been and still is beckoned toward greater becoming.”We see God in that Oneness and also encounter the presence of the Ancient One in our holy deeds. The growth from chaos to cosmos can be understood as tzmihat geulatenu, the blossoming of redemption. (Artson)
From the Big Bang—when all that existed was energy, hinted at by the words of Genesis: “vayehee or—and there was light”—God’s creation continues. As life emerged from the interaction of lightning and molten chemicals on earth, it built its own continuity. Life consumes life to generate new life. Cells learn how to convey information. Our nervous system contains a remnant from that lightning-electricity of our origins. We carry in our blood a saline solution similar to that of the ocean which gave us birth.
For 14 billion years, the universe has operated according to unchanging scientific laws, yet new and complex events continue to emerge. I see God in that emerging novelty and increasing complexity. As humanity goes through the cognitive, agricultural, and scientific revolutions that have changed us, we change the world around us. (Harari)
I believe that the dynamic YHVH works through the constancy of physics and chemistry, the evolutionary novelties of biological life, and the changing social interactions of human beings to create opportunities for human growth and development. As part of this, I believe that God makes possible our aspirations to love and help each other.
Just as humans are a small aspect of existence, so Judaism is a small actor in that growth from chaos to cosmos. Our Torah tradition provides a spiritual-ethical discipline that “retains the capacity to elevate consciousness, heighten compassion, and inspire righteousness through the abundance of mitzvot. While some Jews practice these more literally and others more metaphorically … we translate these imperatives to contemporary life and community.”
These mitzvot span the range of ritual, psychological, and ethical. They energize us and guide us, “mandating use of just weights, fair business practices, compassion for others, giving charity, … [having compassion for] strangers, engaging in honest relationships, practicing mindful eating, and avoiding …malicious speech.” A diverse people, we fuse “body, heart, mind, and emotion into a [singularity] greater than any of its parts. That unity is a Jew”. (Artson)
I believe that this God of cosmos, constancy, and consciousness is a God who shares the journey of life with us. But I also want to believe in a God who is more than a cosmic process. I yearn for a personal God of concern and covenantal love. Can I have both?
I look to the model of light. As many of you know, light can be understood and explained as a wave. It can also be explained and studied as a series of individual particles. It was Einstein, in 1905, who suggested that light was BOTH a particle and a wave. And recently, an experiment captured the first photograph of light as both a particle and a wave.
I believe that God is both the hayah- hoveh- yihyeh of all existence and the intimate, compassionate God of Hashem Hashem el Rahum v’Hanun. God is a cosmic process, operating throughout the dynamic laws of physics, chemistry and biology, as well as a covenantal companion, the Holy One who listens and responds to my deepest personal yearning. This is the God of my head and my heart, my scientific awareness and my spiritual sensitivity. The Name of God is always before us.
Remember the GPS system I mentioned on the first day of Rosh Hashanah? In the Hebrew, sin is het, which means missing the mark. I do not believe that if I miss the mark, God punishes me. I prefer to imagine God as calmly recalibrating, offering me a different choice. God doesn’t condemn or coerce us. The Holy One offers us the best possible mitzvah choice at every moment. If we respond, then we are invited to consider the next opportunity, the next mitzvah. If we don’t follow the option before us, God re-calibrates. Given your last choice, here’s the best possible choice you can now make. Mitzvah becomes a beckoning, not a burden.
On this Yom Kippur, as we contemplate the Name of God, you are invited toward cosmos and covenant, justice and love. “You already know in your heart what your best choice is at this moment. Yet, you remain free to demur, free to indulge your anger, your pettiness, … your exhaustion—whatever it is that makes you deviate from the mitzvah that awaits, and your truest, best self. But God loves you with an ahavat olam, an abiding love, bidding you to make the best choice and giving you the capacity to make it. (Artson)
Re’eh ~ See says the Holy One, Hashem, YHVH, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your children may live.
Now, breathe deep. Breathe God’s NAME. It is time to open our hearts and souls.
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I am grateful to Rabbi Bradley Sharvit Artson for his writings which helped me move along this path of thought. I have quoted from his essays here.
Lawrence Kushner, Book of Words (Breathing)
Hillel Ben Sasson http://hartman.org.il/Research_And_Comment_View.asp?Article_Id=719&Cat_Id=324&Cat_Type=Blogs
James Kugel, The God of Old.
Harry A. Wolfson, From Philo to Spinoza: Two studies in religious philosophy.
James Fowler, http://www.exploring-spiritual-development.com/JamesFowlersStages.html
Bradley Sharvit Artson, God of Becoming and Relationship.
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens.
Light http://m.phys.org/news/2015-03-particle.html
