T

he Israelites were at
their lowest ebb. They
had been enslaved.
A decree had been issued
that every male child was to
be killed. Moses had been
sent to liberate
them, but the
first effect of his
intervention was
to make matters
worse, not bet-
ter. Their quota
of brickmak-
ing remained
unchanged, but now they
also had to provide their own
straw.
Initially, they had believed
Moses when he performed
the signs God had given him
and told them that God was
about to rescue them. Now

they turned against Moses and
Aaron, accusing them: “May
the Lord look upon you and
judge you! You have made
us a stench to Pharaoh and
his officials and have put a
sword in their hand to kill us.”
Exodus 5:20–21
At this point Moses —
who had been so reluctant
to take on the mission —
turned to God in protest and
anguish: “O Lord, why have
You brought trouble upon
this people? Is this why You
sent me? Ever since I went
to Pharaoh to speak in Your
name, he has brought trouble
upon this people, and You
have not rescued Your people
at all.” Exodus 5:22
None of this, however,
was accidental. The Torah

is preparing the ground for
one of its most monumental
propositions: In the darkest
night, Israel was about to have
its greatest encounter with
God. Hope was to be born at
the very edge of the abyss of
despair. There was nothing
natural about this, nothing
inevitable. No logic can give
rise to hope; no law of history
charts a path from slavery to
redemption.
The entire sequence of
events was a prelude to the
single most formative moment
in the history of Israel: the
intervention of God in his-
tory — the supreme Power
intervening on behalf of the
supremely powerless, not (as
in every other culture) to
endorse the status quo, but to
overturn it.
God tells Moses: “I
am Hashem, and I will bring
you out from under the yoke
of the Egyptians. I will free
you from being slaves to
them, and I will redeem you
with an outstretched arm and
with mighty acts of judg-
ment. I will take you as My
own people, and I will be your
God” (Exodus 6:6-7).
The entire speech is full of
interest, but what will con-
cern us — as it has successive
generations of interpreters
— is what God tells Moses
at the outset: “I appeared
to Abraham, to Isaac and
to Jacob as God Almighty
[E-l Shaddai], but by My
name Hashem I was not
known to them” (Exodus 6:3).
A fundamental distinction
is being made between the
experience the patriarchs had
of God, and the experience
the Israelites were about to

have. Something new, unprec-
edented, was about to happen.
What is it?
Clearly it had to do with
the names by which God is
known. The verse distinguish-
es between E-l Shaddai (“God
Almighty”) and the four-
letter name of God which,
because of its sanctity, Jewish
tradition refers to simply
as Hashem — “the name” par
excellence.

WHAT’S NEW ABOUT
‘HASHEM?’
As the classic Jewish com-
mentators point out, the
verse must be read with great
care. It does not say that the
patriarchs “did not know”
this name; nor does it say
that God did not “make this
name known” to them. The
name Hashem appears no less
than 165 times in the book
of Genesis. God Himself uses
the phrase “I am Hashem” to
both Abraham (Genesis 15:7)
and Jacob (28:13). What, then,
is new about the revelation of
God that was about to happen
in the days of Moses that had
never happened before?
The Sages give var-
ious explanations. A
Midrash says that God is
known as Elokim when He
judges human beings, E-l
Shaddai when He suspends
judgment and Hashem when
He shows mercy. Judah
Halevi in The Kuzari, and
Ramban in his Commentary,
say that Hashem refers to
God when He performs
miracles that suspend the
laws of nature. However,
Rashi’s explanation is the
simplest and most elegant:
“It is not written here, [My
name, Hashem] I did not
make known to them’ but
rather ‘[By the name, Hashem]
I was not known to them’ —

Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks

The God Who
Acts in History

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

Burning Bush. Seventeenth-
century painting by Sébastien
Bourdon in the Hermitage
Museum, Saint Petersburg

46 | JANUARY 11 • 2024