JANUARY 11 • 2024 | 47

meaning, I was not recognized 
by them in My attribute of 
‘keeping faith,’ by reason of 
which My name is ‘Hashem,’ 
namely that I am faithful to 
fulfil My word, for I made 
promises to them but I did 
not fulfil them [during their 
lifetime].” Rashi commentary 
to Exodus 6:3.
The patriarchs had received 
promises from God. They 
would multiply and become a 
nation. They would inherit a 
land. Neither of these prom-
ises were realized in their 
lifetime. To the contrary, as 
Genesis reaches its close, the 
family of the patriarchs num-
bered a mere 70 souls. They 
had not yet acquired a land. 
They were in exile in Egypt. 
But now the fulfilment was 
about to begin.
Already, in the first chapter 
of Exodus, we hear, for the 
first time, the phrase Am Bnei 
Yisrael, “the people of the chil-
dren of Israel” (Exodus 1:9). 
Israel was no longer a family, 
but a people. Moses at the 
burning bush was told by God 
that He was about to bring 
the people to “a good and 
spacious land, a land flowing 
with milk and honey” (Exodus 
3:8). Hashem therefore means 
the God who acts in history to 
fulfill His promises.
This was something radical-
ly new — not just to Israel but 
to humanity as a whole. Until 
then, God (or the gods) was 
known through nature. God 
was in the sun, the stars, the 
rain, the storm, the fertility of 
the fields and the sequence of 
the seasons. When there was 
drought and famine, the gods 
were being angry. When there 
was produce in plenty, the 
gods were showing favor. The 
gods were nature personified. 
Never before had God inter-
vened in history, to rescue a 

people from slavery and set 
them on the path to freedom. 
This was a revolution, at once 
political and intellectual.

THE VALUE OF HISTORY
To most humans at most 
times, there seems to be no 
meaning in history. We live, 
we die, and it is as if we had 
never been. The universe 
gives no sign of any interest 
in our existence. If that was 
so in ancient times, when 
people believed in the exis-
tence of gods, how much 
more so is it true today for 
the neo-Darwinians who 
see life as no more than the 
operation of “chance and 
necessity” (Jacques Monod) 
or “the blind watchmaker” 
(Richard Dawkins). Time 
seems to obliterate all mean-
ing. Nothing lasts. Nothing 
endures.
In ancient Israel, by con-
trast, “for the first time, the 
prophets placed a value on 
history … For the first time, 
we find affirmed and increas-
ingly accepted the idea that 
historical events have a value 
in themselves, insofar as they 
are determined by the will of 
God … Historical facts thus 
become situations of man in 
respect to God, and as such 
they acquire a religious value 
that nothing had previously 
been able to confer on them. 
It may, then, be said with 
truth that the Hebrews were 
the first to discover the mean-
ing of history as the epiphany 
of God.
Judaism is humanity’s first 
glimpse of history as more 
than a mere succession of 
happenings — as nothing less 
than a drama of redemption 
in which the fate of a nation 
reflects its loyalty or otherwise 
to a covenant with God.
It is hard to recapture this 

turning point in the human 
imagination, just as it is hard 
for us to imagine what it was 
like for people first to encoun-
ter Copernicus’ discovery that 
the Earth went round the sun. 
It must have been a terrifying 
threat to all who believed that 
the Earth did not move; that 
it was the one stable point 
in a shifting universe. So it 
was with time. The ancients 
believed that nothing really 
changed. Time was, in Plato’s 
phrase, no more than the 
“moving image of eternity.” 
That was the certainty that 
gave people solace. The times 
may be out of joint, but even-
tually things will return to the 
way they were.
To think of history as an 
arena of change is terrifying. 
It means what happened once 
may never happen again; that 
we are embarked on a journey 
with no assurance we will ever 
return to where we began. It 
is what Milan Kundera meant 
in his phrase, “the unbearable 
lightness of being.” Only pro-
found faith — a new kind of 
faith, breaking with the entire 
world of ancient mythology — 
could give people the courage 
to set out on a journey to the 
unknown.
That is the meaning 
of Hashem: the God who 
intervenes in history. As 
Judah Halevi points out, the 
Ten Commandments begin 
not with the words “I am 
the Lord your God who cre-
ated heaven and earth,” but 
“I am the Lord your God 
who brought you out from 
Egypt, from the house of 
slavery.” Elokim is God as 
we encounter Him in nature 
and creation, but Ha-shem is 
God as revealed in history, in 
the liberation of the Israelites 
from slavery and Egypt.
I find it moving that 

this is precisely what many 
non-Jewish observers have 
concluded. This, for example, 
is the verdict of the Russian 
thinker Nikolai Berdyaev: “I 
remember how the materialist 
interpretation of history, when 
I attempted in my youth to 
verify it by applying it to the 
destinies of peoples, broke 
down in the case of the Jews, 
where destiny seemed abso-
lutely inexplicable from the 
materialistic standpoint … 
Its survival is a mysterious 
and wonderful phenomenon 
demonstrating that the life 
of this people is governed by 
a special predetermination, 
transcending the processes of 
adaptation expounded by the 
materialistic interpretation of 
history. 
“The survival of the Jews, 
their resistance to destruction, 
their endurance under abso-
lutely peculiar conditions and 
the fateful role played by them 
in history: All these point to 
the particular and mysterious 
foundations of their destiny.” 
Nicolai Berdyaev, The Meaning 
of History (1936), 86–87
That is what God tells 
Moses is about to be 
revealed: Hashem, mean-
ing God as He intervenes 
in the arena of time, “so 
that My name may be 
declared throughout the 
world” (Exodus 9:16). The 
script of history would 
bear the mark of a hand 
not human, but Divine. 
And it began with these 
words: “Therefore say to the 
Israelites: I am Hashem, and I 
will bring you out from under 
the yoke of the Egyptians.” 

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan 

Sacks served as the chief rabbi of 

the United Hebrew Congregations of 

the Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His 

teachings have been made available 

to all at rabbisacks.org.