Lech Lecha

 “I will increase your numbers beyond your imagination.” Genesis 17:1

Later in Genesis 35:11 God again appears to a patriarch, Jacob, and renews the promise that his offspring will issue nations and kings that will span thousands of years.  This promise is also delivered by El Shaddai.  Perhaps then the connection of the primal names of God is of generation.  In fact, Shaddai itself connotes generates as it is related to the Hebrew word breast.


Perhaps then this is why God no longer reveals His essence as El Shaddai.  Not only have the promises been made but they have been kept as well.  In Moses’ time the nation of Israel has grown and prospered.  It is remained faithful to its side of the covenant and now awaits redemption from enslavement.  Its needs are not for numbers but for freedom.


The great mystic Ramban reads into our text: The Holy One blessed be He says: Until now I had to remain concealed.  Humanity was not yet ready for this.  My name, YHVH, I did not make known to them. 

In other word, God hid His higher, quintessential self from humanity until now.  The Patriarchs did not need to know.  Or perhaps they were not able to know the Divine Name of God yet. El Shaddai is a more opaque, more distant name of God    It was more limited because the relationship between people and God was being re-created after the fall of Eden.   Abraham knew God in more limited scope than Moses.        El Sha-dai which represents a more limited manifestation of My being. They accepted that they could never comprehend My infinite, unknowable essence. You, on the other hand, to whom I have revealed My truth, question My ways.

 

The difference between Moses and the Patriarchs is also explained by the Chassidic masters as deriving from the different places they occupy within the total "body" of Israel. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are identified with the attributes of "love," "awe" and "harmony" (chessed, gevurah and tiferet), while Moses represents the attribute of "wisdom" (chochmah). Otherwise stated, the Patriarchs are the heart of the Jewish people, while Moses is the mind of Israel.


Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi explains G-d's words to Moses regarding the difference in the quality of His relationship with the Patriarchs and His newly unveiled revelation of the divine name Y-H-V-H.

To the Patriarchs -- G-d is saying to Moses -- I revealed Myself only as El Sha-dai, relating to them only via the constraints and limitations that define My investment within the created reality. But to you and your generation I shall reveal, for the very first time, "My name Y-H-V-H," the name that connotes "My quintessential truth." For the purpose of the Exodus (as G-d said to Moses at the burning bush) is the revelation at Mount Sinai and the communication of My Torah, which is the very embodiment of My wisdom and will.


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