This week, we begin the book of Shemot (Exodus) and we are thrust into the story of our people, living under a new king that didn’t remember Joseph and the way he had saved the land from famine. It’s the moment we are introduced to community. It’s also the moment we’re re-introduced to God. Of course, we had encountered God in moments with our earlier ancestors of Bereshit, but here we meet God as the God of the Israelites. Moshe encounters God at the Burning Bush, hearing the call to help bring about liberation.
Moshe asks God what he should tell the people when they ask God’s name. Who is this entity that has sent you to redeem us? God tells Moshe that God’s name is Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. It’s probably best translated as something like, “I will be what I will be.” And yet, God tells Moshe to relay God’s name to the people as Ehyeh, a truncated version of the name just revealed.
Rashi wonders the obvious question - why shouldn’t Moshe tell the full name to the people? He teaches in his commentary that the name “I will be what I will be” is really shorthand for “I will be with them in this sorrow, and I will be with them in future sorrows.” Rashi imagines God saying, “I will be with them when they experience this subjugation at the hands of Pharaoh, and I will be with them when they suffer at the hands of other kingdoms.” But Moshe pushes back - Rashi imagines - saying, “Why should I mention to them future sorrows? They have enough with this sorrow!” So God replied, “You are correct, so you should just relay to them my name as “Ehyeh” - I will be with them now.
There seems to be so much truth in this comment. Yes, an understanding that we are a people that have suffered, that have endured so much hardship. And Moshe’s emotional astuteness that it won’t serve the Israelites, burdened by slavery, to think about, or know, future sorrows. And so, at that moment, the name for them to hear is “Ehyeh,” I will be. Shorthand, in Rashi’s mind, for “I will be with them.”
This is the first moment that Moshe experiences God, and this will be the first exposure that the Israelites have to God. What this enslaved, oppressed people will first learn about God, is that it is a God who is with them. A God who cares for them. A God who loves them. I imagine what it could be like for that to be the very first way of encountering God. To first experience God, more than a being that offers judgment or omniscience, as being an entity of presence, of comfort, of closeness. I pray that in our own moments of sorrow and despair, we are to feel that presence. That in whatever moments of darkness we feel, that we know there is an entity alongside us, Ehyeh, that will just be.
