In so many ways the word “God” cuts us off from Torah and spirit and ourselves. It is like a check you can’t cash. It is trying to do too much and let’s be real, has a bad reputation. I even feel myself hesitate before I say it out of fear of being assumed to be anti-intellectual or worse. Maybe that says more about our current cultural moment, the history of how this word has been used and abused, and my own personal baggage. You know, for the first time I actually feel sorry for this word. We ask it so often to carry so much. We judge it before we meet it and the truth is, the concept of God was never meant to be held by just three little letters. It’s like looking up at the night sky and only seeing one star. Pinched off. Smogged in. Sitting in traffic. Though “God” is the most popular to put on the name tag, in the Jewish tradition, it is not the only name for this Eternal Source (and arguably not even a Jewish word at all). In a short essay on this very topic, Dr. Rabbi Ismar Schorsch writes:
“Judaism is a wellspring that emits an endless profusion of names for God. The Bible contains some 70; rabbinic literature adds another 90 or more and no one as yet has bothered to tally the number added by Jewish mystics. As Gershom Scholem wrote more than a half-century ago: ‘In the last resort, the whole of the Torah [for the author of the Zohar] is nothing but the one great and holy Name of God.’”
And so it is true. While this essay does not intend to serve as an exhaustive catalog or analysis of the various sacred names, it does wish to shake up your assumptions. In Jewish text, tradition, and liturgy, there is undoubtedly a focus on God as King or Lord or other designations of hierarchical power. It is indeed true that these metaphors fit into the domineering patriarchy we all know too well. But alas, this is not the whole story.
First, a note on why it matters. There is no Torah without God and there is no God without our conceptions of God. Our attempts to put into language Her likeness or unlikeness (the pronouns “She/Her” are sprinkled throughout this essay to force you to confront how you think you think about the Divine). Consider the following by Rabbi Leon Morris as he considered theology in our time.
“For many of us, contemporary theology is less about what we know to be true and more about religious ways of organizing and conceiving the world. If medieval and modern Jewish theology were prose, ours is a theology of poetry. In our time, ‘doing theology’ is far more about meaning and elegance than a truth that ultimately lies beyond our capacity to understand” (Morris, 135).
Whether you agree with Rabbi Morris or not about the project of contemporary theology, his point is well taken that theology concerns itself with meaning and ways we conceive of the world. So, how we understand God changes how we conceive of Torah or prayer or anything, really. I’m not trying to show you the “true” names of God as if I’m an archaeologist who has finally uncovered the ark. Instead, I’m trying to write you a poem – show you a part of the poem that has been written.
As I mentioned, what proceeds is not exhaustive in any way, shape, or form. Instead, I have chosen four names for God to reflect upon. Okay disclaimers disclaimed. Let’s dive in.
HaMakom, הַמָּקוֹם
“The Place”
We begin with a story of Jacob, camping out in the wilderness.
Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely יהוה is present in this place, and I did not know it!”
Shaken, he said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven” (Genesis 28:16-17).
The gateway to heaven huh? Where is this? After much rabbinic debate and guesses at where this place is, a new divine name emerges. Let’s turn back to our friend Dr. Rabbi Ismar Schorsch to tell us how it happened.
“[the following is a] lesson taught by Rabban Gamliel not long after the Roman victory in 70 C.E.: “Why did God choose to reveal Himself to Moses in a lowly burning bush? To make the point that there is no place on earth which is devoid of God’s presence.” In time Rabban Gamliel’s view became concretized in a bold new name for God, perhaps my favorite, Hamakom, which we might render best as “the All-encompassing One.” The term expands beyond measure the indeterminate “place,” “makom,” of Genesis. God is now dauntingly conceived as the space in which the universe exists.”
This name, HaMakom, The Place, can be understood as utter immanence or an eternal presence. It is the name which we use when comforting mourners:
May HaMakom comfort you among the rest of the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem
Hamakom yenakhem etekhem betokh shaar avelay tziyon viyrushalayim.
הַמָּקוֹם יְנַחֵם אֶתְכֶם בְּתוֹךְ שְׁאָר אֲבֵלֵי צִיּוֹן וִירוּשָׁלַיִם
HaMakom is a challenge to the thingness of many names of God. A place is expansive and voluminous. And while in our physical world, places are sectioned off and carved up by walls or natural boundaries or lines on maps, HaMakom is the sense that wherever you are, you are still there. You are never lost. HaMakom draws itself around you no matter where you go. It is a divinity you live in. The womb you can never leave.
M’kor Mayim Chaim, מְקוֹר מַיִם חַיִּים
“The Fountain of Living Waters” (Jeremiah 2:13, 17:13)
We learn of The Fountain of Living Waters in the Book of Jeremiah, where it is mentioned twice. Fountain can also be translated as “spring.” I’m not sure why but I’m compelled to tell you this here, but you should know that water was something that preceded creation.
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
בוְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃
“When God began to create heaven and earth— the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—”
(Genesis 1:1-2).
There is an ever-present water that is understood to exist, even in the first two verses of Torah. Earth is unformed and void, but water is taken for granted – if it was created by The Fountain, we know nothing of that. It seems water may have been some of the original material with which The Fountain played when She started making Earth.
We all know we need water to survive. In fact, we all know so much of our material reality and being is water, itself – that substance that proceeds creation. Living waters.
Alas, it is not enough to drink water once and quench our thirst. Water swims through us continuously – as does our breath or creation.
The Fountain. The Fountain is not the waters but the place from which they flow. The energy that moves them. The organizing principle. The channel.
What would a Fountain of Living Water look like for all life? Would it look like the water cycle? Our tears or sweat? The waters we are enclosed in before our birth? The Fountain of Living Water. That force that keeps all life in flow.
Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה
“I Am That I Am” (Exodus 3:14)
(also translated as “I Will Be What I Will Be” or both at once)
We can’t start explaining this one without giving the background. Moses has just encountered the burning bush and is talking to God. Moses is asking lots of questions and finally asks, what is your name?
וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֶל־הָאֱלֹהִים הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי בָא אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתִּי לָהֶם אֱלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵיכֶם שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם וְאָמְרוּ־לִי מַה־שְּׁמוֹ מָה אֹמַר אֲלֵהֶם׃
ידוַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים אֶל־מֹשֶׁה אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה וַיֹּאמֶר כֹּה תֹאמַר לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶהְיֶה שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם׃
טווַיֹּאמֶר עוֹד אֱלֹהִים אֶל־מֹשֶׁה כֹּה־תֹאמַר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹהֵי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם זֶה־שְּׁמִי לְעֹלָם וְזֶה זִכְרִי לְדֹר דֹּר׃
Moses said to God, “When I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers’ [house] has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is [God’s] name?’ what shall I say to them?”
And God said to Moses, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh,” continuing, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, ‘Ehyeh sent me to you.’”
And God said further to Moses, “Thus shall you speak to the Israelites: יהוה, the God of your fathers’ [house]—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you:
This shall be My name forever,
This My appellation for all eternity.
(Exodus 3:13-15)
So here, God introduces Godself as “I Am” and arguably simultaneously as “I Will Be.” How splendid for I Am’s name not to be a noun but a phrase – a sentence! I Am. A statement of being but with motion in. By that I mean, because it has a subject, “I” and a verb, “am,” there is a sense of aliveness even if the verb isn’t fabulously active. To put another way, God did not say, my name is “being” or “beingness.” I Am’s name is not a state or concept of being. I Am is in the action of being. Still and Moving at once. Past, present, and future.
What is most fabulous about this name is when you say it outloud. “I Am.” When we say it, we become the subject. It is a phrase we use liberally each day. I am this or that. It is a name that begs us to try it on – knows we already do. It makes us wonder if in a way, we too, are not some version of I Am. How could we not be?
First Ram Dass and then RuPaul have proclaimed that people are simply, “God in drag.” We only dress ourselves up as something other than our truth – we only pretend we aren’t connected to all parts of creation. There has been much made of this name of God both in and out of the Jewish world, and across time up until today. You should look it up and see what you think. For now I leave you with this name that breaks language conventions and the barrier between something “out there” and something “in here.” I Am.
Shekhinah, שכינה
“The Divine Indwelling Presence”
The Shekhinah is most known for being the feminine presence of God. “While in the Talmud and midrash the Shekhinah represented the manifest presence of God without any suggestion that this presence was female, in Kabbalism the Shekhinah became a feminine element in God alongside the masculine, ‘Holy One, Blessed be He’... The Shekhinah, as opposed to the totally unknowable Kadosh Barukh Hu (holy one, blessed be he), is precisely that aspect of God with which we can be in relation, and it is experienced in joint study, community gatherings, lovemaking, and other moments of common and intimate human connection” (Plaskow, 138-140).
Indeed, the Shekinah, as I have been taught, is indwelling but in the sense of within community and between people. When we engage over words of Torah, the Shekhinah descends and wells with us. When we share a beautiful Shabbat meal, She descends. There is a lot more Kabbalistic complexity that I admit I’m missing here. But what is unique about this face of God is not only how She is the sacred feminine (and even that would be enough!). What is unique is She joins us when we join each other. She is not the one you seek out alone, on a long walk in nature (although maybe she is, who’s to say?!). She’s the one who sanctifies the love shown between people.
“The Shekhinah is sometimes called Daughter and sometimes Sister and here she is called Mother and she is indeed all of these” (Zohar 2:100b).
She, herself, is many relationships – She blesses our relationships. That feeling around the fire, staying out late with friends telling stories. Electricity on the dance floor. She fills in the cracks – bridges the spaces between us.
So now what? Well, as you read Torah, consider how names of God – all dialogue and description are metaphors. Consider how they are all just angles of an infinitely dimensional concept. And consider how focusing on a few angles and neglecting others shut ourselves off from the greater picture – or poem, if you will. And if all else fails, just say HaShem – which of course is the meta name which simply means, The Name. At the end of the day, all this language is merely an approximation. I’ll leave it to Emily Dickinson to close us out:
Could mortal lip divine
The undeveloped Freight
Of a delivered syllable
‘Twould crumble with the weight.
Sources Cited:
Morris, Leon A. “Longing to Hear Again” in Jewish Theology In Our Time: A New Generation Explores the Foundations and Future of Jewish Belief, ed. Elliot J. Cosgrove, PhD (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2010).
Plaskow, Judith. Standing Again At Sinai: Judaism From A Feminist Perspective (HarperCollins, New York; 1991).
Schorsch, Ismar, Behind God’s Names. https://www.jtsa.edu/. November 20, 1993. Accessed July 28, 2022.