(א) וירא מלאך ה' אליו בלבת אש אמר הכתוב מתחלה וירא מלאך ה', ואחר כן (בפסוק ד) אמר וירא ה' כי סר לראות ויקרא אליו אלהים, ולכן אמר ר' אברהם (בפירוש הקצר) כי ''אלהים'' בכאן הוא המלאך הנזכר, כמו כי ראיתי אלהים פנים אל פנים (בראשית לב לא) וטעם אנכי אלהי אביך (פסוק ו), כי ידבר השליח בלשון שולחו
| Ramban on Exodus 3:2 Our sages intended to say that from the beginning, [both the angel] Michael and the Divine Presence (K’vod haShechinah) appeared to him, but Moses didn’t see the Divine Presence because he hadn’t prepared his heart for prophecy. When he inclined his heart and turned to see, the appearance of the Divine was revealed to him and God called to him from the midst of the bush. |
(11) But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and free the Israelites from Egypt?” (12) And He said, “I will be with you; that shall be your sign that it was I who sent you. And when you have freed the people from Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.” (13) Moses said to God, “When I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” (14) And God said to Moses, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh.” He continued, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, ‘Ehyeh sent me to you.’” (15) And God said further to Moses, “Thus shall you speak to the Israelites: The LORD, the God of your fathers, 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. (16) “Go and assemble the elders of Israel and say to them: the LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me and said, ‘I have taken note of you and of what is being done to you in Egypt,
Sforno: c.1470 - 1550 CE
Ovadiah ben Ya'akov Seforno was an Italian rabbi, Biblical commentator, philosopher, halachic authority, and physician who wrote commentaries on a good portion of the Tanakh.
.....YHVH indeed states that he will always be present, but at any given moment as the one as whom he then, in that given moment, will be present. He who promises his steady presence, his steady assistance, refuses to restrict himself to definite forms of manifestation ; how could the people even venture to conjure and limit him ! If the first part of the statement states : " I do not need to be conjured for I am always with you ", the second adds : " but it is impossible to conjure me "..... In the revelation at the Burning Bush religion is demagicized. ......
Moses is first instructed, by an exceptionally daring linguistic device, to tell the people " Ehyeh, I shall be present, or I am present, sends me to you ", and immediately afterwards : " YHVH the God of your fathers sends me to you ". That Ehyeh is not a name ; the God can never be named so ; only on this one occasion, in this sole moment of transmitting his work, is Moses allowed and ordered to take the God's self-comprehension in his mouth as a name.
Again and again, when God says in the narrative : " Then will the Egyptians recognize that I am YHVH, " or " you will recognize that I am YHVH, " it is clearly not the name as a sound, but the meaning revealed in it, which is meant. The Egyptians shall come to know that I (unlike their gods) am the really present One in the midst of the human world, the standing and acting One ; you will know that I am He who is present with you, going with you and directing your cause.
From Martin Buber, Moses, on God’s name
Rabbi Arthur Waskow (The Shalom Center Blog, 12/28/2015)
As Moses faces the unquenchably fiery Voice Who is sending him on a mission to end slavery under Pharaoh, he warns the Voice that the people will challenge him: “Sez who?” And the Holy One, the Wholly One, answers: “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, I Will Be Who I Will Be” –- a fitting Name for a universe that is always Becoming. A universe in which the powerless poor can be empowered and the pharaoh’s power can dissolve like powder into the Sea of Reeds. Then God adds, “But that’s a mouthful. You can use just ‘Ehyeh, I Will Be,’ as my nickname, if you like.”
“And oh yes, you can also call me ‘YHWH.’" But we actually can’t. There’s no way to “pronounce” those letters, with no vowels. And for a couple of millennia, Jews have been strictly taught not even to try pronouncing it but instead to say “Adonai.”
Rabbi Arthur Waskow is a contemporary Renewal rabbi, thinker, author and activist.
The slave lives in silence, if such a meaningless existence may be called life. He has no message to deliver. In contrast with the slave, the free man bears a message, has a good deal to tell, and is eager to convey his life story to anyone who cares to listen........Before Moses came there was not even a single sound. No complaint was lodged, no sigh, no cry uttered… The slaves were gloomy, voiceless and mute… They were unaware of any need… When Moses came, the sound, or the voice, came into being… Moses, by defending the helpless Jew, restored sensitivity to the dull slaves. Suddenly they realized that all that pain, anguish, humiliation and cruelty, all the greed and intolerance of man vis-à-vis his fellow man is evil. This realization brought in its wake not only sharp pain but a sense of suffering as well. With suffering came loud protest, the cry, the unuttered question, the wordless demand for justice and retribution.
Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “Redemption, Prayer, Talmud Torah,” Tradition 17:2 (Spring 1978), 56
“From Moses’ own idioms, we understand that he experiences an excess of ‘feelings and thoughts,’ a kind of congested intensity, as sealing his lips… the irony is that Moses who cannot speak can articulate so powerfully a fragmented state of being…..desire and recoil inhabit his imagination. An inexpressible yearning can find only imprecise representation. Language is in exile and can be viscerally imagined as such. This both disqualifies him and, paradoxically, qualifies him for the role that God has assigned him.”
Moses, A Human Life, Aviva Zornberg (2016)