His Sufficiency: El Shaddai, The God of Enough

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Text and the City | VaEra 2013

In some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the word  YHWH is written
in the ancient Hebrew letters used during the first Temple period.
Other scrolls simply wrote three or four dots in place of God’s name.

As a child we loved to annoy our teachers by dropping God’s “explicit name” in class whenever possible. We’d throw out a “YHWH” here and a “Jehovah” there, or simply an “Adonai” when the more benign “HaShem” was called for. Looks of shock and anger would ensue, followed by a stern lecture which would derail the class for at least 20 minutes, much to the delight of students everywhere. In hindsight I justify my childish lashing out as a juvenile theological criticism. I was objecting to the cowardly distancing from the raw power and holiness of the very God they were trying to get us to believe in (really!).

Indeed, part of what is lost by the replacing God’s explicit name – YHWH – with its more benign stand-ins (HaShem, Lord or worse, God) is the fact that YHWH is an unpronounceable name. A straightforward pronouncing produces no more than a breath. Its fleeting meaning is best described by God in last week’s Torah portion: “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh” – I shall be what I shall be.

YHWH is fleeting and ineffable, but never inapproachable. God, Lord, “The Name” and all the rest of those theo-isms don’t get close to the mystery, awe and paradoxicality of YHWH.

This week’s Torah portion opens with a rare reflection on two of God’s names: YHWH and El Shaddai. El Shaddai is the name which God uses in Genesis with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob whenever promises are involved. Now, with the move to Exodus, we seem to graduate from El Shaddai to YHWH:

And God spoke to Moses, saying: I am ‘YHWH’ I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as ‘El Shaddai’, but by My name YHWH I was not known to them. (Exodus 6:5)

וַיְדַבֵּר אֱלֹהִים, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה; וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו: אֲנִי יְהוָה. וָאֵרָא, אֶל-אַבְרָהָם אֶל-יִצְחָק וְאֶל-יַעֲקֹב בְּאֵל שַׁדָּי וּשְׁמִי יְהוָה, לֹא נוֹדַעְתִּי לָהֶם.

What does El Shaddai mean? Of the many answers, my favorite come from the Hebrew word “Dai” – די, enough. [Sha-Dai - שֶׁ that, דַּי is sufficient]. Rashi explains the name in those terms when “El Shaddai” first appears in the Torah, with God trying to convince a 99 year old man that he will indeed have a child:

	And Abram was ninety-nine years old, and God appeared to Abram, and He said to him, "I am El Shaddai; walk before Me and be whole.” (Genesis 17)			ויְהִי אַבְרָם בֶּן תִּשְׁעִים שָׁנָה וְתֵשַׁע שָׁנִים וַיֵּרָא יי אֶל אַבְרָם וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו: אֲנִי אֵל שַׁדַּי הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי וֶהְיֵה תָמִים.
Rashi: I am El Shaddai:  I am He Whose Godliness suffices for every creature.… and wherever this name appears in Scripture, it means “His sufficiency.”					רש"י: אני אל שדי: אני הוא שיש די באלהותי לכל בריה, ...וכן כל מקום שהוא במקרא פירושו די יש לו, והכל לפי הענין:

El Shaddai – the God in whom there is enough for each and every being. “His Sufficiency”. To believe in El Shaddai is to believe that there is sufficient, that there is enough for all. It is less a faith, and more of a foundational experience, which colors the way one walks in the world: "I am El Shaddai; walk before Me and be whole.”

It often seems that most of today’s religions worship a God who is “El Kana”, a jealous God, the God of mutual exclusivism. Indeed, “El Kana” seems to be the opposite of “El Shaddai”. The worshippers of El Kana are not wrong – there isn’t enough in this world, at least not enough material. All wars, as Aristotle and Maimonides contended, come from a battle over resources, which are by definition finite. The world is a zero sum game. This psychology seems to be behind all violence, ever since Cain hit his brother Abel.

The only way to move from El Kana to El Shaddai is to move from the material to the spiritual. Material is finite, but emotions are not. There should be sufficient love for everyone. This is what the embrace of El Shaddai seems to imply. Here is an inspiring vision for the religious people the world over: To carry El Shaddai’s name in this world, infusing all creatures with the sense that there is enough. Bringing “His Sufficiency”’s counter-intuitive presence to this material world.

To be fair, it should be “Her Sufficiency”. The probable etymology of the Hebrew word Shaddai of course has nothing to do with Dai, enough, but with Shadayim, Breasts. El Shaddai is the unabashed “God of Breasts” (if only I said that one in my elementary school classroom!). A throwback to the Canaanite feminine Gods, a pre-cursor to the Kabbalistic feminine aspects of God, El Shaddai is God as Mother. El Shaddai is the experience of the baby who suckles their mother’s breasts, and experiences a world of deep sufficiency. There is enough – enough milk, enough love, enough warmth and connection.

Perhaps these names of God can be placed in a developmental structure. The first experience, the Genesis, must be within an experience of El Shaddai. Similar to maternal attachment theory, we creatures need a strong foundation of sufficiency, of unending unbounded love. This is what Cain lacked, and what God tried to instill in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. However, once that is in place, it is time to grow up, to attain a more complex world – and a more complex Divinity – YHWH, I Shall Be what I Shall Be. Without that, no Exodus will ever take place.

And God spoke to Moses, saying: I am ‘YHWH’ I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as ‘El Shaddai’, but by My name YHWH I was not known to them. (Exodus 6:5)

וַיְדַבֵּר אֱלֹהִים, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה; וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו: אֲנִי יְהוָה. וָאֵרָא, אֶל-אַבְרָהָם אֶל-יִצְחָק וְאֶל-יַעֲקֹב בְּאֵל שַׁדָּי וּשְׁמִי יְהוָה, לֹא נוֹדַעְתִּי לָהֶם.

Edgar M. Bronfman z"l – A Modern Talmudic Jew

by Rabbi Mishael Zion and Rebecca Voorwinde

Edgar M Bronfman, 1929-2013

An oft-told Jewish joke tells of two scholars, arguing over their contradictory understanding of the great Moses Maimonides. Finally one of them declares: “It’s simple – you are talking about your-monides, but I have My-monides!”  Such is the fate of giants. A legend in so many realms, Edgar M. Bronfman lived a rich and varied life, embodying many facets in his work and personality.

Yet while Jews the world over marked the loss of a leader to whom they owe much, for our community, the Bronfman Youth Fellowships, it is a personal loss. We “Bronfmanim”—as we call ourselves-- have lost our Founder and our inspiration, but truly, we have lost the person who invited us to live Talmudically in the modern world.

A devout non-believer, Edgar’s favorite book was the Babylonian Talmud, whose hero is not God but the argumentative and cunning human scholar. The paradigm of the Talmudic scholar requires  a rigorous knowledge of foundational texts and a sharp wit, mixed with a healthy dose of competitiveness, a thirst for justice, an appreciation of one’s own fallibility… and a great sense of humor. All those characteristics could be found in Edgar Bronfman as much as in the best Talmud folios.

To be fair, when Edgar turned his formidable business mind to the service of the Jewish people – becoming President of the World Jewish Congress in 1981 – he did not know the value of learning. Like so many Jews, he found Jewish practice to be an empty vessel, full of double standards and weak nostalgic traditionalism. He assumed the same of Jewish texts. Edgar served the Jewish people because of his loyalty towards family, and the desire to see Jews truly respected in a world that too often flaunted their rights.

Yet, on the airplane back from a meeting behind the Iron Curtain, Edgar noticed his companion studying the daily page of Talmud, and became curious. He quickly engaged in a discussion about the tort law of a violent cow and fell in love with the intellectual joy of Talmudic study. Edgar found the Talmud to be seeking justice through messy dilemmas and imperfect decisions, a reality this global business leader knew well.

Back in the boardrooms of the Jewish organizations he led, he encountered  dysfunctional discourse. The leaders he met lacked the Talmudic ability to harbor a range of contrasting perspectives. The battles he witnessed placed an emphasis on denominational answers and ideology, lacking the Talmud’s appreciation of doubt and compromise. Meanwhile, the intellectual bar of existing Jewish programs kept getter lower and lower, even as the American Jewish community was growing more and more educated.  Jews were abandoning the Talmudic tradition of erudition and excellence.

Edgar with the 2011 Israeli Bronfman Fellows

Edgar decided to invest in young people and in Jewish learning, in service of a “Jewish Renaissance”. Among the endeavors he was proudest of was the founding of the Bronfman Youth Fellowships, an identity incubator beginning with outstanding seventeen year olds from North America and Israel. On “Bronfman” they experienced Jewish learning of the highest quality, challenged by friends and teachers who did not share their point of view but gave them the benefit of the doubt. It was an experiment in pluralism: Edgar knew that if  we dictate shared practice – be it expectations around Halakhic ritual, Israel politics or whom one marries – there will be little to keep us together. But if we share a commitment to Jewish learning, we become an interpretive community, allowing for an inclusivity sorely needed in the Jewish world. The Fellowships are effectively a new kind of Yeshiva, a modern house of study, an intentional community which continues to inspire the over 1000 “Bronfmanim”  who are having a deep impact on Israeli and North American life. Edgar continued to give the gift of rigorous Torah learning by founding and supporting some of the best Jewish learning happening in the liberal Jewish world, often led or inspired by his “Bronfmanim”.

This week, Edgar’s loss is felt throughout our community: who will invite us to his weekly Talmud study? who will challenge us with his sharp questions and opinions? But his passing allows us to redouble our commitment to his values, and we plan on continuing to make Jewish learning an ongoing part of our lives. Needless to say, we’re already arguing about which book to study in his honor…

Rabbi Mishael Zion and Rebecca Voorwinde are the co-directors of the Bronfman Fellowships, a community of over 1000 young Jews from Israel and North America that includes some of today’s most inspiring Jewish writers, thinkers and leaders. www.bronfman.org