The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels by Thomas Cahill Page B
Authors: Thomas Cahill
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Mountain of Seeing:
“Moshe! Moshe!”
He said:
“Here I am.”
—the very words Avraham used.
He said:
“Do not come near to here,
put off your sandal from your foot [just as the Arabs still do on holy ground],
for the place on which you stand—it is holy ground!”
And he said:
“I am the God of your father,
the God of Avraham,
the God of Yitzhak,
and the God of Yaakov.”
In the midst of this breaking of the silence of hundreds of years—this completely unexpected manifestation of continuity—Moshe, the Egyptian prince who could hardly have been less prepared for such a moment, acts with a terror the patriarchs seldom exhibited:
Moshe concealed his face,
for he was afraid to gaze upon God.
But God reveals that, despite appearances (or lack thereof), he has not been absent:
“I have seen, yes, seen the affliction of my people that is in Egypt,
their cry have I heard in the face of their slave-drivers;
indeed I have known their sufferings!
So I have come down
to rescue it from the hand of Egypt,
to bring it up from that land,
to a land, goodly and spacious,
to a land flowing with milk and honey.…
So now, go,
for I send you to Pharaoh—
bring my people, the Children of Israel, out of Egypt!”
Here is Moshe, on his face in the intense desert heat, made even fiercer by the fire before him, listening to a Voice that no one has heard since the days of Yaakov, a Voice that orders him off on an impossible mission to the very people he has been hiding from. Like Avraham, he never doubts the information of his senses—that this is really happening—only God’s lack of realism:
“Who am I
that I should go to Pharaoh,
that I should bring the Children of Israel out of Egypt?”
God’s answer ignores completely Moshe’s opinion of himself. For this mission will not be dependent on Moshe’s abilities but on God’s:
“Indeed, I will be-there with you,
and this is the sign for you that I myself have sent you:
when you have brought the people out of Egypt,
you will (all) serve God by this mountain.”
Moshe now offers one objection after another in the vain hope of forestalling God. He imagines confronting the Children of Israel with the news that “the God of your fathers has sent me,” only to receive their skeptical response: “Theywill say to me: ‘What is his name?’ ” Moshe, the clean-shaven ward of Pharaoh with the style and bearing of an Egyptian, will hardly seem a credible messenger of God in the eyes of the dusty slaves, and they will quiz him mercilessly till they call his bluff.
God’s reply is probably the greatest mystery of the Bible. He tells Moshe his name, all right:
“Y HWH.”
What does it mean? AncientHebrew was written without vowels; and by the time vowel subscripts were added to the consonants in the Middle Ages, the Name of God had become so sacred that it was never uttered. Even in classical times, as early as the Second Temple period, only the high priest could pronounce the Name of God—and only once a year in the prayer of the Day of Atonement. Once the Temple was destroyed in A.D . 70, no Jew ever uttered the Name again. From that time to this, the devout have avoided this word in the text of their Bible, reading
“Adonai”
(“the Lord”) when they come to the word
Y HWH .
Many Orthodox go a step further, refusing even to say “
Adonai”
and substituting
“ha-Shem”
(“the Name”). So, after such a great passage of time, we have lost the certain knowledge of how to pronounce the word that is represented by these consonants. And, without the pronunciation, we are less than certain of its meaning, since precise meaning in
“Moshe! Moshe!”
He said:
“Here I am.”
—the very words Avraham used.
He said:
“Do not come near to here,
put off your sandal from your foot [just as the Arabs still do on holy ground],
for the place on which you stand—it is holy ground!”
And he said:
“I am the God of your father,
the God of Avraham,
the God of Yitzhak,
and the God of Yaakov.”
In the midst of this breaking of the silence of hundreds of years—this completely unexpected manifestation of continuity—Moshe, the Egyptian prince who could hardly have been less prepared for such a moment, acts with a terror the patriarchs seldom exhibited:
Moshe concealed his face,
for he was afraid to gaze upon God.
But God reveals that, despite appearances (or lack thereof), he has not been absent:
“I have seen, yes, seen the affliction of my people that is in Egypt,
their cry have I heard in the face of their slave-drivers;
indeed I have known their sufferings!
So I have come down
to rescue it from the hand of Egypt,
to bring it up from that land,
to a land, goodly and spacious,
to a land flowing with milk and honey.…
So now, go,
for I send you to Pharaoh—
bring my people, the Children of Israel, out of Egypt!”
Here is Moshe, on his face in the intense desert heat, made even fiercer by the fire before him, listening to a Voice that no one has heard since the days of Yaakov, a Voice that orders him off on an impossible mission to the very people he has been hiding from. Like Avraham, he never doubts the information of his senses—that this is really happening—only God’s lack of realism:
“Who am I
that I should go to Pharaoh,
that I should bring the Children of Israel out of Egypt?”
God’s answer ignores completely Moshe’s opinion of himself. For this mission will not be dependent on Moshe’s abilities but on God’s:
“Indeed, I will be-there with you,
and this is the sign for you that I myself have sent you:
when you have brought the people out of Egypt,
you will (all) serve God by this mountain.”
Moshe now offers one objection after another in the vain hope of forestalling God. He imagines confronting the Children of Israel with the news that “the God of your fathers has sent me,” only to receive their skeptical response: “Theywill say to me: ‘What is his name?’ ” Moshe, the clean-shaven ward of Pharaoh with the style and bearing of an Egyptian, will hardly seem a credible messenger of God in the eyes of the dusty slaves, and they will quiz him mercilessly till they call his bluff.
God’s reply is probably the greatest mystery of the Bible. He tells Moshe his name, all right:
“Y HWH.”
What does it mean? AncientHebrew was written without vowels; and by the time vowel subscripts were added to the consonants in the Middle Ages, the Name of God had become so sacred that it was never uttered. Even in classical times, as early as the Second Temple period, only the high priest could pronounce the Name of God—and only once a year in the prayer of the Day of Atonement. Once the Temple was destroyed in A.D . 70, no Jew ever uttered the Name again. From that time to this, the devout have avoided this word in the text of their Bible, reading
“Adonai”
(“the Lord”) when they come to the word
Y HWH .
Many Orthodox go a step further, refusing even to say “
Adonai”
and substituting
“ha-Shem”
(“the Name”). So, after such a great passage of time, we have lost the certain knowledge of how to pronounce the word that is represented by these consonants. And, without the pronunciation, we are less than certain of its meaning, since precise meaning in
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