METAPHYSICS OF DAVID BIRNBAUM
PHILOSOPHY OF DAVID BIRNBAUM
“Eheyeh Asher Eheyeh”
“I WILL BE THAT WHICH I WILL BE1”
calls the voice from the Burning Bush2
THE NAME OF GOD
Is Potential – and retroactive – and recursive
NOTES by KHALIL
1 I WILL BE: God is only asked directly to identify Himself by name one time in the Tanach. And He answers twice. In Exodus 3:14 God identifies Himself as both “I will be that which I will be” and then, in the same verse, more concisely as “I will be.” The importance of this revelation is clear from the Biblical context, but what does it mean?
2 Burning Bush: The context of the dialogue between Hashem [God] and Moses is almost as important as the dialogue itself. Moses poses his question to God on behalf of the Jewish slaves (he will ask to know God for his own sake while atop Mt. Sinai, Exodus 33:13). According to the Midrash, the Jews at this point were at a historically low spiritual level. And liberation is imminent. It is therefore clear that the potential of the Jews (a spiritually impoverished [deprived] people on the verge of redemption) at this moment was maximal, and it is not a coincidence that God identifies Himself to the Jewish slaves via Moses at this moment, as “I–will–be.”