Creative Conundrums: Shmos

I Am What I Am?

And God said to Moshe, Eheye Asher Eheye (Ex. 3:14)

What does this even mean?

Some translations are “I am what I am,” but surely that cannot be right, since the text is in the future tense, not the present?

How is the word Ehye used elsewhere in the Torah?

Isaac is told to not go to Egypt:

sojourn in this land, and I will be (וְאֶֽהְיֶ֥ה) with thee, and will bless thee; (Gen. 26:3)

Jacob is told to return to Canaan:

And the Lord said to Jacob, Return to the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be (וְאֶֽהְיֶ֥ה) with thee. (31:3)

And just before ehye asher ehye, G-d promises the same to Moshe:

I will be with thee; כִּֽי־אֶֽהְיֶ֣ה עִמָּ֔ךְ (3:12)

OK. So if ehye is about the future, and is connected to a divine promise of a connection between man and G-d, then wouldn’t that also apply here?

And is there another dimension to this? After all, the middle word, asher, also has symbolic value. As first used:

God made the expanse, and it separated the water which was (asher) below the expanse from the water which was (asher) above the expanse.

It seems that asher means the connecting of an item with its location or identity!

Remember that at the burning bush, G-d is known to almost nobody in the world (G-d even tells Moses that Avraham, Isaac and Jacob did not understand G-d in the way being revealed to Moses). Is it possible that ehye asher ehye is G-d is talking about His identity in the minds of people?

Indeed, perhaps the first use of asher is a critical one? After all, the waters above and below represent heaven and earth, which in turn echoes Isaac’s blessing (dew of heaven, oil of earth), and the purpose of man’s existence in this world: to (re)connect the waters above and below.  Might G-d’s answer mirror this first use of asher, and be about how His presence in this world (the waters below) will reflect His presence in heaven (the waters above)?

Is G-d, like mankind ourselves, understood, known and defined by what we will say and do in the future? Doesn’t that jive with a Judaism that always looks forward, toward our next opportunity to make good choices? After all, what are we as Jews without a connection to G-d? Wouldn’t that reasonably form our core identity?

And taking in the bigger picture.. is the text so ambiguous specifically to encourage us to explore all the possible meanings? Instead of having just one, definitive, answer – we could have a range of valid answers?

Might this be a feature and not a bug? Both here and elsewhere?

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A Strange Episode, Indeed

At a night encampment on the way, the LORD encountered him [Moses] and sought to kill him. So Tzipporah [Moshe’s wife] took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched his feet with it, saying, “You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!” And when He let him alone, she added, “A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision.” (Exodus 4:24-26)

Is there a way to understand this, using just the text?

Perhaps we are saddled by mistranslations? For example: the word in the Torah is not “kill” – it is instead “to make dead.” And the first time that word is used is when G-d forbids the fruit to Adam and Eve: “On that day you will surely die.” But Adam and Eve, despite eating the fruit, did NOT die! Instead, they changed irrevocably. Their old selves, the way they saw the world, each other, their nakedness, etc. all perished. They became entirely different, thanks to changed knowledge. There was no going back to who they were beforehand.

Would this suggest that what G-d is doing when he comes to Moshe that night, is seeking a transformation, like that effected by the fruit in Eden?

Perhaps the old Moses, the family man, working for his father-in-law, supporting his wife and children, could not simultaneously serve as G-d’s very mouthpiece to the world? Unlike every Jew before and after, who are called to use marriage as their template for the challenges of relating to G-d, Moses could no longer be in a mundane marriage?

Could we suggest that Tzipporah at this point sees what is happening? And so Tzipporah chooses to get ahead of it, to cauterize the emotional wound of losing her husband?

What she does next, by cutting the foreskin of her son (note the text says her son, not their son) and touching it to Moshe’s feet is a declaration: a declaration of her new status and his: separated. (There is a connection to levirate marriage as described in Deut. 25:9 – the woman also makes a fervent declaration using the man’s foot.)

Tzipporah sees what is going on. And she takes the initiative, because otherwise she undergoes more pain. So she gets ahead of it, declares the division, declares the new status, and her feelings. She cauterizes her emotional wound.

Is this why she calls him “A bloody bridegroom”?

The word for “bridegroom” in the Torah is first found referring to Lot’s sons-in-law: they are connected relatives who, when it came down to it, declined to follow their own wives when the core family fled the city. In other words, “bridegroom” in this case is someone who may not be around for long, someone who may be henceforth separated.

Isn’t this what Moses and Tzipporah and their sons do after this episode? Separate?

Indeed, in Ex. 18, Moshe’s father-in-law effects a reunion, bringing Tzipporah and her two sons to Moshe (with no sign that she came of her own accord). The word “bridegroom” is used in this section no less than 6 times in 8 verses – not the word for “husband” or “master.” Did not the division that Tzipporah created in the marriage indeed become the new reality?

Might the word mul refer to an eternal incision? One that separates Moses from his wife and sons, as Moses becomes reserved exclusively for G-d?

Might this help explain why Jews bless our children to be like our forefathers and mothers – but not like Moshe and Tzipporah or their sons? Wasn’t their situation unique, and something we should not try to emulate?

Doesn’t it appear that while Moshe and Tzipporah remain technically married, they are never again intimate? Is Tzipporah a victim?