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Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
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Dina Gudai, Israeli Representative
Phone: 074-7800643
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Please mail your check to:
The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
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Attn: Mr. Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
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Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
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Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
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Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
Your donation will be tax deductible in the US to the extent allowed by the IRS.
To make a tax-deductible donation by wire transfer in the US, please contact:
Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
To make a tax-deductible donation in Israel, please contact:
Dina Gudai, Israeli Representative
Phone: 074-7800643
Email: dina@schechter.ac.il
Please mail your check to:
The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
Box #3566
PO Box 8500
Philadelphia, PA 19178-3566
Attn: Mr. Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
Please indicate the donation is "for your joint Schechter Institutes program."
Checks should be made payable to the Jewish Theological Society of Canada and mailed to:
Jewish Theological Society of Canada
c/o Camp Ramah in Canada
3845 Bathhurst St., Suite 310
Toronto, ON, M3H 3N2
Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
E-mail: accounting@campramah.com
Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
We learn in the tractate of Megillah folio 15a and parallel sources:
כל האומר דבר בשם אומרו מביא גאולה לעולם.
“Whoever says something in the name of the person who told him, brings redemption to the world”.
Therefore, I wanted to tell you that I got the idea for this dvar torah from my brother Cantor Abe Golinkin. We trade divrei torah on the phone every week. He suggested a few days ago that I use a very interesting Midrash found in the Talmud, Berakhot, folio 9b, and he even shared with me two of the three ideas which I will present.
Here is the passage in Hebrew:
״אהיה אשר אהיה״ — אמר לו הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה: לך אמור להם לישראל: אני הייתי עימכם בשעבוד זה, ואני אהיה עמכם בשעבוד מלכיות. אמר לפניו: ריבונו של עולם, דיה לצרה בשעתה! אמר לו הקדוש ברוך הוא: לך אמור להם: ״אהיה״ שלחני אליכם.
It says in Exodus chapter 3 that God tells Moses that His name is אהיה אשר אהיה, I will be what I will be.
“Said the Holy one blessed be He to Moses: go tell the Jewish people, I was with you in this oppression, and I will be with you in the oppression of future kingdoms.
Moses said to God: Master of the universe, it is enough to talk about this trouble in its proper time! God replied, go say to them ‘I will be’ sent me to you”.
In other words,God called himself “I will be what I will be”, saying that I am with you in this trouble and I will be with you in future troubles as well. Moses said that talking about the future troubles of the Jewish people would depress them now, and therefore God changed His name, and told Moses to tell the people that “I will be” sent me to you.
I would like to derive three lessons from this amazing midrash, and connect them both to the Holiday of Pesah and to our current situation in Israel:
The first lesson is that God was with us in Egypt, and he will be with us in all of our future troubles. This is similar to the message of והיא שעמדה which we sing at the Seder every year:
“And this promise has stood for our ancestors and for us. For not only one enemy has risen against us to annihilate us, but in every generation, there are those who rise against us to annihilate us. But the Holy one, blessed be He, saves us from their hand.”
Throughout history, our enemies have tried to destroy the Jewish people: Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Haman, the Greeks in the time of the Maccabees, the Romans in the year 70, many medieval kings, Chmelnitzki, the Nazis, and Hamas ימח שמם. All of those enemies disappeared from the face of the earth, yet we are still here to recite the Haggadah 3200 years later.
The second lesson is very relevant to our current political situation in Israel. In this amazing midrash, God actually changes his mind as a result of His dialogue with Moses. Moses says that the name “I will be what I will be” will cause the Jewish people to be depressed, so God then changes his mind and changes his name!
The lesson is, that if God is willing to conduct a dialogue with a human being and change His mind, how much the more so must human beings conduct a dialogue with each other and be willing to change their minds! If we will imitate God, imitatio dei, in the State of Israel today, we will be in a much better place.
Finally, there is a variant version of this Midrash in Exodus Rabbah (ed. Shinan, p. 128) which adds one sentence at the end. After God changes his name to אהיה, I will be, God says לךָ אני מודיע, להָם אֵי אני מודיע
To you I say my full name; To them I do not.
In other words, rabbis or teachers or Seder leaders need to tailor their message to their audience. Moses was capable of understanding God’s full name אהיה אשר אהיה, I will be what I will be; the Jewish people who were still slaves in Egypt were not — so God shortened His name.
So it is at the Seder. We need to explain the Exodus in different ways to adults or teenagers or young children.
I have here on my desk the package of Seder questions prepared by the TALI staff, both in Hebrew, and in the new English edition. There are 4 different sets of cards here, and each set of cards is aimed at a different age group. This is an excellent educational approach, and I use these cards every year with our grandchildren at the Seder.
In summary, we learn three important lessons from this brief midrash found in Berakhot fol. 9b:
Hag sameah from Schechter!
Image via Shutterstock
David Golinkin is President of The Schechter Institutes, Inc. and President Emeritus of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies. For twenty years he served as Chair of the Va’ad Halakhah (Law Committee) of the Rabbinical Assembly which gives halakhic guidance to the Masorti Movement in Israel. He is the founder and director of the Institute of Applied Halakhah at Schechter and also directs the Center for Women in Jewish Law. Rabbi Professor Golinkin made aliyah in 1972, earning a BA in Jewish History and two teaching certificates from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He received an MA in Rabbinics and a PhD in Talmud from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America where he was also ordained as Rabbi. For a complete bio click here.
