Who is it who tells Avraham, “Lech Lecha”? I don’t mean that as it might seem – after all, the Torah tells us: “And Hashem said to Avraham, “Go, you…” Rather, what I mean is this name, Shad-dai (one of the seven holy names; thus I don’t write it completely even in English), regarding which Hashem later said to Moshe, “I was revealed to Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’acov as E-l Shad-dai, but My name, Hashem, I was not known to them”. What aspect of Hashem’s ever-unfolding-to-us Being was revealed to Avraham through that Name? And: Why is understanding this divine name so important to understanding Avraham’s spiritual consciousness and mission?
To be sure, our parashah is peppered with a variety of divine names. But our commentators tell us that it is precisely as/with the Name, Shad-dai, that Hashem makes a covenant with Avraham. So, let’s examine the critical verse:
Toward the end of our parashah, after all the episodes which take Avraham to Egypt, to Dan in the north in hot pursuit of Lot’s captors, up and down the Land with stops at various locations at which Hashem revealed Himself and Avraham responded by sacrifice and altar-building, all the while awaiting that son who would continue his mission – Hashem reveals Himself once again to Avraham, age 99, and promises him a son through Sarah. He commands Avraham regarding the brit milah, changes his name from Avram to Avraham, and there is at least one exchange of great importance between Avraham and Hashem. But let’s focus on the introductory sentence: Hashem says to Avraham: “I am E-l Shad-day, walk yourself before Me and be unblemished/whole/perfect”.
The truth is, we might have preferred that this encounter had taken place BEFORE the beginning of the parashah. After all, Hashem does not introduce Himself to Avraham before charging him with a mission that totally upends his life, as he does with the other prophets.
Yet, in another sense, this IS an introduction before a mission: What has led up to this point is in a real sense only preparatory: NOW it is that Hashem created Avraham from Avram, remakes his being via brit milah, and redirects his energies toward the yet-to-born Yitzchak. So we need to ask: Who is E-l Shaddai, and what does He ask of Avraham?
The Ramban surveys a selections of explanations, before settling on the one he feels is the truest. He brings Rashi’s quote of the Midrash – that Hashem said to His newly created world, “DAI” – Enough! – and it ceased its relentless expansion – an expansion that might have overwhelmed any possibility for life as we know it. He mentions the Rambam’s explanation in Moreh Nevuchim: That the name implies the unique necessity of Hashem’s Being – only He MUST BE – every other being is contingent and therefore different in kind. But the Ramban settles on the explanation brought by Ibn Ezra in the name or R. Shmuel Hanagid: Shad-dai means the one who overcomes and overturns/plough up the heavenly order – that order which, it was understood, dictated nature and the fate of all sublunar beings.
But wait a second: Hashem Himself CREATED nature, He converted Tohu VaVohu to an orderly, comprehensible, lawlike realm – why would He overturn it? Does He wish to return everything to primordial chaos?
The Ma’or VaShemesh (one of the great Chassidic masters of the third generation of Chassidut) has an amazing insight. In describing the process of creation according to the Kabbalistic sources, he states the following: When it went up in (i.e., occurred to) His simple/undifferentiated Will to create worlds, He contracted His G-dliness from mover/cause (ilah) to moved/caused (alul), and the worlds descended…
In other words, G-d chose to undergo a self-estrangement, to become “passive”, actable upon, so that there would be room for other actors. (Note: this is actually a much greater, more incomprehensible yet divinely chosen “catastrophe”, since SELF itself is an expression of limitation, and Hashem chose to move from selflessness to being seen/addressable as a self!) But, continues the Ma’or VaShemesh, this lead to a process of “concretization”, in which being becomes more and more substantial, to the point where, had that process continued, yet-to-be created human beings would not have been able to overcome the demands of the material world with the limited access to spiritual resources at hand. It was at precisely that point that Hashem said to His world “DAI” – Enough! Plenty! He needed to leave the possibility that nature could be seen as a functional, organizing framework, but no more than that? He needed to leave a sliver of insight that our own independent persons were precisely enough to launch a reversal of direction that takes us beyond and back, back to the One we are always, always yearning for especially when we are least aware of it: the Only One.
Hashem shows the way – He “rebels against” and transforms, as it were, His essence, He moves from active to passive, and allows that estrangement which makes for us, so that we can imitate Him in the opposite direction, going before Him, toward the blemishless perfection of divine consciousness. “I am the G-d Who ploughs up the very field I’ve sown, Who casts fate to the winds of chaos and allows for a man who will smash every idol and stand against an entire world in his quest for the source of that whisper-become-roar inside, that dormant Presence waiting for one who, mastering self, could both brandish the knife AND stay his hand from that precious seed here promised: The one who could transform “lech lecha” – go for YOUR benefit, to “hithalech lefanai” – walk before ME, the one who could say, ENOUGH to his own program – that is the one to whom Hashem chose to reveal Himself. I could go on… but that’s enough!
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