Shabbat Va-eira
January 24-25, 2020 – 28 Tevet 5780
Torah: Exodus 6:2 - 9:35
Haftarah: Ezekiel 28:25 - 29:21

God spoke to Moses at the opening of this week’s Torah reading and tried to let Moses know the divine name. God self-identified by three names in these first few verses alone: the Tetragrammaton (the four-name spelled yod-heh-vav-heh for which we say “Adonai”), Elohim, and El Shaddai.

There are many more names for God in Torah, many more paths to an encounter with the Creator of the Universe.

All of us as Jews are charged to both behave by the ethical standards of Judaism and find our own way to God so that our spirits can sustain the moral behavior we are asked to follow.

We get to define our own relationship with God. We don’t get to define that relationship for others. This is the difference in Judaism between religion – the framework in which we try to understand what God asks from us and improve our behavior – and spirituality or mysticism – the personal encounter between our souls and God.

Wishing everyone a week spiritual journeys that inform our good citizenship,

Rabbi Freirich