This Shabbat we begin reading from the book of Shemot. Moses is tending to his sheep in the wilderness when his life is interrupted by fire that burns yet is not consumed. This burning bush is not merely a miracle, it is a summons. Moses is charged with returning to Egypt to confront power, awaken hope, and lead the Israelites toward freedom.
Before accepting the task, Moses asks a question: “When I come to the Children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is God’s name?’, what shall I say to them?” (Exodus 3:13). God’s response is enigmatic and electrifying: “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh,” “I am/will be what I am/will be.” Tell the Israelites, Ehyeh, I Am or I Will Be has sent you.
I have always been fascinated by this moment. The Torah offers many names for God, each illuminating a different aspect of the Divine; justice, compassion, transcendence, immanence, intimacy. But Ehyeh feels qualitatively different from all the others. It refuses to define God. It does not describe what God is, but gestures toward what God is becoming. Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh cannot be restricted by philosophical categories or theological systems. Perhaps the best way to understand Ehyeh is not as a concept to be grasped, but as a continuous process of emergence and unfolding. The Divine is encountered not as a fixed being but as presence-in-motion, unfolding within history, relationship, and human experience.
While God’s ultimate essence may flow from a timeless, supernal realm beyond human comprehension, however that is not where relationships happen. We live in time. We live in bodies. We live in changing inner landscapes. Sefer Yetzirah, an early mystical text, describes reality through three interwoven dimensions: Olam (place), Shanah (time), and Nefesh (consciousness or soul). Our encounter with the Divine is always shaped by our geographical environment, our society, culture and who we are at any given moment, and none of these are static. They shift constantly.
That is why Ehyeh cannot be frozen into doctrine. The God Moses encounters at the bush is not the same God the Israelites will encounter at the sea, or at Sinai, or in the wilderness. The Divine presence meets people where they are, not where rigid dogmatic systems would insist they should be. As our circumstances change, as our consciousness deepens or fractures, so too does the way the Divine becomes present to us.
Each morning we articulate this powerful verse in our prayers: “Ha’mechadesh b’tuvo b’chol yom tamid ma’aseh v’reishit,” the One who renews, in goodness, every day is continuously manifesting and creating. Creation is not a completed act buried in the distant past. It is ongoing. Every moment carries the possibility of renewal, of re-creation, of becoming something other than what was.
This is where Ehyeh becomes not only a name of God, but a spiritual orientation. The aspect of Divinity with which we can align is dynamic and alive. Ehyeh invites growth, responsiveness, and deeper awareness. It stands in direct opposition to Mitzrayim, not Egypt as a geographical location, but mitzrayim as constriction, narrowness, stagnation, and fear. In mitzrayim, nothing new can emerge. Identity, thought and being is frozen.
We have all been in mitzrayim. God knows I have. Those inner places where we feel trapped by habit, wounded by the past, or resigned to “this is just how things are.” The Exodus story insists that such places are not final. Liberation begins not only with breaking physical chains, but with encountering a God who says, I am not finished. You are not finished.
Together, in community, we can step into what I would call the Ehyeh zone. Just as the Divine is continually creating and renewing, so can we participate in that movement. The possibility of change is open to us b’chol yom tamid, every day, every moment.
To be in the image of Ehyeh is to open ourselves to the possibility of true spiritual connection with one another. It is a connection based not on certainty or control, but on presence. It means meeting each other not only as we are at any given moment, but as we are becoming. It asks us to resist the temptation to fix and to label, but instead to stand with one another in the unfolding mystery of life.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi George Mordecai
Superb Rabbi George. Thank you.