Shemot — Names
Hebrew: שְׁמוֹת | Book: Shemot (Exodus)
Summary
The Israelites enslaved in Egypt; Moses’s birth and early life; the burning bush; God’s commission of Moses.
Chabad Chassidic Teachings
Names: The Inner Essence
The book of Shemot opens with the listing of the shemot (names) of Jacob’s sons. In Kabbalistic thought, a name is not merely a label — it is the expression of the inner essence of a being. To know something’s true name is to know its spiritual nature.
The Alter Rebbe taught: the Hebrew shem (name) is related to sham (there) — the name points to where the essence of the being resides. This is why the exile in Egypt is described as a time of name-forgetting: when a person loses touch with their spiritual identity, they lose their name in the deepest sense.
Moses and the Burning Bush: Ein od Milvado
God appears to Moses in a burning bush that is not consumed. Chabad interpretation:
- The bush (sneh) = the physical world in its lowly state
- The fire = Divine energy, ohr Ein Sof
- “Not consumed” = the physical is not destroyed by Divinity but illuminated by it — Ein od Milvado (there is nothing but God), yet the physical remains
This is the metaphor for all of creation: burning with Divine energy yet maintaining its physical form.
The Divine Name: Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh
God reveals the name “I Am That I Am” (Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh). Chabad reads this as the revelation of the infinite present tense of Divine existence — not a historical God who “was,” but the God who is at every moment of existence. The alef-bet permutation of this name is YH-VH — the name that expresses God’s constant, immediate, present creation of all reality.
Key Concepts
Sources Cited
Shemot 3:2; Shemot 3:14; Zohar II:20a