Dvar Torah: The God of Becoming: Finding Faith in Uncertainty

How do you imagine the first moment God breaks centuries of silence and speaks to Moshe?

We have certain expectations of the Divine. We expect majesty. We expect power. If we were choosing the location, we might pick a cedar of Lebanon, towering and ancient. We might choose a jagged mountain peak, or a storm like the one that will eventually descend on Sinai. We expect the setting to match the status of the occupant.

Yet when the time comes to break the silence of centuries and speak to Moshe, God defies every expectation. The setting is a sneh—a lowly, prickly thorn-bush. A shrub that offers no shade, produces no fruit, possesses no beauty. The humblest plant in the desert.[1]

A Midrash notices exactly what we notice. Shemot Rabbah asks: why a thorn-bush? And it answers: to teach that there is no place devoid of the Divine presence, the Shechinah, not even a thorn-bush, not even the lowest, most painful places.[2]

That is already profound comfort. God is not found only in the beautiful, the successful, the photogenic. God is found in the thorns. God is found where we would rather not look.

But the thorn-bush does more than teach us where God can be found. It hints at how God behaves.

A God who chooses the thorn-bush is not a distant monarch. Not the Greek ideal of the "Unmoved Mover"—perfection understood as being untouched, unchangeable, unbothered.[3] The God of the thorn-bush goes to where the pain is. God is present not above the world, but within it. A God who is moved. Abraham Joshua Heschel called this divine pathos: the claim that God is not indifferent, that God cares, that the world matters to God.[4]

Which is why Moshe's question, in the very next breath, feels so human.

Moshe asks: "When they ask me, 'What is God’s name?', what shall I say?"[5] On the surface, it sounds practical. But Moshe is not really asking for information. If he were, saying “the God of Avraham, of Yitzchak and of Yaakov” would’ve been enough. He is asking for trust. How can I trust a God I cannot define?

We human beings love nouns. We love names. If we can name something, we can grasp it. If we can grasp it, we can control it. That impulse lives very close to the heart of idolatry—not only bowing to statues, but turning the infinite into something finite. Trading the God who calls for a god we can manage.

And we live, perhaps more than most generations, in a time of radical uncertainty. Some of it is personal: health, family, relationships, ageing. Some of it is communal: identity, cohesion, conflict. Some of it is global: violence, climate, technology, the constant sense that the ground can shift under our feet.

In such a world, the temptation is to ask religion to become a theological security blanket. We want God to be the answer that makes uncertainty go away. We want God to be a noun: solid, dependable, unchanging. A cosmic controller who has everything decided.

Then the Torah does something extraordinary. God refuses to give Moshe a noun. Instead, God gives him a verb:

Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh.[6]

Some of us might’ve grown up hearing it translated as "I Am That I Am." It sounds majestic, philosophical, static. Pure Being. A God who is complete, finished, beyond all motion.

But the Hebrew refuses to sit still. Ehyeh is in the imperfect tense. It leans forward. It opens out. "I Will Be What I Will Be." Not a frozen definition, but an unfolding presence. Not only "being," but "becoming."

Here we need to name an influence that many of us carry without noticing. Greek philosophy gave Western religious imagination a powerful picture of God as perfection-through-unchangeability. That picture influenced Christian theology, and it also influenced medieval Jewish philosophy. Maimonides develops a model of God as absolute, necessary existence, beyond change and beyond any human attribute.[7] There is grandeur in that vision. But it can become spiritually dangerous when it quietly turns God into a cosmic controller, a being of absolute certainty, too perfect to be affected.

That is not the God speaking from a thorn-bush.

Because in the Torah itself, God does not merely announce existence. God speaks relationship.

"I have surely seen the affliction of My people."

"I have heard their cry."

"I know their suffering."

"And I have come down to deliver them."[8]

This is not a God untouched by the world. This is a God who is affected by what human beings do to one another. Rashi sensed this dynamism immediately. He interprets Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh not as a metaphysical definition, but as a promise of presence: "I will be with them in this sorrow, just as I will be with them in future troubles."[9]

Do you hear the difference? The Greek God says, "I exist." The Jewish God says, "I will be with you." The first offers certainty; the second offers relationship.

And this is where Jewish Process Theology becomes not just an intellectual exercise, but a lifeline. Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson challenges the picture of God as a coercive monarch who has already decided everything. He offers instead a God of relationship, a God who does not override human freedom but works through it, inviting, luring, calling creation towards healing and wholeness. Not the "Unmoved Mover," but the "Most Moved Mover."[10]

If God says "I will be," then the future is not predetermined. It is open. Who God becomes in history depends, in part, on what we do. We are not passive recipients of a fixed plan. We are partners in redemption.

That is thrilling, and it is frightening.

It is thrilling because it means the world's brokenness is not the last chapter. It means change is genuinely possible. It means our actions matter, not as footnotes to a script, but as real contributions to what the future becomes.

But it is frightening because it means we cannot cling to the idol of certainty. We cannot know how the story ends. We cannot outsource responsibility to the heavens.

The Talmud offers a remarkable scene that captures this theology in narrative form. In Tractate Brachot, God initially wants Moshe to tell Israel, "I will be with you in this suffering, and I will be with you in future sufferings." Moshe protests: do not mention future sufferings now, it is enough that they bear the suffering of the present. And God agrees, and tells him to say simply: "Ehyeh has sent me to you."[11]

Read as theology, it is startling. God not only speaks, God listens. God not only commands, God responds. God enters a dialogue about what people can bear. It is a portrait of divine relationship, not divine distance.

Now, if this is the God in parashat Sh'mot, what changes for us?

First, it changes how we pray. If we pray to a God who has already decided everything, prayer becomes either performance or persuasion. But if we pray to Ehyeh, the God of becoming, prayer becomes relationship. Prayer becomes alignment, but not passive alignment. It becomes turning ourselves towards the divine call, answering it, arguing with it, consenting to it, and then returning to it again.[12]

Second, it changes what "faith" means. Faith is not certainty. Faith is not knowing the ending. Faith is the willingness to live without the idol of control, whilst staying in relationship with a God who cannot be pinned down.

And third, it changes how we live with suffering. A static, all-controlling God can make suffering unbearable, because if God is the cosmic controller, then every tragedy becomes either willed or permitted with full power to prevent it. That is the theology that breaks people's hearts.

The thorn-bush suggests something else. God is present in suffering, not as its author, but as its companion, and as the power that calls us towards response. God is the fire that burns, yet does not consume. Not the destroyer, but the resilience. Not the one who guarantees we will never be in the thorns, but the one who meets us there and calls us towards a different future.

And perhaps this is why the bush burns but is not consumed. Not because redemption is a single moment that fixes everything. But because becoming is ongoing. The fire keeps burning, and still we are not consumed.

So here is the invitation for this Shabbat.

Let us be honest about our uncertainty. Let us stop demanding from theology what theology was never meant to provide: total control.

Instead, let us listen for the voice that calls from the thorn-bush, not from the places where we feel powerful and composed, but from the places where life scratches, where the world hurts, where we are tempted to look away.

And when that voice says, "I will be," let us hear it as promise and responsibility.

Promise: the present is not the final word.

Responsibility: the future is being written, and our choices are part of the ink.

We do not worship a thing. We worship in relationship. We do not follow a map with every turn marked out. We are in dialogue with a voice that says: I will be with you, as I will be with you.

And in a world that is uncertain, and sometimes frightening, and often unfinished, that is enough.

Shabbat Shalom.

[1] Exodus 3:1–2.

[2] Shemot Rabbah 2:5.

[3] Aristotle, Metaphysics

[4] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets.

[5] Exodus 3:13.

[6] Exodus 3:14.

[7] Moses Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed I:63.

[8] Exodus 3:7–8.

[9] Rashi on Exodus 3:14.

[10] Bradley Shavit Artson, God of Becoming and Relationship: The Dynamic Nature of Process Theology (Jewish Lights, 2013).

[11] Babylonian Talmud, Brachot 9b.

[12] Toba Spitzer, "Why We Need Process Theology," CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly (Winter 2012).

Between Palace and People: Moshe's Test of Privilege

Do you know people who move around a lot, whether by choice or necessity? Diplomats and their children, people with international careers, "expats", and their families, people in the military, and sometimes rabbis and their families too. Johannesburg is the ninth city in which I have lived. When my daughter finished primary school, she had already attended seven schools across three continents. It might sound glamorous on paper, but in real life it often means instability, constant goodbyes, and having to rebuild a sense of home from scratch.

People who move that much often develop two traits that seem to pull in opposite directions. On the one hand, they become skilled at beginning again: starting new relationships, adapting quickly, learning new social codes, and discovering new ways of seeing the world. On the other hand, they often remain outsiders even while they are welcomed in. They question accepted norms more than most, not necessarily out of rebellion, but because they have seen that "normal" changes from place to place. They carry a slightly different perspective, even when they love the community they are part of.

To some extent, that is also a summary of the Jewish historical experience. There were extraordinary periods, in many lands, when Jews were accepted, even celebrated, woven into the fabric of society. And there were periods of persecution that were frequent enough, and intense enough, to train us into a kind of readiness. We kept boxes for the next move. We invested in what could be carried. We learned how to restart. Yet we also integrated. We became business leaders, politicians, artists, intellectuals. We were invited into circles of influence, until the wheel turned again. Paradoxically, we became, in the imagination of others, both the stereotypical insider and the perpetual outsider.

This week's parashah, Sh'mot, gives us the origin story of Moshe, a person formed by that tension. He is raised in Pharaoh's palace, the definition of an insider. When he flees Egypt and reaches Midian, Yitro's daughters identify him as an Egyptian because he looks, speaks, and behaves like one.[1] Yet when God speaks to him for the first time, God does not simply say: "I am the God of Israel." God says: "I am the God of your father, the God of Avraham, the God of Yitzchak, and the God of Yaakov."[2] Moshe belongs, even if his belonging is complicated.

That complicated belonging is not a footnote. It is the engine of Moshe's leadership. An insider can enter rooms others are kept out of. An outsider can notice what insiders learn not to see. Moshe is both: shaped by the empire's etiquette, yet able to hear a suffering that the empire treats as background noise.

The Torah captures his awakening in one short scene: "Moshe went out… and he saw their burdens."[3] He leaves the comfort of the palace, and he allows himself to look. That first act matters more than we think, because every system of oppression depends on cultivated blindness. It needs decent people to avert their eyes, to get used to what should never become normal. Moshe refuses to get used to it.

And then he risks something. He intervenes when he sees violence. However we judge his actions, the direction is clear: he does not use privilege as a shield from responsibility, but as a reason to step in. Privilege, in Sh'mot, is not merely an advantage. It is a test. Will access soften his conscience or harden it?

But we should be careful not to read Moshe as the lone hero who brings redemption to a passive people. Resistance was already underway before Moshe ever left the palace. Shifrah and Puah, the midwives, had already defied Pharaoh's murderous decree.[4] The Israelites had been surviving, sustaining one another, and resisting in ways the text only hints at. Moshe does not initiate liberation, he joins a struggle already in motion, finding partners like Aharon and Miriam and bringing with him resources and access that can amplify what others have begun. 

This instinct to join the fight follows him everywhere. In Midian, Moshe might've been called an "Egyptian," yet he still sides with the vulnerable at the well. His moral reflex is not only tribal. It is ethical. In each setting, he uses whatever standing he has in that moment, insider or stranger, citizen or guest, to push back against humiliation. This capacity to move between worlds, to understand power's language without being seduced by it, helps explain why he can confront Pharaoh. He knows how the palace thinks, how power speaks, how it rationalizes itself, how it expects people to obey. But he is no longer impressed by it. He has trained his ear to a different voice, the voice of those whose pain is usually unheard. An outsider's sensitivity, paired with an insider's access, becomes a dangerous combination for any unjust regime.

Most of us live with layered belonging. We speak the language of our countries, share their culture, are committed to their future, and show up as citizens and neighbours. We also carry distinct memories and commitments. That can create tension, but it can also create moral clarity. We can be "inside" enough to act, and "outside" enough to notice what the majority normalizes.

Sh'mot suggests a measure of leadership that is demanding, but also hopeful. Not perfection. Not certainty. Not heroic self-image. Leadership can begin when someone crosses the boundary, listens to the cry, and is willing to spend privilege (and sometimes, even to lose it) to join the fight for dignity and liberation.

Shabbat Shalom.

[1] Ex. 2:19

[2] Ex. 3:6

[3] Ex. 2:11

[4] Ex. 1:15-21

Dvar Torá: Parashat Shemot (Templo Beth-El, São Paulo)

Quem aqui já assistiu "Êxodo: Deuses e Reis"? E "Príncipe do Egito"? E "Os Dez Mandamentos"?

Tem alguma coisa especial na história da saída de Bnei Israel, o povo de Israel, de Mitzrayim que faz com que cineastas queiram contá-la tantas vezes. Talvez um bom motivo para este interesse é que, como em todo bom filme de Hollywood, esta história tem excelentes heróis e terríveis vilões. Na sua opinião, quem são os grandes heróis desta história?

Mas o que será que realmente queremos dizer quando dizemos "herói"? Segundo o Aurélio, herói é uma pessoa "extraordinári[a] por seus feitos guerreiros, seu valor ou sua magnanimidade; uma pessoa que por qualquer motivo é centro das atenções; protagonista de uma obra literária. O dicionário Even Shoshan, equivalente em hebraico do Aurélio, adiciona a estas, as seguintes definições para a palavra גבור, herói: חזק ברוחו, אמיץ (com forte espírito, corajoso); דמות שמעריצים אותה ומזדהים איתה (figura admirada e com a qual as pessoas se identificam).

A tradição judaica também tem suas próprias definições para o que é ser um גבור, um herói. Em uma passagem famosa de Pirkei Avot, a Ética dos Pais, que nos desafia a re-pensar alguns dos nossos conceitos, nossos sábios perguntam: 

• Quem é chacham/sábio? Aquele que aprende de qualquer pessoa. 
• Quem é ashir/rico? Aquele que está satisfeito com a sua parte.
• Quem é mechubad/pessoa importante? Aquele que respeita os outros.

E, no que se relaciona diretamente com a nossa pergunta:

• Quem é guibór/herói? Aquele que conquista as suas paixões.[1]

Se eu pudesse adicionar a esta definição de Pirkei Avot sobre quem é um herói, diria que é "aquele que conquista suas paixões e seus medos". 

Em outra passagem de Pirkei Avot, nossos sábios nos ensinam "בְּמַקוֹם שֶׁאֵין אֲנָשִׁים, הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ", "em um lugar em que os outros não são decentes, se esforce para ser decente."  [2] Será que uma pessoa que consegue seguir este padrão de conduta não é um herói também?

Com estas definições em mente, vamos nos perguntar novamente: quem foram os heróis da saída de Mitzrayim? Normalmente, pensamos em Moshé e em Deus como os grandes heróis desta narrativa, mas quem foram os heróis que permitiram, em suas ações cotidianas, que a libertação acontecesse? Quem foram as pessoas que, sem ter sonhos de mudar todo o mundo, agiram com dignidade em um mundo não digno, mesmo que isso implicasse correr grandes riscos?

Nossa tradição tem uma resposta para esta pergunta... Ela nos ensina que "foi pelos méritos das mulheres justas daquela geração que fomos libertados do Egito". Foram duas mulheres - duas heroínas quase anônimas - as primeiras a desafiar o decreto do Faraó para matar os bebês hebreus do sexo masculino. O texto não deixa claro se estas duas mulheres eram judias ou não - המְיַלְּדֹת הָעִבְרִיֹּת pode significar tanto "as parteiras hebréias" quanto "as parteiras das hebréias," – mas foi a elas que o Faraó direcionou sua ordem genocida. Segundo a Torá, as parteiras temeram a Deus, ignoraram a instrução e deixaram os meninos viver, permitindo que o povo hebreu continuasse crescendo. O primeiro ato de desobediência civil do qual temos notícia, desafiando uma ordem imoral em um mundo em que quase não havia possibilidades de dizer "Não!" ao Faraó. Um ato claro de coragem, controlando seus medos e agindo com decência quando a ordem institucional era para que agissem como monstros, um comportamento que desperta nossa admiração. Verdadeiras heroínas! Heroínas do cotidiano, que transformaram o mundo agindo em sua pequena área de influência: o parto de crianças hebreias. 

Outro caso de heroísmo do cotidiano: Em 2007, um curto-circuito causou um incêndio em uma casa na cidade de Palmeira, em Santa Catarina. Desesperada, a dona da casa saiu à rua gritando por socorro para sua filha de apenas um ano e dez meses que dormia em seu quarto. "Um vizinho que passava pela rua, Riquelme dos Santos, acalmou-a dizendo para não se preocupar pois ele salvaria a criança. Dito isso, entrou na casa em chamas e, momentos depois voltou com a menina nos braços, sã e salva. Sem dúvida um feito heróico por si só, mas ainda mais impressionante pelo fato de que, na época, Riquelme tinha apenas cinco anos de idade e estava vestido como seu herói favorito: o Homem Aranha." [3] 

Mais um caso de incêndio aconteceu com Mark Bezos, Diretor de uma ONG em Nova York, chamada "Robin Hood", que também atua como bombeiro voluntário [4]. Ele conta que a primeira vez que pode enfrentar um incêndio, ele chegou alguns segundos depois do primeiro bombeiro voluntário a chegar no local do fogo. Àquele primeiro bombeiro, o capitão pediu que resgatasse o cachorro da proprietária do imóvel que, desesperada, assistia a sua casa pegar fogo, ainda vestindo camisola e sem sapatos nos pés. Quando chegou a vez de Mark receber sua missão, o capitão lhe pediu que entrasse na casa em chamas e trouxesse.... os chinelos da pobre senhora! Ele conta que, quando voltou com os chinelos em mãos, pôde ver que ele não foi recebido com o mesmo entusiasmo com que ela recebeu o bombeiro que tinha o seu cãozinho nos braços. Mas algumas semanas depois, o batalhão dos bombeiros recebeu uma carta da senhora agradecendo seu esforço e dedicação no combate ao fogo. "Sua atenção foi tanta," ela escreveu, "que alguém até trouxe meus chinelos para que eu não ficasse com os pés no chão". Em uma palestra TED, Mark deu o seu recado: nem sempre podemos ser responsáveis por salvar o cachorro, mas isto não deveria nos impedir de tentar trazer o chinelo!

Nossa definição de heroísmo muitas vezes nos congela e impede de tomarmos qualquer iniciativa. Se nosso modelo de heróis se limitar a Deus, Moshé e o Rei David, é difícil que consigamos nos imaginar liderando os 600.000 hebreus que saíram de Mitzrayim ou derrotando Golias. A parashá desta semana nos ensina que todos nós, cada um de nós, tem potencial para ser um pequeno herói do cotidiano.As mulheres da história do Êxodo nos indicam um outro paradigma de heroísmo, um mais próximo da nossa realidade, mas que pode levar a ações que têm o mesmo potencial de impacto.

Se Shifra e Puá, as parteiras que permitiram que Moshé nascesse; Yoheved, a mãe de Moshé, que teve a coragem de trazê-lo ao mundo; Miriam, sua irmã, que o protegeu enquanto ele navegava as águas do Rio Nilo; a filha do Faraó, que decidiu criá-lo, mesmo com a grande chance de que este fosse um menino hebreu; se cada uma delas imaginasse que para ser uma heroína é preciso querer transformar o mundo todo de uma vez só, nenhuma delas teria agido. E, mesmo assim, o impacto de sua ação foi muito maior do que a vizinhança imediata do seu ato de heroísmo do cotidiano. Mesmo sem querer abraçar o mundo, suas ações contribuíram para que a vida do povo de Israel mudasse radicalmente e estabeleceram um novo paradigma para transformações sociais!

Fica aqui um convite para sonharmos com um mundo melhor com nossas máscaras e fantasias de homens-aranha (ou mesmo sem elas) e sairmos pelo mundo com a coragem e a disposição para chegar lá através de atos de heroísmo do cotidiano.

Quem é o seu herói? E para quem você vai mudar o mundo?

Shabat Shalom

[1] Pirkei Avot 4:1. A ordem das definições foi alterada para ênfase.

[2] Pirkei Avot 2:6 

[3] http://www.administradores.com.br/artigos/negocios/voce-nao-precisa-de-superpoderes-para-ser-um-heroi/47673/ e http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/Brasil/0,,MUL175963-5598,00-MENINO+DE+ANOS+SALVA+BEBE+EM+INCENDIO+EM+SC.html

[4] http://ed.ted.com/featured/KHIzatLv