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A Case of Mistaken Identity: Insights into Torah and Halacha from Rav Ozer Glickman א"טילש ןנחלא קחצי ונבר תבישיב מ"ר
A Case of Mistaken Identity: Insights into Torah and Halacha from Rav Ozer Glickman א"טילש ןנחלא קחצי ונבר תבישיב מ"ר
A Case of Mistaken Identity: Insights into Torah and Halacha from Rav Ozer Glickman א"טילש ןנחלא קחצי ונבר תבישיב מ"ר
that this appelation is reserved exclusively in Chumash For the Patriarchs and and a gentile seer. In four places, the name is used in
connection with Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, or (l’havdil) Bilaam. The only other connection in which the name appears is the most
instructive:
:ה לא נודעתי להם-ו-ה-די ושמי י-ל ש-וארא אל אברהם אל יצחק ואל יעקב בא
There is an aspect of God unrevealed to those who preceded Mosheh Rabbenu. They knew Him as ““די-ל ש-“ א. What is this aspect
and how does it differ from God at Har Sinai? The Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim explains the word ““as “( “דיsufficient) with the prefix
“ש,“a contraction of “ “אשרor “that is.” Avraham perceived God as “Sufficient in and of Himself,” i.e., not contingent on the world for
His existence. This is God as Transcendent and outside the Universe.
After Mattan Torah, we perceive God as King, Father, Lawgiver. In these aspects, God is partially defined by His relationships.
A king has subjects, a father children, a lawgiver a code. Once the shift has been made at Sinai to Divine Law, the relationship
between Lawgiver and the Universe governed by that Law is defined and can be known.
The Transcendent God, די-ל ש-א, stands wholly outside the comprehension of the human mind. Avraham Avinu struggled
with the destruction of the world during the generation of the Deluge and came to locate the existence of God in the depths of his
own consciousness. He searched for God and God reached out to him. The contours of the Divine relationship with the world are
unknowable to Avraham Avinu. His advocacy for the innocent is suddenly left unanswered; the conversation abruptly ends with no
overarching moral principle.
Secular morality failed during the generations preceding Noach. Avraham Avinu is not a social progressive; his morality is
cosmological. Hitchens may not understand the distinction but Shakespeare did. King Lear is a paean to non-contingent morality
built into the fabric of creation.
But as Shakespeare notes, even morality as cosmology can fail. The transformation of the clan into a people will require the
institution of Law which will thereafter frame the relationship between God and His people.
שבת שלום
These sichos are published by students and admirers of Rav Ozer Glickman shlit”a. We may be reached at ravglickmanshiur@gmail.com.