This past week we began the Book of Shemot, the book of Names, most commonly known as Exodus. I’m sharing my d’var from Kabbalat Shabbat:
Shemot holds theological audacity and is theologically riveting; Shemot is, I think, a form of erusin, God’s betrothal and love letter to Israel.
Tonight, I want to speak about love. About hope. I read this short story this morning:
“My stepdad, Greg, never said ‘I love you.’ He was a hard man. Worked construction. Came home, ate, slept. He paid for my college. He paid for my car. But he never hugged me. I always thought he resented me. I wasn’t his real son. Greg died of a heart attack last week. I was cleaning out his truck. In the glove box, I found a worn-out notebook. It was a diary.
Entry 1: Met a woman with a boy today. The boy looks sad. I want to make him smile. Entry 50: The boy needs braces. Picking up extra shifts. Entry 200: He graduated today. I stayed in the back so I wouldn’t embarrass him with my dirty work clothes. I’ve never been prouder. Entry 500: I wish I knew how to talk to him. I just hope he knows I’d die for him. I sat in the driver’s seat of his dusty truck and cried until I couldn’t breathe. He didn’t say it. He did it. Every single day. Love isn’t always words. Sometimes, it’s calloused hands and a tired back.”
I thought about the tired backs of the Israelites, their wordless, nameless existence. I thought about where we read the people groaned and cried and moaned – and God? God heard, remembered, saw and knew. And then an angel appeared in a flaming bush and God encountered, or perhaps, chanced upon Moses. A conversation ensues, with Moses remonstrating he was not the man to choose to lead the people out of their subservience.
First Moses says, He nei ni, Here I am, which then became, “Who am I? Me anochi?
And then Moses said, “…when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your forefathers has sent me to you and they say to me, What is his Name? what shall I say to them? And God answered Yiyeh Asher Yiyeh – I shall be as I shall be. So, tell the Children of Israel I Shall Be has sent me to you.
God remembered us. God didn’t forget us – ever. Our people then -and now – need to remember that I Shall Be is with us. And we shall be. Each one of us shall be.
The ultimate statement of love is I hear you, I remember you, I see you, I know you. Like Greg’s step-dad, I love you was and is embedded in one hearing and knowing the other one. The actions of love.
I suggest the Torah of our people has a new beginning here. We remember, we hear, we see and we know. Shemot is like erusin – a ritual of betrothal. We aren’t at the chuppah yet – Sinai will come, but first we gather our families and betroth one to the other. God and the people Israel.
Erusin, betrothal in former times was separate from the chuppah ceremony; often months apart, but it was a ceremony of sanctification, sexuality prohibited with anyone else and even with each other until the chuppah ceremony – which is probably why the two rituals have become one in modern weddings.
Thus, I believe this parashah is imbued with that act of intimate revelation that is this thing we call love.
Shemot, this Book of Names, names and records this moment in our history. And we are hopeful. We too remember. We too weep in our own unknowing. “I Shall Be” has never abandoned us. These words in our Torah proclaim for all time; This is My Name forever, and this is my remembrance from generation to generation. Amen.
With love,
Rabbi Lynn, Chanah Leah bat Avraham v’Sarah
Va’eria
January 13, 2026 by Rabbi Lynn Greenhough • From the Rabbi's Desk
This past week we began the Book of Shemot, the book of Names, most commonly known as Exodus. I’m sharing my d’var from Kabbalat Shabbat:
Shemot holds theological audacity and is theologically riveting; Shemot is, I think, a form of erusin, God’s betrothal and love letter to Israel.
Tonight, I want to speak about love. About hope. I read this short story this morning:
“My stepdad, Greg, never said ‘I love you.’ He was a hard man. Worked construction. Came home, ate, slept. He paid for my college. He paid for my car. But he never hugged me. I always thought he resented me. I wasn’t his real son. Greg died of a heart attack last week. I was cleaning out his truck. In the glove box, I found a worn-out notebook. It was a diary.
Entry 1: Met a woman with a boy today. The boy looks sad. I want to make him smile. Entry 50: The boy needs braces. Picking up extra shifts. Entry 200: He graduated today. I stayed in the back so I wouldn’t embarrass him with my dirty work clothes. I’ve never been prouder. Entry 500: I wish I knew how to talk to him. I just hope he knows I’d die for him. I sat in the driver’s seat of his dusty truck and cried until I couldn’t breathe. He didn’t say it. He did it. Every single day. Love isn’t always words. Sometimes, it’s calloused hands and a tired back.”
I thought about the tired backs of the Israelites, their wordless, nameless existence. I thought about where we read the people groaned and cried and moaned – and God? God heard, remembered, saw and knew. And then an angel appeared in a flaming bush and God encountered, or perhaps, chanced upon Moses. A conversation ensues, with Moses remonstrating he was not the man to choose to lead the people out of their subservience.
First Moses says, He nei ni, Here I am, which then became, “Who am I? Me anochi?
And then Moses said, “…when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your forefathers has sent me to you and they say to me, What is his Name? what shall I say to them? And God answered Yiyeh Asher Yiyeh – I shall be as I shall be. So, tell the Children of Israel I Shall Be has sent me to you.
God remembered us. God didn’t forget us – ever. Our people then -and now – need to remember that I Shall Be is with us. And we shall be. Each one of us shall be.
The ultimate statement of love is I hear you, I remember you, I see you, I know you. Like Greg’s step-dad, I love you was and is embedded in one hearing and knowing the other one. The actions of love.
I suggest the Torah of our people has a new beginning here. We remember, we hear, we see and we know. Shemot is like erusin – a ritual of betrothal. We aren’t at the chuppah yet – Sinai will come, but first we gather our families and betroth one to the other. God and the people Israel.
Erusin, betrothal in former times was separate from the chuppah ceremony; often months apart, but it was a ceremony of sanctification, sexuality prohibited with anyone else and even with each other until the chuppah ceremony – which is probably why the two rituals have become one in modern weddings.
Thus, I believe this parashah is imbued with that act of intimate revelation that is this thing we call love.
Shemot, this Book of Names, names and records this moment in our history. And we are hopeful. We too remember. We too weep in our own unknowing. “I Shall Be” has never abandoned us. These words in our Torah proclaim for all time; This is My Name forever, and this is my remembrance from generation to generation. Amen.
With love,
Rabbi Lynn, Chanah Leah bat Avraham v’Sarah