To The Editor:
I appreciate the kind words of reviewer Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel about my new book, The Real Name of God: Embracing the Full Essence of the Divine. In a review written for a popular, non-academic publication, his numerous texts references and eight footnotes (!) quite evidently display his own erudition and learning.
The reviewer is certainly entitled to his opinion in disagreeing with my findings about the name of the Whole, Complete God, but, sadly, his major criticisms stem from his lack of careful reading of both the biblical text and the text of my book.
Just a few examples (among a number of others):
1. Samuel objects to my translation of the word Anochi as the name of God. The revolutionary discovery of the Bible’s real Name of God — Anochi — is, of course, the very core of The Real Name of God. In the book, I address all the arguments Samuel makes, through my study of the etymology and history of the word, and the teachings brought by the sages in the Midrash, Talmud, Zohar, and one of the major Chasidic Rebbes, who all knew that the real name of God is Anochi, but could not yet give it over to the world; instead they left us clear hints in their writings (all these teachings are footnoted in the book.) While the reviewer is entitled to hold fast to his traditional understandings, all the biblical texts that I translate and comment upon bring the proof that Anochi is the real name of God. All the other names we have for God reflect just one aspect, or attribute, or manifestation of God; Anochi is the Whole, Complete God.
2. Samuel argues that the name that God chooses to be called is conveyed to Moses as “I Am That I Am” or some variation of that translation. If he had carefully read both the biblical text and my commentary on it, he would have known that the entire sequence where God instructs Moses to tell the people the name “I Am” begins with the word Anochi – I-Source Am the God of your father…” (Ex. 3:6) Moses, and only Moses, is at a high enough spiritual level to know the name of the Whole God, Anochi. The people are not yet at that level, so God tells Moses to give them a name that they can best understand at that spiritual, energetic moment in time. “I Am” is Anochi. Anochi is the “I Am” Presence.
3. Samuel posits that knowing the name Anochi does not alleviate some of our problems with God who sometimes acts capriciously or harshly. Of course not. That is exactly the point. Anochi is the Everything of the Everything, encompassing both male and female, light and dark, good and evil, right and wrong, justice and compassion. When, in an example the reviewer cites, Anochi announces the coming flood, it is because such a declaration cannot be left to any aspect or manifestation of God, but must be made by Anochi, AnochiSelf. Throughout the Bible, when the situation is most difficult, most joyous, or most serious, the full Source is vital to the teaching or the event, so it is Anochi who speaks.
Too many people get caught up in the singular notion of the male, authoritarian, vengeful God, and, thus, reject God entirely. This discovery acknowledges the totality of Anochi’s attributes and behaviors, and offers the wholeness of God to anyone who is seeking a true understanding of and relationship with God. The lesson to us — we who are created “in the Image of God” — is to strive to imitate God’s qualities of goodness and righteous more than God’s less savory characteristics and attributes. Rather than being a criticism, the reviewer underscores my point.
4. The reviewer blithely — and I would say condescendingly and rudely — dismisses my interpretation’s “endearing quality,” “reductionist style of critical biblical scholars,” “new-age styled Jewish expositions,” “Promethean attitude,” and my teachings as “neo-chasidic” and “theological midrash.” Actually, in the Introduction I clearly state that, while my teachings are based in solid, quality scholarship, in the lineage of biblical commentators throughout the generations, this is my “sefer,” my interpretation of the text. And, in the Epilogue, I proudly define myself as an egalitarian neo-Kabbalist and an egalitarian neo-Chasid.
The reviewer comes from a background of deep Talmudic study and adherence to the strict legalities and ritual observances of Judaism. These different approaches to modern Jewish life go back to the disputes between the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov. Then and now, whenever old, comfortable, long-held beliefs are challenged, and new visions are offered, it can be very scary and threatening, and can be readily scorned and rejected by those who steadfastly cling to what “has always been.
I did not “make up” the real name of God. I merely discovered what has been hiding in plain sight right in the Bible for all these millennia. The book, The Real Name of God is a modern-day revelation; “new Torah for a new time” sourced in very old Torah that has been waiting for the right energetic moment in time to be revealed. I ask you to not be unduly influenced by a reviewer with a particular agenda. Please read the book and decide for yourself. Then, come with me to Sinai to discover the real Name of God, to meet God Face to Face, and to come into a deep, personal, intimate, loving relationship with God.
Rabbi Wayne Dosick