What's in a name? Why does God appear under different names?
(3) I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name יהוה.
What's a Brit?
(4) I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners.
How do you experience God?
Nachum Sarna: Understanding Genesis
Myths...have as their subjects the eternal problems of mankind communicated through the medium of highly imaginative language. A myth may be a vital cultural force. It can be a vehicle for the expression of ideas that activate human behavior, that reflect and validate the distinctive forms and qualities of a civilization, that signify a dynamic attitude to the universe and embody a vision of society.
Neil Gillman, Sacred Fragments
"A myth should be understood as a structure through which a community organizes and makes sense of its experiences...Myths are spectacles that enable us to see order in what would otherwise be confusion.
What are our myths?
How do we sense God?
What is "a wind from God"?
Ehyeh means "I am/I will be" . What do you think that means?
A soft murmuring sound....What does that sound like? How do we hear that?
Tetragramaton
יהוה
YHWH
אֲדֹנָי
Martin Buber, I and Thou
Some would deny any legitimate use of the word God because it has been misused so much. Certainly it is the most burdened of all human words. Precisely for that reason it is the most imperishable and unavoidable. And how much weight has all erroneous talk about God’s nature and works (although there never has been nor can be any such talk that is not erroneous) compared with the one truth that all men who have addressed God really meant him? For whoever pronounces the word God and really means You, addresses, no matter what his delusion, the true You of his life that cannot be restricted by any other and to whom he stands in a relationship that includes all others.
What does the "You" mean? Who is "You"?
Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets
God does not reveal himself in abstract absoluteness, but in a personal and intimate relation to the world. He does not simply command and expect obedience; He is also moved and affected by what happens in the world, and reacts accordingly. Events and human actions arouse in Him joy or sorry, pleasure or wrath...He reacts in an intimate and subjective manner, and thus determines the value of events...This notion that God can be intimately affected, that he possesses not merely intelligence and will, but also pathos, basically defines the prophetic consciousness of God.
What does pathos say about God?
Franz Rosenzweig's "Star of Redemption"
What connections do you see?