When Moshe stands before the burning bush, he asks a question that sounds almost administrative, yet is anything but:
“Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I tell them?” (Shemot 3:13)
At first glance, Moshe seems to be asking for information. In truth, he is asking for reassurance. What kind of God am I being sent to represent? What kind of faith am I asking the people to summon? God’s answer is one of the most enigmatic - and revolutionary - lines in all of Tanakh: Ehyeh asher Ehyeh.
For centuries, this phrase was flattened into abstraction. Translated into Greek as ego eimi ho on and into Latin as ego sum qui sum - “I am who I am,” it became the foundation for a philosophical God: timeless, changeless, Being-itself. Augustine saw here the God who cannot change. Aquinas read it as the ultimate metaphysical claim: God as eternal, immutable essence.
But, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught so powerfully, this is not the God of the Torah. This is Aristotle’s God, not Avraham’s. Not the God who hears cries, enters history, and redeems slaves. What those translations missed is the future tense.
Ehyeh does not mean “I am.” It means “I will be.” It means, “I will be what I will be. I will be where I will be. I will be how I will be.”
God is not defining His essence. He is declaring His mode of relationship with the world. This is not ontology. This is destiny. God is telling Moshe: You cannot fully know Me in advance. You will know Me through what unfolds. I am about to act in history, but I am not giving you guarantees, schedules, or certainty. I am giving you a mission.
In other words, God is saying: I am in charge, but that does not relieve you of responsibility. It creates it.
“I will be what I will be” means the story is not over. It also means that faith is not fixed, firm, or static. Faith is fluid. It rises and falls. It stretches and strains. Sometimes it is strong; sometimes it barely holds. That is not a flaw in faith. That is faith.
Biblical faith is not confidence in outcomes. It is trust in direction. Trust that God is still guiding history - even when we cannot yet see how, and especially when we cannot feel it.
God tells Moshe the destination in broad strokes. The people will be free, and they will eventually enter a land flowing with milk and honey. But God refuses to provide an exact roadmap. The plagues, the sea, the wilderness, the rebellions, the failures, the setbacks - none of them is disclosed in advance. Why? Because faith that knows the ending is not fully faith. God is teaching Moshe - and us - that faith is not the absence of doubt; it is the willingness to move forward despite it.
Faith is never passive. Human action is always future-oriented. We act to bring about what does not yet exist. Science can analyze the past and explain the present, but it cannot fully account for hope, moral courage, or sacrifice because those live in the future tense. And that is precisely where God lives in the Torah.
When God says Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, He is not only revealing something about Himself. He is revealing something about us. If God believes in the future, then so must we. If God acts in history, then we must act as well. If God does not give up on the world - even when it seems to be careening out of control, then neither may we. Faith, at its core, says: God is in charge, and therefore my choices matter.
This truth was lived - not theorized - by Julie Kuperstein, the mother of Bar Kuperstein, who was kidnapped from the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023. In January 2025, Julie received a phone call. A man speaking Hebrew with a Persian accent claimed to be a member of Hamas. “Bar is in our hands,” he said. He went on to threaten her. He told her she was not doing what they wanted her to do. If she wanted to see her son again, she should go to The Hague and testify against Israel. She should take to the streets and protest the Israeli government. The cruelty was deliberate. The goal was fear, helplessness, and paralysis.
Julie put the phone on speaker and replied calmly, “I’m not afraid of you. Bar isn’t in your hands. He’s in the hands of Hashem. Even in Gaza. And you yourself are also in the hands of Hashem.”
There was silence. Then the terrorist said, before hanging up: “Kol hakavod, giveret - Nicely put, ma’am.”
This was not denial. This was not passivity. This was Ehyeh asher Ehyeh lived in real time. Julie did not say, “God will take care of everything, so I will do nothing.” She said the opposite: “Because God is ultimately in charge, I have the strength to stand, to speak, and to continue.” Faith did not end the struggle. It made endurance possible.
These are heady days. Israel feels heavy. Jewish life feels heavy. Faith itself can feel heavy. Exactly. Redemption is not weightless. Responsibility never is.
Ehyeh asher Ehyeh does not promise ease. It promises partnership. God does what God does - and demands that we do what we can to the best of our ability, even when outcomes are uncertain. Faith does not mean the load disappears. It means we are given the strength to carry it. And when we stumble, we are lifted. When we despair, we are reminded that the story is still unfolding.
God does not say, “I was.” God does not even say, “I am.” God says, “I will be.” And because of that, so must we.
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