And He Called by the Name of the Lord
Upon his arrival in the Promised Land, Abraham built an altar and he invoked the name of the (using the ineffable tetragrammaton; Gen. 12:8, JPS translation). He later returned to this altar and again invoked there the name of the (Gen. 13:4). The Bible does not report that a sacrifice was offered at the altar, only that the name of the was invoked. A third time, Abraham planted a tamarisk at Beer-sheba, and invoked there the name of the (Gen. 21:33). The Hebrew phrase used here is va-yikra be-shem, which can also be translated as called by the name of the Lord or called in the name of the What does this phrase mean? What did Abraham do at the altar and the tamarisk? Abraham burst on the stage of history at the age of 75. Very little is recorded about him in the Bible prior to his Divine summons to move to a land that I will show you (Gen. 12:1). It is, however, inconceivable that Abraham would be chosen to be the father of a new, revolutionary monotheistic faith and the father of a nation unless he had proven himself worthy of this status. The Midrash fills this vacuum by portraying Abraham as an iconoclast and as a man willing to give up his life for preaching a faith that brought him into conflict with the authorities in Ur of the Chaldeans. (1) Maimonides, in his monumental work Mishneh Torah (Hilkhot Avodat Kokhavim 1:3), elaborates: After this mighty man was weaned, he began to explore and think. Although he was a child, he began to think [incessantly] throughout the day and night, wondering: How is it possible for the sphere to continue revolving without having anyone to control it? Who is causing it to revolve? Surely it does not cause itself to revolve. He had no teacher, nor was there anyone to inform him. Rather, he was mired in Ur Kasdim among the foolish idolaters. His father, mother, and all the people [around him] were idol worshipers, and he would worship with them. [However,] his heart was exploring and [gaining] understanding. Ultimately, he appreciated the way of truth and understood the path of righteousness through his accurate comprehension. He realized that there was one God who controlled the sphere, that He created everything, and that there is no other God among all the other entities. Indeed, the rabbis of the Midrash understood that Abraham's radical new faith had already crystallized prior to his arrival in Canaan. His efforts to convert idol worshipers to his faith, even prior to his sojourn to Canaan, were deduced from the verse, Abraham took ... the persons they had acquired in Haran (Gen. 12:5), which is interpreted to mean those he had brought under the wings of the Shekhinah (Divine Presence). (2) Abraham's faith subsequently finds expression in the encounter with Melchizedek, where the latter proclaims, Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth (Gen. 14:19); in Abraham's confrontation with God at Sodom, when he declares, Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly? (Gen. 18:25); and in his reference to the as the Everlasting God (Gen. 21:33). We see here the core elements of Abraham's theology--an eternal God, Creator of the world, a moral God who acts in a just manner. The idea that Abraham had a fully formed theology enables us to understand what is meant by he invoked the name of the Lord. This phrase first appears in the Bible regarding the time of Enosh, grandson of Adam: It was then that men began to invoke the by name (Gen. …