hologram

HOLOGRAM

I shall be what I shall be,
says God: I am just what I am,
His a potential none can see
while I am just a hologram.

Inspired by the opinion of the nineteenth rabbi of Krakow Kalonimos Kalman Epstein. known as the Maor VaShemesh, related to me by Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, that when God tells Moses that His name is אהיה, I will be (Exod. 3:14), explaining the name by saying אהיה אשר אהיה, I shall be what I shall be, the text implies that God is telling Moses that He is becoming something He not been before. He is, as it were, a work in progress, like the Israelites in Egypt to whom God instructs to tell the name.

Monica Osborne’s comment was:

I think I like this especially because we can read it backwards and forwards. What I mean is that while the "I" of the poem is God, if we read the "I" as the I who is reading the poem, it is as if God is justifying who we are, in spite of ourselves. I don't know if that makes sense.

2/3/10