Hagar names God. Vatikra shem Hashem handover eleha atah El Ro’i. “She called the name of the God who had spoken to her: You are El Ro’i,” meaning the “God Who Sees Me” or the “God of Seeing” (Genesis 16:13).
To give God a name is an act of great intimacy and empowerment. Avram calls out beshem Hashem, “in God’s name,” but Avram never names God. In fact, I couldn’t find another example in the Torah of a human being explicitly giving God a name. It is at the very least a very rare occurrence, and I wonder whether it isn’t a specifically female way of relating to God, not just taking in what tradition tells us about God, but having the audacity to develop our own personal relationship, feeling so close to God that we can directly address God in the way that we intuit for ourselves, to make God ours, to speak to God as we would speak to our beloved partners, friends and children, with a nickname that is just between us.
Hagar is empowered in her relationship with God in a way she is distinctly not empowered in her human relationships as a maidservant in Avram’s house. The angel tells her to call her son Yishma’el, but when she returns home and eventually gives birth to a son, it is Avram who names him Yishma’el, taking over her naming capacity. In a world dominated by male power, Hagar finds with God a place of empowerment. With God, she is allowed to be herself in all her fullness, to feel seen, and to express herself in a way that she cannot do in the outside world.
Can we follow Hagar’s lead and feel this intimate and empowered in our relationship with God? What name would you give God?
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