 This is Ruth Guggenheim with GPS for the Jewish Soul and we're here today with Rabbi Chaim Landau from Jews for Judaism East. Hi, thanks so much for joining us again. It's my pleasure. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. You know, I wanted to discuss today the various names of God in the Torah in the Bible. We know that God is given many names for different characteristics and I was wondering if you could help us understand them a little better. Well, as you mentioned the many names of God represent the many different characteristics of God. And the way to understand the concept of names of God is really to realize, first of all, that we don't have any concept of God in his essence. Our concept of God is really the way we perceive God. So the first rule of names of God is each name is really reflection of our perception rather than being the essence of who God really is. So with that introduction, the primary name that we use for God is spelled with the letter Yud, followed by the letter Hay, followed by the letter Vav, followed by the letter Hay. And it's a name that generally speaking we don't pronounce. When we find it in our prayers, we usually just say it as Adonai, meaning our master. That name is the name that captures the most of the essence of who God really is of any of the names that we actually use. As to the meaning of that name, it's a name that indicates being. So it's understood being like with a capital B. Well, or? No, actually being as in, well, I'll give you a few ways of understanding it. Conventionally, as soon as you understand, stood to mean the one who is, was, and will be. So he is being, he's in a form of existence in eternity. Another way of understanding it is that he's the one who causes everything else to be. As the creator of all that exists, he takes everything and brings it to a state of being. Another way of understanding, which I saw recently, but this is actually my favorite, is that it means that he is always present. Always present here around us. You know how you talk to a person sometimes, you feel like he wasn't really there. Yeah, fading out. Right, fading out exactly. So it means that God is always present. He's always there. He's always with it. He's always engaged. He's never gone. He's always present. So that would be the most essential name of God, the one that comes closest to really grasping his essence. When we say most of our blessings, the Baruch Atah Adonai, we're actually speaking to God in that form. That's correct. And it's interesting, you know, our blessings that say Baruch Atah Atah is you. We're actually speaking to God like a friend. Blessed are you God. We're calling him out like the way I would say, how are you today, Chaiim? So I find that amazing, you know. Well, that fits with what we began with, because all the names of God are a reflection of our perception of him, which we can also say is a reflection of how we relate to him, our relationship with God. You know, I'm sorry, go ahead. And being as in Judaism, we want to have a personal relationship with God. So that's a relationship that manifests itself in the second person. And so we use the word Atah meaning you. You know, one of the biggest questions has always been why in the beginning of the Torah and the book of Genesis, Bray Sheets Bar-Elo Kim, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the word Elo Kim is plural. Can you help us with that? Well, that actually takes us to the next name of God, because probably the second most important name after the name we mentioned earlier would be the word Elo Kim. And the reason is because we have to stop and think about what was the act of creation. The act of creation was really creating the possibility of there being more than one. God in His essence is one. He's complete. There is nothing else. And creation was creating multiplicity. And that's why Elo Kim is in the plural because it indicates that creation of multiplicity. Wow. I've never looked at it like that. Now also interestingly, in Hebrew we have a term called gamatria, which means that we look at the numerical value of a word to understand what it symbolizes. And the word Elo Kim contains the same numerical value as Hatevat nature, because that was creating the natural world in which we exist. That was that manifestation of Elo Kim that came about through creation. Hi. Thank you so much for sharing these words. Thank you for joining us today at VPS for the Jewish Soul. My pleasure.