What is the official motto of the United States of America?
Officially it is “In God We Trust.” That said, for a long period of time, it was unofficially, but widely regarded, as “E Pluribus Unum” (out of many, one).
E Pluribus Unum appears on the great seal of the US and was approved for use there in an act of the U.S. Congress in 1782. Conceptually, “E Pluribus Unum” fit the ethos of the early United States, having much to do with the original 13 colonies. Early on, the colonies struggled to form a national identity. They each had a distinct culture and way of doing things. It’s hard to blend deeply held beliefs and systems. The early Americans had to compromise, argue and reimagine in order to find commonality and trust in one another. Out of the many, eventually, they found a way to one.
I see a parallel here in how we view God. In the very first verse of Torah, the first thing…being…character…we encounter is - you guessed it, God.
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
When God began to create heaven and earth…
The name for God here is “Elohim” - which you know because it is related to the word “Eloheinu,” (our God) which we hear in a lot of our blessings. What’s curious though is that when you hear the “eem” at the end of the word, that’s a Hebrew indicator telling you that the word is in the plural form.
Wait, yikes, hold up! I thought we only believed in one God? Indeed, we do, and indeed, the Torah pairs the word “Elohim” with singular verbs.
But then we’re left to wonder why we would use a pluralized word to refer to God?
Well, much like we did with the founding mottos of our country, we can take a historical approach to God’s name. Some scholars believe that at one time, our ancestors may have in fact believed in a pantheon of gods, but that ultimately one God was asserted as the God of Gods, the most powerful God. But then this idea transformed into something much deeper. We started to perceive God as an entity whose multifaceted, abstract nature actually encompassed all other “so-called gods” into one large, creative, collected force.
E pluribus unum - out of many, one. One strong, connected, powerful whole, made up of many different attributes. This idea feels very real to me.
And Abraham Ibn Ezra, the great commentator, goes on to sum it up when he says that “God is all and all comes from God.”
By calling God Elohim, Genesis opens up not only our understanding of God but our understanding of how creation might have happened. If God is all and all comes from God, we can see God less as a puppeteer or a magician who magically poofed the universe into existence. Perhaps God is the small and large processes that caused creation to blossom, the many molecules, chemical reactions and years it would take for disparate parts to come together to form the one united world we all inhabit.
Then apply this to people. Out of many disparate people with different stories and cultures we have one human race. Our shared humanity is God-like, the greatest manifestation of being “btzelem elohim” - in the image of God. When we honor the many, we honor the one.
On this idea, especially applied to the US, I particularly like the poem “Prayer for the Descendents of Many” by Alex Carter.
We are descendants of serfs and peasants
who came to these shores with golden dreams for the future.
The Lady’s lamp beckoned them to freedom.
We are descendants of villagers and chieftains
brought in chains and despair.
Their Middle Passage foreshadowed
lives of hardship and pain.
We are descendants of those from many lands
who saw across the border fence
a southwest desert path
to a better life for their children.
We are descendants of ancient peoples,
who revered the Creator and Creation,
whose histories were erased
as they were driven from their lands.
Eternal One, God of all people and all places,
help us honor the grand diversity of our history
and celebrate the kaleidoscope of our present.
Give each of us the strength to help our country
fulfill its promise of freedom and opportunity –
to strike down barriers that still obstruct,
to open doors still closed.
Fill the hearts of our leaders
with Your love of justice and compassion.
Give them strength to seek peace and pursue it,
to resist false gods of politics and power.
Be with us as we strive for a more hopeful future
for all, in our own time.
Amen.
So then how does one go from this prayer of unity into the Aleinu prayer, a prayer that, on its surface, calls for partition:
Praise God Who has set us apart from the other families of the earth; giving us a destiny unlike that of other nations’.
Well, it’s a shame I ignored the lead up to that line and the lines after it. The broader context is:
Let us now praise the Sovereign of all things, Who formed the world from the very beginning, Who has set us apart from the other families of the earth; giving us a destiny unlike that of other nations’. We bend the knee and proclaim the greatness of the Creator, acknowledging the supreme Sovereign, the Holy One of Blessing.
One day, the prayer continues, when all of humanity perceives God's oneness, humanity will perceive our own oneness and on that day, God’s name will be one.
This is not a message of Jewish superiority, that our God’s name will be the name that reigns supreme. We don’t even KNOW God’s name. All we know is that God’s name encapsulates every letter, every word, every language - that of humans, of animals, the language of the flowers and the wind. When we see the one that comes from the many, we will be closer to the Divine.
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