In Vaetchanan we find Moshe’s moving prayer for permission to enter the Promised Land. Moshe tells his people “Hashem was angry with me on your account and did not listen to me.” The Hebrew term “lemaanchem” clearly indicates that Moshe, far from accusing his people for having caused his non- admittance to the Holy Land, speaks here in praise of Israel and the great love God has for them.

Lemaan always bespeaks the goal, the purpose, rather than the cause. It is not Israel which has caused the refusal of the Almighty to listen to Moshe’s prayer. It is Moshe’s having called Israel “rebels” — an angry appellation not justified in God’s eyes — which remains the insurmountable bar. (See Rashi and Sifte Chakhamim to Deut. 3:26; cf. also Rashi to Num. 11:22.) The insult to Israel is not forgiven and can be atoned for only by the pain of the unfulfilled longing of Moshe Rabbeinu to enter Eretz Yisrael. That great is the love of the Almighty for Israel; that great is the transgression of speaking badly of them.

This identification of Hashem with his chosen people finds frequent expression in Scripture, Midrash, and Talmud. Whoever attacks Israel attacks also the God of Israel. “The Holy One, blessed be He, and Israel and the Torah are like one.” Not because we are so many or so rightly have we been chosen, but because of His love for us and our fathers before us. This choice, in its sublime essence, means that we were selected to be the recipient of this greatest revelation, His Torah. It is the Torah which is the link that unifies, making “like one” — Him and His people.

A very significant aspect of this unity is found in the verse of the Shema — the most often recited pasuk of the Torah — which follows shortly after the recount of the revelation on Sinai and the Decalogue. Achdut Hashem is proclaimed in the Shema. This Divine oneness has no parallel, neither among the creatures of this world nor among any of the concepts of Man. For example, Maimonides explains that in this oneness the subject, the object, and the process of cognition are one. This is beyond the grasp of our intellect. (Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 210)

Yet in this same verse we are twice linked to him. We call him “Hashem Elokeinu — the Lord our God.” The Gaon of Vilna, in his Commentary to the Siddur, Birkhot HaShachar, said that “the very foundations of our faith are revealed in these two names. Hashem, the Eternal and Infinite, cannot be understood and must forever remain beyond the ken of mortal, limited man. . . However, in His grace He has revealed Himself and made Himself intelligible to man in these revelations, which take many forms.” There is creation itself, flowing from the omnipotence of Hashem who by His mere will evokes existence out of the unimaginable nothingness. In contemplation of the cosmic order and of the miracle of existence per se, man recognizes and learns a great deal of his Maker. The higher disclosure of Hashem is the revelation on Sinai, the giving of the Torah, the revelation of this will and the purposes of creation. The prime carrier of this purpose is Israel. Hence we may say “Elokeinu” — our God, the God who reveals Himself to us, speaks to us, reveals His will and purposes to us; is concerned with us, and loves us. Elokeinu — that is the intimacy of hashgachat pratit, of the direct, immediate Divine supervision and if necessary this intervention in our behalf.

Rabbi Alexander Siskin of Grudno, in his Yesod Veshoresh HaAvoda, gives a threefold explanation of the intent and meaning of the kavanah of the word “Yisrael.” Yisrael is the name of our father Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. It was he, according to tradition, to whom his sons gave their assurance of their faith in Achdut Hashem when he was about to bless them. Over the generations, across the millenia, we call out to our father Jacob that his faith and the faith of his sons is alive in us, strong and unbroken.

Yisrael is also the collective name of the people. We are bidden to teach each other, to call out everyone to his fellow Jew, that Hashem is our God and that He is one. We are collectively responsible not only for the continuation of Jewish history which would, forefend, end without this faith, but also for it being alive in every member of the people Thus, in this proclamation of Achdut Hashem we are charged with both the vertical and horizontal responsibility

Finally, says Rabbi Siskind, Yisrael is also the name of God Himself. It is He to whom we call out that our faith is still alive in us — in spite of persecution and decimation, in spite of suffering and poverty, in spite of the lures of freedom and affluence. For olom hazeh, this world, in whatever form or constellation, mitigates against this faith And this is as it should be. Were it not for the test of this world, what merit would there be in proclaiming His oneness? Hashem has hidden Himself, so to speak, behind the curtains of this world. But we, His sons, call out to Him and tell Him that we see Him, that we recognize Him, that in spite of the contradictions and dissonance which fill this world, we do recognize His oneness and proclaim “Hashem echod.”
To share a name with Hashem, to identify with Him, is love. And since there is no love without obligation, a Jew must recognize that there is no true knowledge of God — and certainly no knowledge of His oneness — unless this knowledge flows through the performance, the virtue, the kedushah of Israel. Truly, He is our God.