Comentario sobre Exodo 17:7

היש ה' בקרבנו?, if He is going to give us water.

היש ה' בקרבנו אם אין, “if the Lord is in our midst or not?” Actually instead of the word אם אין, “if nothing,” we would have expected the expression אם לא, “if not?” This is the way the Torah expresses such alternatives in 16,4 for instance, where G’d had explained that the daily manna ration was designed to test whether the Israelites had faith in Him “or not.” The Torah was concerned to allude to the attribute אין, which is also known as יראה, an attribute second to which is the one called יש, or in more familiar terms חכמה (compare commentary on 16,24). This is the reason you find the name ה' immediately next to the word יש to show you how closely these two attributes are associated with one another. Yaakov had first realized this after his dream with the ladder when he awoke and said אכן יש ה' במקום הזה, (Genesis 28,16). This is the attribute Solomon had in mind when he said in Proverbs 8,21 להנחיל אוהבי יש “and to let those who love Me inherit יש.” You have learned already that the two emanations (attributes) חכמה and יראה cannot really be separated from one another. The teachers of the Mishnah have already alluded to this when they said (Avot 3,17) “where there is no יראה there can also not be any חכמה, and where there is no חכמה, there cannot be any יראה. The two attributes are inseparably intertwined with one another. Israel’s sin at Refidim was that they tried to separate חכמה and יראה. This is a sin of a heretical nature. This is why they were punished immediately by the attack of Amalek who represents heresy of the worst kind.