That God will redeem us means that God will restore to us a sense of Divine dignity, personal significance and self-worth so that we can confidently and comfortably call to Him and enjoy a loving relationship with Him. As it says in the Proverbs, “I endow my beloved with substance.” In other words, God loves us and will enable us to feel how much we matter to him. And God does all of this “lovingly, for the sake of His name.” This is an odd phrase; it seems to be implying that God redeems us for selfish reasons—for His name’s sake. It seems to be implying that if we are not redeemed, then something about God’s name will be unfulfilled. In other words, God wants us to be redeemed in order for His name to be known. What does that mean? The only reason that we are given names is so that others can call to us. If there were no one in existence to call to us, we would not need a name. The fact that God has a name at all is a mystery. However, Jewish mysticism teaches that although nothing else exists besides God, as an act of love He created us and gave Himself a name so that we can call to Him and bond with Him. God created beings other than Himself because He wanted a loving relationship with us. He nurtures us and redeems us; He makes our existence matter and He empowers us to become His significant other, to feel worthy so that we can call to Him, evoke His presence in our lives and enjoy a personal, loving relationship with Him. The famed psychologist Erich Fromm defined immature love as, “I need you, therefore I love you,” and mature love as, “I love you, therefore I need you.” God doesn’t love us because He needs us. God needs us because He loves us. And because He loves us, He created the possibility for Him to need us. In other words, the great Divine mystery of love and life is that God created a need that He didn’t need. We need it because we need to be needed. We are happy when we are certain that we are needed. Essentially, God, because of His love for us, created for us the opportunity to feel needed by Him. God did not need to need us, but because He loves us, He chose to need us. Of course, the word “need” used in relation to God borders on the ridiculous, but it is the best way we have to describe the truth of our relationship with Him and His ultimate gift to us. Therefore, God redeems us—empowers us—to feel significant in His presence for the sake of His name, so that we can call to Him. And He does this all as an act of love, giving us the joy of feeling needed by Him, so that we can know His name and call to Him.