What’s In A Name

What’s In A Name

D’var Torah for Parashat Sh’mot

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

In Honor of the Board of Directors of Congregation B’nai Torah, Sudbury, MA

As this week’s parasha, Sh’mot (“Names”) opens, the text reiterates the names of the Israelites who came down to Egypt with Jacob (a list first given at the end of Genesis).  The Rabbis wonder about this seeming redundancy—and of course they offer several possible explanations.

It would be easy to see this repetition simply as a common thread that connects Genesis, the first book of the Torah, and Exodus, the second.  But for the Rabbis, nothing is ever as simple as it appears.  There are always additional meanings alluded to, hinted at, or cleverly hidden for the select few.

The Midrash—that great body of learning that emerged from the Land of Israel between the 1^st-10^th centuries—offers its opinion that the repetition of names teaches us that the Israelites came to deserve their redemption from Egyptian slavery primarily because they kept their Hebrew names.

So what’s in a name?

Names, of course, hold memories for us.  We are often given names that remind us of beloved relatives.  Names also safeguard our values.  One of the most popular names given to boys born in Israel after the 1973 Yom Kippur War was Shalom—peace. 

Names keep our national identity intact.  There are Jewish names just as there are Gaelic names, French names or Arabic names.

That the Children of Israel kept their Hebrew names during the 400 years that come between Genesis and Exodus proves that they actively maintained their national identity that whole time.

As I write these words, sitting in my brother’s house in Givatayim, near Tel Aviv, I see Hebrew all around me.  The newspaper screams its headlines in Hebrew.  Street signs are in Hebrew.  Obviously, names are Hebrew too. 

It’s easy to maintain your Jewish identity in Israel.  It’s part of the culture.  School children learn Jewish history along with world history.  They study Torah, the Prophets and Hebrew grammar.  Though many Israelis celebrate New Year’s Eve, they do so only as an excuse to party.  Rosh Ha-Shana is the real New Year in Israel, just as Hanukkah is the winter holiday they celebrate here, replete with family gatherings, traditional music and special foods.

It’s easy to remember you are Jewish here because of the many Holocaust survivors and their children, grandchildren and now even great-grandchildren. 

World anti-Semitism is always on the news media’s radar, and criticism (or approval) of Israel is often viewed here through the lens of the Jew’s role in world history. 

The vitriolic hatred spewed by Iran isn’t directed only at the State of Israel.  Jews throughout the world are targeted right along with Israelis.  The lines of demarcation blur after a while, reinforcing the impression that Israel is under attack for no other than reason than its Jewish identity.

More than all else, though, Shabbat in Israel is an experience you don’t get anywhere else.  It’s hard to describe.   Even if you aren’t religious, you simply feel it to your bones.  The insanely crowded roads, the edgy impatience that borders on rudeness—these become transformed into a peaceful calm that surrounds you, soothes you, imbues you with a sense of transcendent spirituality.  You thank God for Shabbat when you’re Jewish in Israel.

Not so in the Diaspora, however.  There you have to make an effort to be Jewish.  For many, especially in the US today, the Diaspora offers an opportunity to escape your Jewishness.  Being Jewish is optional. 

Not everyone has a Hebrew or Jewish name.  It marks you.  Like a hooked nose, it may make you a target, or at the least embarrass you.

It’s easy, in the Diaspora, for a Jew to disappear.

Knowing that, we often wonder and ask ourselves, why is Jewish survival such in imperative that we invest so much of ourselves—our minds, our money, our very being—into being Jewish?

It’s a question people have asked throughout history.  Could it be that the reason is beyond our comprehension?  Could it really be that there’s a force out there, so humongous and penetrating that it moves us, despite the difficulties, despite the dangers, towards a goal few of us understand?  Skeptics and scientists speak of embedded DNA codes that stem from our animalistic and biological need to survive.  But that hardly answers the question of Jewish survival. 

Whatever it is, there must be some reason that compels us to be Jewish, to carry on the customs and traditions of our people.  Why else would we risk and sacrifice so much?  Why else would we gather at temples, volunteer to sustain communities and houses of study?  Why else would we—would YOU—step up to make sure a congregation such as ours continues to thrive?

Perhaps it’s because we’ve chosen to remember our Jewish heritage, to nurture it and see that it flourishes into the future.  Congregation B’nai Torah—the children of the Torah—we are B’nai Yisrael, the children of Israel, the descendants of Jacob who, so long ago, went to Egypt, carrying a dream with them.  Through our sacred work here, we make the dream come true day after day—and often enough, late into the night.

So what’s in a name?  Everything, it seems.  Everything we’ve ever been, everything we ever hope to be.  Our names tell the story of our ancestors, wandering from one land to another, from one eon into another.

We are B’nai Torah.  Like the Torah, our story is still unfolding, and we are its authors.

Our name dictates our deeds.

©2013 by Boaz D. Heilman