Skip to main content

Shemot 5768

It's been remarked (at least by me, maybe by others) that the name Shemot is an ever-so-fitting title for this Chumash. The entire book is held together by revisiting the theme of names. Hashem's Name presented and represented in various settings, changing as the situation calls for, is only the most prominent of the name-themes woven throughout the text. We'll note a few others in this week's parashah:


  • The names of Ya'acov and his sons are repeated at the opening of the chumash/parashah, though the same passage occurs with more detail only a few chapters back in Parshat Vayigash.
    The names of seemingly minor characters, the two midwives, Shif'rah and Pu'ah, (Rashi says they were Yidden; Ramban says they were Egyptian) are announced.
    The people in formation are named by Par'oh - AM B"NEI YISRAEL
    Moshe is named by Bat Par'oh when he is drawn from the Nile.
    Moshe names his son Gershom in a distant land.
    Moshe asks Hashem's name and Hashem tells him first one name and then another.

But what I find equally interesting are those who do NOT receive names in this parasha of names: none of the characters involved in Moshe's emergence from the house of Par'oh - the Ish Mitzri, the Ish Ivri, the Shnei Anashim NItzim - all are not named:


  • Moshe's father, mother and sister, although subsequently named in the Torah, are referred either by a generic term (Ish, Ishah) or by their relationship to Moshe.
    Moshe himself is NOT NAMED BY HIS MOTHER!!
    Moshe remains nameless to Re'u'el (who himself is called by name only subsequent to his appearance and incidentally, at that) - he is the Ish in the conversation between Re'u'el and his daughters.
    The name Hashem shares with Moshe at the burning bush is hardly a name: I-will-be-what-I-will-be! The very name suggests that there is no guarantee of stability in the relationship.


And that's the key: A name is a key, opening the door allowing manifestation of the unstable, shifting, changing, but it only opens one door. It gives assurance, identity, it anchors one, but at the same time, it also threatens to lock one into a routine of being that, as comforting as it might be, denies the constancy of change and growth. It can hide one's essence from oneself. To paraphrase the Midrash on Hashem's name: Zeh Shmi L'Elem – “this name of mine is for hiding”.Changing one's name helps only very temporarily. Rather, the solution to the quandary is to relate to one's name as Hashem does - not to associate all of one's being with how one happens to be called. Rather, one should see one's name as the conduit through which the plenty emerging from one's being is funneled into the world. That plenty, called Tov in Hebrew, is what confers honor and substance on the name, and it is for this reason that the Sages said, "A name of goodness ascends above all".

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Frontlet Lobotomy

The tefillin worn on the head (henceforth, “ shel rosh ”) differ in a number of respects from the tefillin worn on the arm (henceforth, “ shel yad ”). One of the differences is this: Though both must contain the four passages in the Torah which make mention of the mitzvah of tefillin, the shel yad has all four passages written on a single parchment, in the order they appear in the Torah, rolled up and placed in the single compartment of the shel yad . The shel rosh , however, is constructed such that it has four small compartments side by side. Though these compartments appear to be tightly bound to one another, in fact, they are almost actually completely separate from one another. They only join at a common base, like the fingers of one’s hand. Into each compartment is placed one of the four passages, written on four separate parchments. Here is a list of the passages, in the order they appear in the Torah: 1.        Kadesh Li – Shemot 13:1-10 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

My G-d, a Navaho?

--> Shabbat Shirah, it’s time to sing. Standing on the edge of a Red Sea that has returned to its roiling nature, drowning the fleeing, terrified Egyptian charioteers, Am Yisrael is ecstatic and, with Moshe, breaks into song. They sang in unison a song that welled up from a prophetic vision of redemption that, our sages tell us, outstripped even the visions of Yechezk’el and Isaiah, both of whom “saw” Hashem enthroned on high. The song so permeated the very fabric of being that it is introduced with the imperfect mood of the verb – Az Yashir Moshe… “Then Moshe will sing”, as though the song is every ringing in the background of our Jewishness. So what did they sing? Pure poetry, and therefore, as difficult to feel confident in parsing as it must be even to attempt to imagine what they were feeling at that moment. And yet, we reprise it every day in our morning prayers, as part of Pesukei D’Zimra. Every verse of this song is fit for deep reflection; I’ve chosen...
1 comment
Read more

You're Shofar Away

For this commandment which I am commanding you today is not too wondrous for you, nor too distant. It is not in the heavens, such that you should say, “who will go up to the heavens and take it for us and inform us of it that we may do it; Nor is it over the sea, that you should say, “who will cross for us to the other side of the sea and inform us of it that we may do it. For this thing is so very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it. Devarim 30: 11-14. So, it’s that easy, says Moshe, over three thousand years before Nike: Just do it!! The only problem is: what is “it”? Not such an easy question. Many of us are most likely walking around, carrying out our daily tasks with a mixture of freshness and drudgery, but in background that question keeps asking itself, punctuated a bit differently: what is it? But although Rosh Hashanah is almost upon us, let’s not get too wistfully philosophical – at least not yet. Let’s ...
Post a Comment
Read more