Don’t Forget Your Name
When a person or a nation degenerates, but, nevertheless remembers their G-dly essence and are aware of their unique role in G-d’s plan, there is much to salvage. There is hope.
A Name: Beyond the Utilitarian
What is a name? Is there any significance to a name beyond its utilitarian function, which is to identify people and objects? Obviously, if people and things did not have names, chaos and confusion would prevail. When G-d wanted to confound the people who built the tower of Babel, our sages tell us, he caused them to misidentify the names of objects. When one would ask for a hammer, for example, his co-worker would send him a brick. In return, the brick would be thrown right back at the one who sent it originally.
But the significance of names goes beyond its practical value. When G-d created Adam he brought all of the earth’s creatures before him, so that Adam can name them. Our sages point out that G-d used Adam’s ability to name all the world’s creatures as proof that he was more intelligent than the heavenly angels.
Jewish mystical thought explains that a Hebrew name is more than just a convention. It is the representation of the Divine force that gives life to the person or object. Adam’s wisdom was that he was able to see the Divine energy contained within each of the world’s creatures.
Salvageable
With this introduction, we will gain some appreciation for the otherwise bland title Jewish tradition has accorded this most exciting and colorful book best known to us, and in the non-Jewish world, as the Book of Exodus. In Hebrew it is simply the Book of Shemos, or the Book of Names.
This book of Exodus, features three major historical and spiritual events, the Exodus of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, the giving of the Torah at Sinai and the construction of the Mishkan, the temporary Sanctuary G-d chose in the desert. What do names have to do with these pivotal events?
Our sages tell us that the Jews were liberated from Egypt because, in spite of their general lowly spiritual state at the time of the Exodus, they possessed several redeeming qualities; one of them, as discussed in the preceding essay, was that they did not change their names.
On the surface, the fact that they did not change their names was an indication that they did not wish to assimilate. But, if the Jews—as our sages put it— descended into the “forty-nine gates of impurity,” of what value was the apparently superficial gesture of not changing a name?
The answer lies in what we discussed is the deeper significance of a Hebrew name. By not changing their names they were acknowledging that they possessed a Divine energy that accorded them a distinct role within the scheme of creation. They were not just nationalists who craved an independent identity that would parallel Egyptian culture. They realized that they possessed a unique spiritual potential. They wanted to be free, so that they could actualize this spiritual potential.
When a person or a nation degenerates, but, nevertheless remembers their G-dly essence and are aware of their unique role in G-d’s plan, there is much to salvage. There is hope.
If the Book of Exodus is about the liberation of the Jewish people from Egypt, their entering into the covenant with G-d at Sinai and G-d’s choice to dwell among them in the Mishkan, the driving force behind all these events was the ability of the Jews to recognize their G-d given energies, represented by their names. Hence the title of this book is Shemos-names.
While Exodus might sound more impressive as a title for this book, the word “Shemos-names” actually represents the soul of the entire Book of Exodus. All of the themes of this book, from the actual Exodus through the Giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai to the construction of G-d’s Sanctuary, would be meaningless without the acknowledgment of the soul that pervaded the Jewish people, the Torah and the Sanctuary. Furthermore, because the Jewish people did not lose touch with their essence they were worthy recipients of the Torah and of G-d’s desire to dwell in their midst.
Names: The key to the Future Redemption
In addition to the obvious lesson, about the importance of retaining and using our Jewish names, there is another deeper message we are to gather from the title Shemos.
We are living in times that parallel the era of the Exodus from Egypt. We are standing on the threshold of the future Redemption. What is the power that we must access and manifest in these crucial times to make us worthy and ready for the contemporary process of liberation from exile?
The answer once again lies in the deeper significance of names. We must open our eyes to see beyond the exterior. We must learn to see the inner nature of everything that exists, because one of the defining characteristics of the Messianic Age will be its capacity to reveal, that which is hidden. The secrets of the Torah will be divulged. The secrets of nature will also become manifest. The secret recesses of our souls will similarly be revealed. As a preparation for the Age of Redemption, when all the secrets will be revealed, we must now learn to penetrate beneath the surface of our beings and recognize the inner dimension of all of existence as well.
When we look at another person we should see beyond the facade; see the person’s soul and inner beauty.
When we look at an event—happy or otherwise—we should attempt to see it from within, as the unfolding of G-d’s plan, rather than some arbitrary occurrence. This is what Geulah or Redemption is all about. Liberating everything from the covers that prevent us from realizing its true inner nature.
We should look for the name, the Divine identity of everything in our world.
From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Shmos by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
