Shemot 5774 - English

By Rabbi Daniel Kripper
Beth Israel, Aruba

The title of our Parashah means “names” and refers to the names of Jacob’s sons, who entered Egypt as free men.  However, in the biblical account of the centuries of bondage that followed, no one in the Israelite nation that sprung from them is given a name, until Moses.  Until then, Israel is a faceless mass.

In order to free them, Moses had to grow up away from them, where he would not absorb their slave mentality.  It was in Pharaoh’s palace that he received his name, an active form meaning “to draw-forth”; he would draw his people out of the depths of slavery.

Lists of names occur frequently in the Bible, and there is an abundance of evidence concerning the high significance attached to individual names.  To this day, every child is given a Jewish name; boys, at their Brit, girls, when their fathers are called to the Torah.

Why are names so important?

A name is a means of identification, a manner of asserting the uniqueness of each individual.  David is David and Simon is Simon.  It is no accident that prisoners are given numbers instead of names.  It is certainly against the spirit of Judaism to degrade people, by depriving them of their personality in this manner.

The Talmud observes that the names of the angels were given only as a result of the Babylonian captivity.  In the earlier portions of the Bible, the angels have no names, precisely because angels are seen as performing certain roles, without possessing any real personalities of their own.

Animals, too, have no names. One dog does not differ from another in the way David differs from Simon.  The common practice of giving names to pets is, of course, anthropomorphic, endowing animals with human characteristics.

The fact that no two people are alike constitutes an evidence of the dignity and supreme worth of human beings.  As our Rabbis say, just as no two human beings have exactly the same face (and, as we now know, the same set of fingerprints), so, too, the mind of each is different.

This unique Jewish approach to names can be seen as a mighty protest against totalitarianism, which aims to efface individuality.

Have we not experienced firsthand, as a people, the evils of totalitarian regimens in our own times?

According to an old regulation, a synagogue has to have twelve windows, corresponding to the twelve tribes, each one with its own window to Heaven.  One might add that each member of each particular tribe has its own fragment of the divine light, which only he or she can reveal.  David cannot do that for which Simon was created; neither can Simon do that for which David was created.  Every person is a world by him/herself, and each one possesses his/her own idiosyncrasy and potential.

Rabbi Daniel Kripper

Beth Israel, Aruba